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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text @@ -0,0 +1,6075 @@ +Project Gutenberg Etext: Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley +Volume 10 +#2 in our series by James Whitcomb Riley + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations* + +Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and +further information is included below. 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If you + don't derive profits, no royalty is due. Royalties are + payable to "Project Gutenberg Association / Benedictine + University" within the 60 days following each + date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare) + your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return. + +WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO? +The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time, +scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty +free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution +you can think of. Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg +Association / Benedictine University". + +*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END* + + + + + +Scanned by Charles Keller with +OmniPage Professional OCR software +donated by Caere Corporation, 1-800-535-7226. +Contact Mike Lough <Mikel caere.com> + + + + +Memorial Edition +The Complete Works of +James Whitcomb Riley +IN TEN VOLUMES +Including Poems and Prose Sketches, many +of which have not heretofore been +published; an authentic Biography, an +elaborate Index and numerous +Illustrations in color from Paintings + + +VOLUME X + + + +JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY + + +CONTENTS + +ECCENTRIC MR CLARK +A NEST-EGG +"THE BOY FROM ZEENY" +WHERE IS MARY ALICE SMITH? +THE OLD MAN +THE GILDED ROLL +A WILD IRISHMAN +MRS. MILLER +AT ZEKESBURY +A CALLER FROM BOONE +THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY +DIALECT IN LITERATURE + + +The Complete Works +of James Whitcomb Riley + + +ECCENTRIC MR. CLARK + +All who knew Mr. Clark intimately, casually, +or by sight alone, smiled always, meeting +him, and thought, "What an odd man he is!" Not +that there was anything extremely or ridiculously +obtrusive in Mr. Clark's peculiarities either of +feature, dress, or deportment, by which a graded +estimate of his really quaint character might aptly be +given; but rather, perhaps, it was the curious +combination of all these things that had gained +for Mr. Clark the transient celebrity of being a +very eccentric man. + +And Mr. Clark, of all the odd inhabitants of the +busy metropolis in which he lived, seemed least +conscious of the fact of his local prominence. True +it was that when familiarly addressed as "Clark, +old boy," by sportive individuals he never recollected +having seen before, he would oftentimes stare +blankly in return, and with evident embarrassment; +but as these actions may have been attributable to +weak eyes, or to the confusion consequent upon +being publicly recognized by the quondam associates +of bacchanalian hours, the suggestive facts only +served to throw his eccentricities in new relief. + +And in the minds of many, that Mr. Clark was somewhat given to +dissipation, there was but little +doubt; for, although in no way, and at no time, +derelict in the rigid duties imposed upon him as +an accountant in a wholesale liquor house on South +John Street, a grand majority of friends had long +ago conceded that a certain puffiness of flesh and +a soiled-like pallor of complexion were in nowise +the legitimate result of over-application simply in +the counting-room of the establishment in which he +found employment; but as to the complicity of Mr. +Clark's direct associates in this belief, it is only +justice to the gentleman to state that by them +he was held above all such suspicion, from the +gray-haired senior of the firm, down to the pink- +nosed porter of the warerooms, who, upon every +available occasion, would point out the eccentric +Mr. Clark as "the on'y man in the biznez 'at never +sunk a 'thief' er drunk a drop o' 'goods' o' any +kind, under no consideration!" + +And Mr. Clark himself, when playfully +approached on the subject, would quietly assert that +never, under any circumstances, had the taste of +intoxicating liquors passed his lips, though at such +asseverations it was a noticeable fact that Mr. +Clark's complexion invariably grew more sultry +than its wont, and that his eyes, forever moist, grew +dewier, and that his lips and tongue would seem +covertly entering upon some lush conspiracy, which +in its incipiency he would be forced to smother with +his hastily drawn handkerchief. Then the eccentric +Mr. Clark would laugh nervously, and pouncing +on some subject so vividly unlike the one just +preceding it as to daze the listener, he would ripple +ahead with a tide of eloquence that positively +overflowed and washed away all remembrance of the +opening topic. + +In point of age Mr. Clark might have been thirty, +thirty-five, or even forty years, were one to venture +an opinion solely by outward appearance and under +certain circumstances and surroundings. As, for +example, when a dozen years ago the writer of this +sketch rode twenty miles in a freight-caboose with +Mr. Clark as the only other passenger, he seemed +in age at first not less than thirty-five; but on +opening a conversation with him, in which he joined +with wonderful vivacity, a nearer view, and a +prolonged and studious one as well, revealed the rather +curious fact that, at the very limit of all allowable +supposition, his age could not possibly have exceeded +twenty-five. + +What it was in the man that struck me as +eccentric at that time I have never been wholly +able to define, but I recall accurately the most +trivial occurrences of our meeting and the very +subject-matter of our conversation. I even remember +the very words in which he declined a drink +from my traveling-flask--for "It's a raw day," I +said, by way of gratuitous excuse for offering it. +"Yes," he said, smilingly motioning the temptation +aside; "it is a raw day; but you're rather young in +years to be doctoring the weather--at least you'd +better change the treatment--they'll all be raw days +for you after a while!" I confess that I even +felt an inward pity for the man as I laughingly +drained his health and returned the flask to my +valise. But when I asked him, ten minutes later, +the nature of the business in which he was engaged, +and he handed me, in response and without comment, +the card of a wholesale liquor house, with +his own name in crimson letters struck diagonally +across the surface, I winked naively to myself and +thought "Ah-ha!" And as if reading my very +musings, he said: "Why, certainly, I carry a full +line of samples; but, my dear young friend, don't +imagine for a minute that I refuse your brand on +that account. You can rest assured that I have +nothing better in my cases. Whisky is whisky +wherever it is found, and there is no 'best' +whisky--not in all the world!" + +Truly, I thought, this is an odd source for the +emanation of temperance sentiments--then said +aloud: "And yet you engage in a business you +dislike! Traffic in an article that you yourself +condemn! Do I understand you?" + +"Might there not be such a thing," he said +quietly, "as inheriting a business--the same as +inheriting an appetite? However, one advances by +gradations: I shall SELL no more. This is my last +trip on the road in that capacity: I am coming in +now to take charge of the firm's books. Would be +glad to have you call on me any time you're in the +city. Good-by." And, as he swung off the slowly +moving train, now entering the city, and I stood +watching him from the open door of the caboose +as he rapidly walked down a suburban street, I +was positive his gait was anything but steady--that +the step--the figure--the whole air of the man was +that of one then laboring under the effects of +partial intoxication. + +I have always liked peculiar people; no matter +where I met them, no matter who they were; if +once impressed with an eccentricity of character +which I have reason to believe purely unaffected, I +never quite forget the person, name or place of +our first meeting, or where the interesting party +may be found again. And so it was in the customary +order of things that, during hasty visits to the +city, I often called on the eccentric Mr. Clark, and, +as he had promised on our first acquaintance, he +seemed always glad to see and welcome me in his +new office. The more I knew of him the more I +liked him, but I think I never fully understood him. +No one seemed to know him quite so well as that. + +Once I had a little private talk regarding him with +the senior partner of the firm for which he worked. +Mr. Clark, just prior to my call, had gone to lunch-- +would be back in half an hour. Would I wait there +in the office until his return? Certainly. And the +chatty senior entertained me:--Queer fellow--Mr. +Clark!--as his father was before him. Used to be +a member of the firm--his father; in fact, founded +the business--made a fortune at it--failed, for an +unfortunate reason, and went "up the flume." Paid +every dollar that he owed, however, sacrificing the +very home that sheltered his wife and children-- +but never rallied. He had quite a family, then? +Oh, yes; had a family--not a large one, but a +bright one--only they all seemed more or less +unfortunate. The father was unfortunate--very; and +died so, leaving his wife and two boys--the older +son much like the father--splendid business +capacities, but lacked will--couldn't resist some things +--even weaker than the father in that regard, and +died at half his age. + +But the younger brother--our Mr. Clark-- +remained, and he was sterling--"straight goods" in +all respects. Lived with his mother--was her +sole support. A proud woman, Mrs. Clark-- +a proud woman, with a broken spirit--withdrawn +entirely from the world, and had been +so for years and years. The Clarks, as had been +mentioned, were all peculiar--even the younger Mr. +Clark, our friend, I had doubtless noticed was an +odd genius, but he had stamina--something solid +about him, for all his eccentricities--could be relied +on. Had been with the house there since a boy +of twelve--took him for the father's sake; had never +missed a day's time in any line of work that ever +had been given in his charge--was weakly-looking, +too. Had worked his way from the cellar up--from +the least pay to the highest--had saved enough to +buy and pay for a comfortable house for his mother +and himself, and, still a lad, maintained the +expense of companion, attendant and maid servant for +the mother. Yet, with all this burden on his +shoulders, the boy had worried through some way, with +a jolly smile and a good word for every one. "A +boy, sir," the enthusiastic senior concluded--"a boy, +sir, that never was a boy, and never had a taste of +genuine boyhood in his life--no more than he ever +took a taste of whisky, and you couldn't get that +in him with a funnel!" + +At this juncture Mr. Clark himself appeared, and +in a particularly happy frame of mind. For an +hour the delighted senior and myself sat laughing at +the fellow's quaint conceits and witty sayings, the +conversation at last breaking up with an abrupt +proposition from Mr. Clark that I remain in the +city overnight and accompany him to the theater, +an invitation I rather eagerly accepted. Mr. Clark, +thanking me, and pivoting himself around on his +high stool, with a mechanical "Good afternoon!" +was at once submerged in his books, while the senior, +following me out and stepping into a carriage that +stood waiting for him at the curb, waved me adieu, +and was driven away. I turned my steps up the +street, but remembering that my friend had fixed no +place to meet me in the evening, I stepped back into +the storeroom and again pushed open the glass door +of the office. + +Mr. Clark still sat on the high stool at his desk, +his back toward the door, and his ledger spread out +before him. + +"Mr. Clark!" I called. + +He made no answer. + +"Mr. Clark!" I called again, in an elevated key. + +He did not stir. + +I paused a moment, then went over to him, letting +my hand drop lightly on his arm. + +Still no response. I only felt the shoulder heave, +as with a long-drawn quavering sigh, then heard the +regular though labored breathing of a weary man +that slept. + +I had not the heart to waken him; but lifting the +still moistened pen from his unconscious fingers, I +wrote where I might be found at eight that evening, +folded and addressed the note, and laying it on +the open page before him, turned quietly away. + +"Poor man!" I mused compassionately, with a +touch of youthful sentiment affecting me.--"Poor +man! Working himself into his very grave, and +with never a sign or murmur of complaint--worn +and weighed down with the burden of his work, and +yet with a nobleness of spirit and resolve that still +conceals behind glad smiles and laughing words +the cares that lie so heavily upon him!" + +The long afternoon went by at last, and evening +came; and, as promptly as my note requested, the +jovial Mr. Clark appeared, laughing heartily, as +we walked off down the street, at my explanation +of the reason I had written my desires instead of +verbally addressing him; and laughing still louder +when I told him of my fears that he was overworking +himself. + +"Oh, no, my friend," he answered gaily; +"there's no occasion for anxiety on that account.-- +But the fact is, old man," he went on, half apologetically, +"the fact is, I haven't been so overworked, +of late, as over-wakeful. There's something in the +night I think, that does it. Do you know that the +night is a great mystery to me--a great mystery! +And it seems to be growing on me all the time. +There's the trouble. The night to me is like some +vast incomprehensible being. When I write the +name 'night' I instinctively write it with a capital. +And I like my night deep, and dark, and swarthy, +don't you know. Now some like clear and starry +nights, but they're too pale for me--too weak and +fragile altogether! They're popular with the +masses, of course, these blue-eyed, golden-haired, +'moonlight-on-the-lake' nights; but, somehow, I +don't 'stand in' with them. My favorite night is +the pronounced brunette--the darker the better. To- +night is one of my kind, and she's growing more +and more like it all the time. If it were not for +depriving you of the theater, I'd rather just drift +off now in the deepening gloom till swallowed up +in it--lost utterly. Come with me, anyhow!" + +"Gladly," I answered, catching something of his +own enthusiasm; "I myself prefer it to the play." + +"I heartily congratulate you on your taste," he +said, diving violently for my hand and wringing it. + +"Oh, it's going to be grimly glorious!--a depth of +darkness one can wade out into, and knead in his +hands like dough!" And he laughed, himself, at +this grotesque conceit. + +And so we walked--for hours. Our talk--or, +rather, my friend's talk--lulled and soothed at last +into a calmer flow, almost solemn in its tone, and +yet fretted with an occasional wildness of utterance +and expression. + +Half consciously I had been led by my companion, +who for an hour had been drawing closer to me +as we walked. His arm, thrust through my own, +clung almost affectionately. We were now in some +strange suburb of the city, evidently, too, in a low +quarter, for from the windows of such business +rooms and shops as bore any evidence of respectability +the lights had been turned out and the doors +locked for the night. Only a gruesome green light +was blazing in a little drug-store just opposite, +while at our left, as we turned the corner, a tumble- +down saloon sent out on the night a mingled +sound of clicking billiard-balls, discordant voices, +the harsher rasping of a violin, together with the +sullen plunkings of a banjo. + +"I must leave you here for a minute," said my +friend, abruptly breaking a long silence, and loosening +my arm. "The druggist over there is a patron +of our house, and I am reminded of a little business +I have with him. He is about closing, too, and +I'll see him now, as I may not be down this way +again soon. No; you wait here for me--right here," +and he playfully but firmly pushed me back, ran +across the street, and entered the store. Through +the open door I saw him shake hands with the man +who stood behind the counter, and stand talking +in the same position for some minutes--both still +clasping hands, as it seemed; but as I mechanically +bent with closer scrutiny, the druggist seemed to be +examining the hand of Mr. Clark and working at +it, as though picking at a splinter in the palm--I +I could not quite determine what was being done, +for a glass show-case blurred an otherwise clear +view of the arms of both from the elbows down. +Then they came forward, Mr. Clark arranging his +cuffs, and the druggist wrapping up some minute +article he took from an upper show-case, and handing +it to my friend, who placed it in the pocket of +his vest and turned away. At this moment my +attention was withdrawn by an extra tumult of jeers +and harsh laughter in the saloon, from the door of +which, even as my friend turned from the door +opposite, a drunken woman reeled, and staggering +round the corner as my friend came up, fell +violently forward on the pavement, not ten steps in +our advance. Instinctively, we both sprang to her +aid, and bending over the senseless figure, peered +curiously at the bruised and bleeding features. My +friend was trembling with excitement. He clutched +wildly at the limp form, trying, but vainly, to lift the +woman to her feet. "Why don't you take hold of +her?" he whispered hoarsely. "Help me with her-- +quick! quick! Lift her up!" I obeyed without a +word, though with a shudder of aversion as a drop +of hot red blood stung me on the hand. + +"Now draw her arm about your shoulder--this +way--and hold it so! And now your other arm +around her waist--quick, man, quick, as you yourself +will want God's arm about you when you fail! +Now, come!" And with no other word we hurried +with our burden up the empty darkness of the +street. + +I was utterly bewildered with it all, but something +kept me silent. And so we hurried on, and on, and +on, our course directed by my now wholly reticent +companion. Where he was going, what his purpose +was, I could not but vaguely surmise. I only recognized +that his intentions were humane, which fact +was emphasized by the extreme caution he took to +avoid the two or three late pedestrians that passed +us on our way as we stood crowded in concealment +--once behind a low shed, once in an entry-way; +and once, at the distant rattle of a police whistle, +we hurried through the blackness of a narrow alley +into the silent street beyond. And on up this we +passed, until at last we paused at the gateway of a +cottage on our left. On to the door of that we went, +my friend first violently jerking the bell, then opening +the door with a night-key, and with me lifting +the still senseless woman through the hall into a +dimly lighted room upon the right, and laying her +upon a clean white bed that glimmered in the corner. +He reached and turned the gas on in a flaring jet, +and as he did so, "This is my home," he whispered, +"and this woman is--my mother!" He flung himself +upon his knees beside her as he spoke. He laid +his quivering lips against the white hair and the +ruddy wound upon the brow; then dappled with his +kisses the pale face, and stroked and petted and +caressed the faded hands. "O God!" he moaned, "if +I might only weep!" + +The steps of some one coming down the stairs +aroused him. He stepped quickly to the door, and +threw it open. It was a woman servant. He +simply pointed to the form upon the bed. + +"Oh, sir!" exclaimed the frightened woman, +"what has happened? What has happened to my +poor dear mistress?" + +"Why did you let her leave the house?" + +"She sent me away, sir. I never dreamed that +she was going out again. She told me she was very +sleepy and wanted to retire, and I helped her to +undress before I went. But she ain't bad hurt, is +she?" she continued, stooping over the still figure +and tenderly smoothing back the disheveled hair. +--"It's only the cheek bruised and the forehead cut +a little--it's the blood that makes it look like a bad +hurt. See, when I bathe it, it is not a bad hurt, sir. +She's just been--she's just worn out, poor thing-- +and she's asleep--that's all." + +He made no answer to the woman's speech, but +turned toward me. "Five doors from here," he +said, "and to your left as you go out, you will find +the residence of Dr. Worrel. Go to him for me, and +tell him he is wanted here at once. Tell him my +mother is much worse. He will understand. I +would go myself, but must see about arranging for +your comfort upon your return, for you will not +leave me till broad daylight--you must not!" I +bowed in silent acceptance of his wishes, and turned +upon my errand. + +Fortunately, the doctor was at home, and +returned at once with me to my friend, where, after a +careful examination of his patient, he assured the +anxious son that the wounds were only slight, and +that her unconscious condition was simply "the result +of over-stimulation, perhaps," as he delicately +put it. She would doubtless waken in her usual +rational state--an occurrence really more to be +feared than desired, since her peculiar sensitiveness +might feel too keenly the unfortunate happening. +"Anyway," he continued, "I will call early in the +morning, and, in the event of her awakening before +that time, I will leave a sedative with Mary, with +directions she will attend to. She will remain here +at her side. And as to yourself, Mr. Clark," the +doctor went on in an anxious tone, as he marked the +haggard face and hollow eyes, "I insist that you +retire. You must rest, sir--worrying for the past +week as you have been doing is telling on you +painfully. You need rest--and you must take it." + +"And I will," said Mr. Clark submissively. +Stooping again, he clasped the sleeping face between +his hands and kissed it tenderly. "Good night!" I +heard him whisper--"good night-good night!" He +turned, and motioning for me to follow, opened the +door--"Doctor, good night! Good night, Mary!" + +He led the way to his own room up-stairs. "And +now, my friend," he said, as he waved me to an easy +chair, "I have but two other favors to ask of you: +The first is, that you talk to me, or read to me, or +tell me fairy tales, or riddles--anything, so that you +keep it up incessantly, and never leave off till you +find me fast asleep. Then in the next room you +will find a comfortable bed. Leave me sleeping +here, and you sleep there. And the second favor," +he continued, with a slow smile and an affected air +of great deliberation--"oh, well, I'll not ask the +second favor of you now. I'll keep it for you till +to-morrow." And as he turned laughingly away and +paced three or four times across the room, in his +step, his gait, the general carriage of the figure, I +was curiously reminded of the time, years before, +that I had watched him from the door of the caboose, +as he walked up the suburban street till the +movement of the train had hidden him from view. + +"Well, what will you do?" he asked, as he wheeled +a cozy-cushioned lounge close beside my chair, and +removing his coat, flung himself languidly down.-- +"Will you talk or read to me?" + +"I will read," I said, as I picked up a book to +begin my vigil. + +"Hold just a minute, then," he said, drawing a +card and pencil from his vest.--"I may want to +jot down a note or two.--Now, go ahead." + +I had been reading in a low voice steadily for +perhaps an hour, my companion never stirring from +his first position, but although my eyes were never +lifted from the book, I knew by the occasional sound +of his pencil that he had not yet dropped asleep. +And so, without a pause, I read monotonously on. +At last he turned heavily. I paused. With his eyes +closed he groped his hand across my knees and +grasped my own. "Go on with the reading," he +said drowsily--"Guess I'm going to sleep now--but +you go right on with the story.--Good night!" His +hand fumbled lingeringly a moment, then was withdrawn +and folded with the other on his breast. + +I read on in a lower tone an hour longer, then +paused again to look at my companion. He was +sleeping heavily, and although the features in their +repose appeared unusually pale, a wholesome perspiration, +as it seemed, pervaded all the face, while the +breathing, though labored, was regular. I bent +above him to lower the pillow for his head, and the +movement half aroused him, as I thought at first, +for he muttered something as though impatiently; +but listening to catch his mutterings, I knew that +he was dreaming. "It's what killed father," I heard +him say. "And it's what killed Tom," he went on, +in a smothered voice; "killed both--killed both! It +shan't kill me; I swear it. I could bottle it--case +after case--and never touch a drop. If you never +take the first drink, you'll never want it. Mother +taught me that. What made her ever take the first? +Mother! mother! When I get to be a man, I'll +buy her all the fine things she used to have when +father was alive. Maybe I can buy back the old +home, with the roses up the walk and the sunshine +slanting in the hall." + + +And so the sleeper murmured on. Sometimes +the voice was thick and discordant, sometimes low +and clear and tuneful as a child's. "Never touch +whisky!" he went on, almost harshly. "Never-- +never! Drop in the street first. I did. The doctor +will come then, and he knows what you want. Not +whisky.--Medicine; the kind that makes you warm +again--makes you want to live; but don't ever dare +touch whisky. Let other people drink it if they +want it. Sell it to them; they'll get it anyhow; but +don't you touch it! It killed your father, it killed +Tom, and--oh!--mother! mother! mother!" Tears +actually teemed from underneath the sleeper's lids, +and glittered down the pallid and distorted features. +"There's a medicine that's good for you when you +want whisky," he went on.--"When you are weak, +and everybody else is strong--and always when the +flagstones give way beneath your feet, and the long +street undulates and wavers as you walk; why, +that's a sign for you to take that medicine--and +take it quick! Oh, it will warm you till the little +pale blue streaks in your white hands will bulge out +again with tingling blood, and it will start up from +its stagnant pools and leap from vein to vein till it +reaches your being's furthest height and droops and +falls and folds down over icy brow and face like a +soft veil moistened with pure warmth. Ah! it is +so deliriously sweet and restful!" + +I heard a moaning in the room below, and then +steps on the stairs, and a tapping at the door. It +was Mary. Mrs. Clark had awakened and was +crying for her son. "But we must not waken him," I +said. "Give Mrs. Clark the medicine the doctor left +for her--that will quiet her." + +"But she won't take it, sir. She won't do +anything at all for me--and if Mr. Clark could only +come to her, for just a minute, she would--" + +The woman's speech was broken by a shrill cry +in the hall, and then the thud of naked feet on the +stairway. "I want my boy--my boy!" wailed the +hysterical woman from without. + +"Go to your mistress--quick," I said sternly, +pushing the maid from the room.--"Take her back; +I will come down to your assistance in a moment." +Then I turned hastily to see if the sleeper had been +disturbed by the woman's cries; but all was peaceful +with him yet; and so, throwing a coverlet over +him, I drew the door to silently and went below. + +I found the wretched mother in an almost frenzied +state, and her increasing violence alarmed +me so that I thought it best to summon the physician +again; and bidding the servant not to leave +her for an instant, I hurried for the help so badly +needed. This time the doctor was long delayed, +although he joined me with all possible haste, and +with all speed accompanied me back to the unhappy +home. Entering the door, our ears were greeted +with a shriek that came piercing down the hall till +the very echoes shuddered as with fear. It was the +patient's voice shrilling from the sleeper's room up +stairs:--"O God! My boy! my boy! I want my +boy, and he will not waken for me!" An instant +later we were both upon the scene. + +The woman in her frenzy had broken from the +servant to find her son. And she had found him. + +She had wound her arms about him, and had +dragged his still sleeping form upon the floor. He +would not waken, even though she gripped him to +her heart and shrieked her very soul out in his ears. +He would not waken. The face, though whiter +than her own, betokened only utter rest and peace. +We drew her, limp and voiceless, from his side. +"We are too late," the doctor whispered, lifting with +his finger one of the closed lids, and letting it drop +to again.--"See here!" He had been feeling at the +wrist; and, as he spoke, he slipped the sleeve up, +bared the sleeper's arm. From the wrist to elbow it +was livid purple, and pitted and scarred with minute +wounds--some scarcely scaled as yet with clotted +blood. + +"In heaven's name, what does it all mean?" I +asked. + +"Morphine," said the doctor, "and the +hypodermic. And here," he exclaimed, lifting the other +hand--"here is a folded card with your name at the +top." + +I snatched it from him, and I read, written in +faint but rounded characters: + + +"I like to hear your voice. It sounds kind. It is +like a far-off tune. To drop asleep, though, as I +am doing now, is sweeter music--but read on.--I +have taken something to make me sleep, and by +mistake I have taken too much; but you will read +right on. Now, mind you, this is not suicide, as +God listens to the whisper of this pencil as I write! +I did it by mistake. For years and years I have +taken the same thing. This time I took too much-- +much more than I meant to--but I am glad. This +is the second favor I would ask: Go to my employers +to-morrow, show them this handwriting, and +say I know for my sake they will take charge of +my affairs and administer all my estate in the best +way suited to my mother's needs. Good-by, my +friend--I can only say 'good night' to you when I +shall take your hand an instant later and turn away +forever." + + +Through tears I read it all, and ending with his +name in full, I turned and looked down on the face +of this man that I had learned to love, and the +full measure of his needed rest was with him; and +the rainy day that glowered and drabbled at the +eastern window of the room was as drearily stared +back at by a hopeless woman's dull demented eyes. + + + +A NEST-EGG + +But a few miles from the city here, and on the +sloping banks of the stream noted more for its +plenitude of "chubs" and "shiners" than the gamier +two- and four-pound bass for which, in season, so +many credulous anglers flock and lie in wait, stands +a country residence, so convenient to the stream, +and so inviting in its pleasant exterior and +comfortable surroundings--barn, dairy, and spring- +house--that the weary, sunburned, and disheartened +fisherman, out from the dusty town for a day of +recreation, is often wont to seek its hospitality. + +The house in style of architecture is something of +a departure from the typical farmhouse, being +designed and fashioned with no regard to symmetry +or proportion, but rather, as is suggested, built to +conform to the matter-of-fact and most sensible +ideas of its owner, who, if it pleased him, would +have small windows where large ones ought to be, +and vice versa, whether they balanced properly to +the eye or not. And chimneys--he would have as +many as he wanted, and no two alike, in either +height or size. And if he wanted the front of the +house turned from all possible view, as though +abashed at any chance of public scrutiny, why, that +was his affair and not the public's; and, with like +perversity, if he chose to thrust his kitchen under the public's +very nose, what should the generally +fagged-out, half-famished representative of that +dignified public do but reel in his dead minnow, +shoulder his fishing-rod, clamber over the back +fence of the old farmhouse and inquire within, or +jog back to the city, inwardly anathematizing that +particular locality or the whole rural district +in general. That is just the way that farmhouse +looked to the writer of this sketch one week ago-- +so individual it seemed--so liberal, and yet so +independent. It wasn't even weather-boarded, but, +instead, was covered smoothly with cement, +as though the plasterers had come while the folks +were visiting, and so, unable to get at the interior, +had just plastered the outside. + +I am more than glad that I was hungry enough, +and weary enough, and wise enough to take the +house at its first suggestion; for, putting away my +fishing-tackle for the morning, at least, I went up +the sloping bank, crossed the dusty road, and +confidently clambered over the fence. + +Not even a growling dog to intimate that I was +trespassing. All was open--gracious-looking--pastoral. +The sward beneath my feet was velvet-like +in elasticity, and the scarce visible path I followed +through it led promptly to the open kitchen door. +From within I heard a woman singing some old +ballad in an undertone, while at the threshold a +trim, white-spurred rooster stood poised on one foot, +curving his glossy neck and cocking his wattled +head as though to catch the meaning of the words. +I paused. It was a scene I felt restrained from +breaking in upon, nor would I have, but for the +sound of a strong male voice coming around the +corner of the house: + +"Sir. Howdy!" + +Turning, I saw a rough-looking but kindly +featured man of sixty-five, evidently the owner of the +place. + +I returned his salutation with some confusion +and much deference. "I must really beg your pardon +for this intrusion," I began, "but I have been +tiring myself out fishing, and your home here looked +so pleasant--and I felt so thirsty--and--" + +"Want a drink, I reckon," said the old man, +turning abruptly toward the kitchen door, then pausing +as suddenly, with a backward motion of his thumb +--"jest follow the path here down to the little +brick--that's the spring--and you'll find 'at you've +come to the right place fer drinkin'-worter! Hold +on a minute tel I get you a tumbler--there's nothin' +down there but a tin." + +"Then don't trouble yourself any further," I +said, heartily, "for I'd rather drink from a tin cup +than a goblet of pure gold." + +"And so'd I," said the old man, reflectively, +turning mechanically, and following me down the path. +" 'Druther drink out of a tin--er jest a fruit-can +with the top knocked off--er--er--er a gourd," he +added in a zestful, reminiscent tone of voice, that +so heightened my impatient thirst that I reached +the spring-house fairly in a run. + +"Well-sir!" exclaimed my host, in evident +delight, as I stood dipping my nose in the second +cupful of the cool, revivifying liquid, and peering in a +congratulatory kind of way at the blurred and rubicund +reflection of my features in the bottom of the +cup, "well-sir, blame-don! ef it don't do a feller +good to see you enjoyin' of it thataway! But don't +you drink too much o' the worter!--'cause there's +some sweet milk over there in one o' them crocks, +maybe; and ef you'll jest, kind o' keerful-like, lift +off the led of that third one, say, over there to +yer left, and dip you out a tinful er two o' that, +w'y, it'll do you good to drink it, and it'll do me +good to see you at it-- But hold up!--hold up!" +he called, abruptly, as, nowise loath, I bent above +the vessel designated. "Hold yer hosses fer a second! +Here's Marthy; let her git it fer ye." + +If I was at first surprised and confused, meeting +the master of the house, I was wholly startled and +chagrined in my present position before its mistress. +But as I arose, and stammered, in my confusion, +some incoherent apology, I was again reassured and +put at greater ease by the comprehensive and +forgiving smile the woman gave me, as I yielded her +my place, and, with lifted hat, awaited her further +kindness. + +"I came just in time, sir," she said, half +laughingly, as with strong, bare arms she reached across +the gurgling trough and replaced the lid that I had +partially removed.--"I came just in time, I see, to +prevent father from having you dip into the morning's- +milk, which, of course, has scarcely a veil of +cream over the face of it as yet. But men, as you +are doubtless willing to admit," she went on jocularly, +"don't know about these things. You must +pardon father, as much for his well-meaning ignorance +of such matters, as for this cup of cream, +which I am sure you will better relish." + +She arose, still smiling, with her eyes turned +frankly on my own. And I must be excused when +I confess that as I bowed my thanks, taking the +proffered cup and lifting it to my lips, I stared +with an uncommon interest and pleasure at the +donor's face. + +She was a woman of certainly not less than forty +years of age. But the figure, and the rounded grace +and fulness of it, together with the features and the +eyes, completed as fine a specimen of physical and +mental health as ever it has been my fortune to +meet; there was something so full of purpose and +resolve--something so wholesome, too, about the +character--something so womanly--I might almost +say manly, and would, but for the petty prejudice +maybe occasioned by the trivial fact of a locket +having dropped from her bosom as she knelt; and +that trinket still dangles in my memory even as it +then dangled and dropped back to its concealment +in her breast as she arose. But her face, by no +means handsome in the common sense of the word, +was marked with a breadth and strength of outline +and expression that approached the heroic--a face +that once seen is forever fixed in memory--a personage +once met one must know more of. And so it +was, that an hour later, as I strolled with the old +man about his farm, looking, to all intents, with the +profoundest interest at his Devonshires, Shorthorns, +Jerseys, and the like, I lured from him something +of an outline of his daughter's history. + +"There're no better girl 'n Marthy!" he said, +mechanically answering some ingenious allusion to +her worth. "And yit," he went on reflectively, +stooping from his seat in the barn door and with +his open jack-knife picking up a little chip with the +point of the blade--"and yit--you wouldn't believe +it--but Marthy was the oldest o' three daughters, +and hed--I may say--hed more advantages o' marryin'-- +and yit, as I was jest goin' to say, she's the +very one 'at didn't marry. Hed every advantage-- +Marthy did. W'y, we even hed her educated--her +mother was a-livin' then--and we was well enough +fixed to afford the educatin' of her, mother allus +contended--and we was--besides, it was Marthy's +notion, too, and you know how women is thataway +when they git their head set. So we sent Marthy +down to Indianop'lus, and got her books and put +her in school there, and paid fer her keepin' and +ever'thing; and she jest--well, you may say, lived +there stiddy fer better'n four year. O' course +she'd git back ever' once-an-a-while, but her visits +was allus, some-way-another, onsatisfactory-like, +'cause, you see, Marthy was allus my favorite, and +I'd allus laughed and told her 'at the other girls +could git marrid ef they wanted, but SHE was goin' +to be the 'nest-egg' of our family, and 'slong as I +lived I wanted her at home with me. And she'd +laugh and contend 'at she'd as li'f be an old maid as +not, and never expected to marry, ner didn't want +to. + +"But she had me sceart onc't, though! Come +out from the city one time, durin' the army, with +a peart-lookin' young feller in blue clothes and gilt +straps on his shoulders. Young lieutenant he was +--name o' Morris. Was layin' in camp there in the +city som'er's. I disremember which camp it was +now adzackly--but anyway, it 'peared like he had +plenty o' time to go and come, fer from that time +on he kep' on a-comin'--ever' time Marthy 'ud +come home, he'd come, too; and I got to noticin' 'at +Marthy come home a good 'eal more'n she used to +afore Morris first brought her. And blame' ef the +thing didn't git to worryin' me! And onc't I spoke +to mother about it, and told her ef I thought the +feller wanted to marry Marthy I'd jest stop his +comin' right then and there. But mother she sort o' +smiled and said somepin' 'bout men a-never seein' +through nothin'; and when I ast her what she meant, +w'y, she ups and tells me 'at Morris didn't keer +nothin' fer Marthy, ner Marthy fer Morris, and +then went on to tell me that Morris was kind o' +aidgin' up to'rds Annie--she was next to Marthy, +you know, in p'int of years and experience, but +ever'body allus said 'at Annie was the purtiest one +o' the whole three of 'em. And so when mother +told me 'at the signs p'inted to'rds Annie, w'y, of course, I +hedn't no particular objections to that, +'cause Morris was of good fambly enough it turned +out, and, in fact, was as stirrin' a young feller as +ever I' want fer a son-in-law, and so I hed nothin' +more to say--ner they wasn't no occasion to say +nothin', 'cause right along about then I begin to +notice 'at Marthy quit comin' home so much, and +Morris kep' a-comin' more. + +"Tel finally, one time he was out here all by +hisself, 'long about dusk, come out here where +I was feedin', and ast me, all at onct, and in +a straightfor'ard way, ef he couldn't marry +Annie; and, some-way-another, blame' ef it didn't +make me happy as him when I told him yes! +You see that thing proved, pine-blank, 'at he wasn't +a-fishin' round fer Marthy. Well-sir, as luck would +hev it, Marthy got home about a half-hour later, +and I'll give you my word I was never so glad to +see the girl in my life! It was foolish in me, I +reckon, but when I see her drivin' up the lane-- +it was purt' nigh dark then, but I could see her +through the open winder from where I was sittin' +at the supper-table, and so I jest quietly excused +myself, p'lite-like, as a feller will, you know, when +they's comp'ny round, and slipped off and met her +jest as she was about to git out to open the barn +gate. 'Hold up, Marthy,' says I; 'set right where +you air; I'll open the gate fer you, and I'll do +anything else fer you in the world 'at you want me to!' + +" 'W'y, what's pleased YOU so?' she says, +laughin', as she druv through slow-like and a-ticklin' my nose +with the cracker of the buggy-whip.--'What's +pleased YOU?' + +" 'Guess,' says I, jerkin' the gate to, and turnin' to +lift her out. + +" 'The new peanner's come?' says she, eager-like. + +" 'Yer new peanner's come,' says I, 'but that's +not it.' + +" 'Strawberries for supper?' says she. + +" 'Strawberries fer supper,' says I; 'but that +ain't it.' + +"Jest then Morris's hoss whinnied in the barn, +and she glanced up quick and smilin' and says, +'Somebody come to see somebody?' + +" 'You're a-gittin' warm,' says I. + +" 'Somebody come to see ME?' she says, anxious-like. + +" 'No,' says I, 'and I'm glad of it--fer this one +'at's come wants to git married, and o' course I +wouldn't harber in my house no young feller 'at +was a-layin' round fer a chance to steal away the +"Nest-egg," ' says I, laughin'. + +"Marthy had riz up in the buggy by this time, +but as I helt up my hands to her, she sort o' drawed +back a minute, and says, all serious-like and kind o' +whisperin': + +" 'Is it ANNIE?' + +"I nodded. 'Yes,' says I, 'and what's more, I've +give my consent, and mother's give hern--the thing's +all settled. Come, jump out and run in and be +happy with the rest of us!' and I helt out my hands +ag'in, but she didn't 'pear to take no heed. She was kind o' +pale, too, I thought, and swallered a +time er two like as ef she couldn't speak plain. + +" 'Who is the man?' she ast. + +" 'Who--who's the man,' I says, a-gittin' kind o' +out o' patience with the girl.--'W'y, you know who +it is, o' course.--It's Morris,' says I. 'Come, jump +down! Don't you see I'm waitin' fer ye?' + +" 'Then take me,' she says; and blame-don! ef +the girl didn't keel right over in my arms as limber +as a rag! Clean fainted away! Honest! Jest the +excitement, I reckon, o' breakin' it to her so suddent- +like--'cause she liked Annie, I've sometimes +thought, better'n even she did her own mother. +Didn't go half so hard with her when her other +sister married. Yes-sir!" said the old man, by way +of sweeping conclusion, as he rose to his feet-- +"Marthy's the on'y one of 'em 'at never married-- +both the others is gone--Morris went all through +the army and got back safe and sound--'s livin' in +Idyho, and doin' fust-rate. Sends me a letter ever' +now and then. Got three little chunks o' grandchildren +out there, and I never laid eyes on one +of 'em. You see, I'm a-gittin' to be quite a middle- +aged man--in fact, a very middle-aged man, you +might say. Sence mother died, which has be'n-- +lem-me-see--mother's be'n dead som'er's in the +neighberhood o' ten years.--Sence mother died I've +be'n a-gittin' more and more o' MARTHY'S notion-- +that is,--you couldn't ever hire ME to marry nobody! +and them has allus be'n and still is the 'Nest-egg's' +views! Listen! That's her a-callin' fer us now. You must sort +o' overlook the freedom, but I told +Marthy you'd promised to take dinner with us to- +day, and it 'ud never do to disappoint her now. +Come on." And ah! it would have made the soul +of you either rapturously glad or madly envious to +see how meekly I consented. + +I am always thinking that I never tasted coffee +till that day; I am always thinking of the crisp and +steaming rolls, ored over with the molten gold +that hinted of the clover-fields, and the bees that +had not yet permitted the honey of the bloom and +the white blood of the stalk to be divorced; I am +thinking that the young and tender pullet we happy +three discussed was a near and dear relative of the +gay patrician rooster that I first caught peering so +inquisitively in at the kitchen door; and I am +always--always thinking of "The Nest-egg." + + + +"THE BOY FROM ZEENY" + +His advent in our little country town was at +once abrupt and novel. Why he came, when +he came, or how he came, we boys never knew. My +first remembrance of him is of his sudden appearance +in the midst of a game of "Ant'ny-over," in +which a dozen boys besides myself were most +enthusiastically engaged. The scene of the exciting +contest was the center of the main street of the +town, the elevation over which we tossed the ball +being the skeleton remains of a grand triumphal +arch, left as a sort of cadaverous reminder of some +recent political demonstration. Although I recall +the boy's external appearance upon that occasion +with some vagueness, I vividly remember that his +trousers were much too large and long, and that +his heavy, flapping coat was buttonless, and very +badly worn and damaged at the sleeves and elbows. +I remember, too, with even more distinctness, the +hat he wore; it was a high, silk, bell-crowned hat-- +a man's hat and a veritable "plug"--not a new and +shiny "plug," by any means, but still of dignity and +gloss enough to furnish a noticeable contrast to the +other appurtenances of its wearer's wardrobe. In +fact, it was through this latter article of dress that the +general attention of the crowd came at last to +be drawn particularly to its unfortunate possessor, +who, evidently directed by an old-time instinct, had +mechanically thrust the inverted "castor" under a +falling ball, and the ball, being made of yarn +wrapped tightly over a green walnut, and dropping +from an uncommon height, had gone through the +hat like a round shot. + +Naturally enough much merriment was occasioned +by the singular mishap, and the victim of +the odd occurrence seemed himself inclined to join +in the boisterous laughter and make the most of +his ridiculous misfortune. He pulled the hat back +over his tousled head, and with the flapping crown +of it still clinging by one frayed hinge, he capered +through a grotesquely executed jig that made the +clamorous crowd about him howl again. + +"Wo! what a hat!" cried Billy Kinzey, derisively, +and with a palpably rancorous twinge of envy in +his heart; for Billy was the bad boy of our town, +and would doubtless have enjoyed the strange boy's +sudden notoriety in thus being able to convert +disaster into positive fun. "Wo! what a hat!" +reiterated Billy, making a feint to knock it from the +boy's head as the still capering figure pirouetted +past him. + +The boy's eye caught the motion, and he whirled +suddenly in a backward course and danced past his +reviler again, this time much nearer than before. +"Better try it," he said, in a low, half-laughing +tone that no one heard but Billy and myself. He +was out of range in an instant, still laughing as he +went. + +"Durn him!" said Billy, with stifling anger, +clutching his fist and leaving one knuckle protruding +in a very wicked-looking manner.--"Durn him! He +better not sass me! He's afeard to come past here +ag'in and say that! I'll knock his durn ole stove- +pipe in the middle o' nex' week!" + +"You will, hey?" queried a revolving voice, as +the boy twirled past again--this time so near that +Billy felt his taunting breath blown in his face. + +"Yes, I 'will, hey'!" said Billy, viciously; and +with a side-sweeping, flat-handed lick that sounded +like striking a rusty sheet of tin, the crownless +"plug" went spinning into the gutter, while, as +suddenly, the assaulted little stranger, with a peculiarly +pallid smile about his lips and an electric glitter +in his eye, adroitly flung his left hand forward, +smiting his insulter such a blow in the region of the +brow that the unguarded Billy went tumbling +backward, his plucky assailant prancing wildly +around his prostrate form. + +"Oh! come and see me!" snarled the strange boy, +in a contemptuous tone, cocking his fists up in a +scientific manner, and dropping into a stoop- +shouldered swagger that would have driven envy into +the heart of a bullying hack-driver. "Git the bloke +on his pins!" he sneered, turning to the crowd.-- +"S'pose I'm goin' to hit a man w'en he's down?" + +But his antagonist needed no such assistance. +Stung with his unlooked-for downfall, bleeding +from the first blow ever given him by mortal boy, +and goaded to absolute frenzy by the taunts of his +swaggering enemy, Billy sprang to his feet, and a +moment later had succeeded in closing with the +boy in a rough-and-tumble fight, in which his +adversary was at a disadvantage, being considerably +smaller, hampered, too, with his loose, unbuttoned +coat and baggy trousers. But, for all that, he did +some very efficient work in the way of a deft and +telling blow or two upon the nose of his overpowering +foe, who sat astride his wriggling body, but +wholly unable to get in a lick. + +"Durn you!" said Billy, with his hand gripping +the boy's throat, "holler 'nough!" + +"Holler nothin'!" gurgled the boy, with his eyes +fairly starting from his head. + +"Oh, let him up, Billy," called a compassionate +voice from the excited crowd. + +"Holler 'nough and I will," said Billy, in a tragic +whisper in the boy's ear. "Durn ye! holler 'Calf-rope!' " + +The boy only shook his head, trembled convulsively, +let fall his eyelids, and lay limp and, to all +appearances, unconscious. + +The startled Billy loosed his hold, rose half-way +to his feet, then fiercely pounced again at his rival. + +But it was too late.--The ruse had succeeded, +and the boy was once more on his feet. + +"You fight like a dog!" said the strange boy, in +a tone of infinite contempt--"and you AIR a dog! +Put up yer props like a man and come at me, and +I'll meller yer head till yer mother won't know +you! Come on! I dare you!" + +This time, as Billy started forward at the +challenge, I regret to say that in his passion he snatched +up from the street a broken buggy-spoke, before +which warlike weapon the strange boy was forced +warily to retreat. Step by step he gave way, and +step by step his threatening foe advanced. I think, +perhaps, part of the strange boy's purpose in thus +retreating was to arm himself with one of the "ax- +handles" that protruded from a churn standing in +front of a grocery, toward which he slowly backed +across the sidewalk. However that may be, it is +evident he took no note of an open cellar-way that +lay behind him, over the brink of which he deliberately +backed, throwing up his hands as he disappeared. + +We heard a heavy fall, but heard no cry. Some +loungers in the grocery, attracted by the clamor of +the throng without, came to the door inquiringly; +one man, learning what had happened, peered down +the stairway of the cellar, and called to ask the boy +if he was hurt, which query was answered an instant +later by the appearance of the boy himself, his face +far whiter than his shirt, and his lips trembling, +but his teeth clenched. + +"Guess I broke my arm ag'in," he said, briefly, as +the man leaned over and helped him up the steps, +the boy sweeping his keen eyes searchingly over the +faces of the crowd. "It's the RIGHT arm, though," +he continued, glancing at the injured member dangling +helplessly at his side--"THIS-'UN'S all right yet!" +and as he spoke he jerked from the man's assistance, +wheeled round, and an instant later, as a +buggy-spoke went hurtling through the air, he +slapped the bewildered face of Billy with his open +hand. "Dam' coward!" he said. + +Then the man caught him, and drew him back, +and the crowd closed in between the combatants, +following, as the boy with the broken arm was +hurried down street to the doctor's office, where the +door was immediately closed on the rabble and all +the mystery within--not an utter mystery, either, +for three or four enterprising and sagacious boys +slipped off from the crowd that thronged in front, +and climbing by a roundabout way and over a high +board fence into the back yard, secretly posted +themselves at the blinded window in the rear of the little +one-roomed office and breathlessly awaited news +from within. + +"They got him laid out on the settee," whispered +a venturous boy who had leaned a board against +the window-sill and climbed into a position +commanding the enviable advantage of a broken window- +pane. "I kin see him through a hole in the +curtain. Keep still! + +"They got his coat off, and his sleeve rolled up," +whispered the boy, in continuation--"and the doctor's +a-givin' him some medicine in a tumbler. Now +he's a-pullin' his arm. Gee-mun-nee! I kin hear the +bones crunch!" + +"Hain't he a-cryin'?" queried a milk-faced boy, +with very large blue eyes and fine white hair, and +a grieved expression as he spoke.--"Hain't he +a-cryin'?" + +"Well, he hain't!" said the boy in the window, +with unconscious admiration. "Listen! + +"I heerd him thist tell 'em 'at it wasn't the first +time his arm was broke. Now keep still!" and +the boy in the window again bent his ear to the +broken pane. + +"He says both his arm's be'n broke," continued +the boy in the window--"says this-'un 'at's broke +now's be'n broke two times 'fore this time." + +"Dog-gone! hain't he a funny feller!" said the +milk-faced boy, with his big eyes lifted wistfully +to the boy in the window. + +"He says onc't his pap broke his arm w'en he was +whippin' him," whispered the boy in the window. + +"Bet his pa's a wicked man!" said the milk-faced +boy, in a dreamy, speculative way--"s'pect he's a +drunkard, er somepin'!" + +"Keep still," said the boy at the window; "they're +tryin' to git him to tell his pap's name and his, and +he won't do it, 'cause he says his pap comes and +steals him ever' time he finds out where he is." + +The milk-faced boy drew a long, quavering +breath and gazed suspiciously round the high board +fence of the enclosure. + +"He says his pap used to keep a liberty-stable +in Zeeny--in Ohio som'er's,--but he daresn't stay +round THERE no more, 'cause he broke up there, and +had to skedaddle er they'd clean him out! He says +he hain't got no mother, ner no brothers, ner no +sisters, ner no nothin'--on'y," the boy in the window +added, with a very dry and painful swallow, "he +says he hain't got nothin' on'y thist the clothes on +his back!" + +"Yes, and I bet," broke in the milk-faced boy, +abruptly, with his thin lips compressed, and his +big eyes fixed on space--"yes, and I bet he kin lick +Billy Kinzey, ef his arm IS broke!" + +At this juncture, some one inside coming to raise +the window, the boy at the broken pane leaped to +the ground, and, flocking at his heels, his frightened +comrades bobbed one by one over the horizon of the +high fence and were gone in an instant. + +So it was the hero of this sketch came to be +known as "The Boy from Zeeny." + +The Boy from Zeeny, though evidently predisposed +to novel and disastrous happenings, for once, +at least, had come upon a streak of better fortune; +for the doctor, it appeared, had someway taken a +fancy to him, and had offered him an asylum at +his own home and hearth--the compensation stipulated, +and suggested by the boy himself, being a +conscientious and efficient service in the doctor's +stable. Even with his broken arm splinted and +bandaged and supported in a sling, The Boy from +Zeeny could daily be seen loping the doctor's spirited +horse up the back alley from the stable to the office, +with the utter confidence and careless grace +of a Bedouin. When, at last, the injured arm was +wholly well again, the daring feats of horsemanship +of which the boy was capable were listened to with +incredulity by the "good" boys of the village school, +who never played "hooky" on long summer afternoons, +and, in consequence, never had a chance of +witnessing The Boy from Zeeny loping up to the +"swimmin'-hole," a mile from town, barebacked, +with nothing but a halter, and his face turned +toward the horse's tail. In fact The Boy from +Zeeny displayed such a versatility of accomplishments, +and those, too, of a character but faintly +represented in the average boy of the country town, +that, for all the admiration their possessor evoked, +an equal envy was aroused in many a youthful +breast. + +"The boys in this town's down on you!" said +a cross-eyed, freckled-faced boy, one day, to The +Boy from Zeeny. + +The Boy from Zeeny was sitting in the alley +window of the hayloft of the doctor's stable, and +the cross-eyed boy had paused below, and, with his +noward-looking eyes upturned, stood waiting the +effect of this intelligence. + +"What do I care for the boys in this town?" said +The Boy from Zeeny. + +"The boys in this town," repeated the cross-eyed +boy, with a slow, prophetic flourish of his head-- +"the boys in this town says 'cause you come from +Zeeny and blacked Billy Kinzey's eye, 'at you think +you're goin' to run things round here! And you'll +find out you ain't the bosst o' this town!" and the +cross-eyed boy shook his head again with dire foreboding. + +"Looky here, Cocky!" said The Boy from Zeeny, +trying to focus a direct gaze on the boy's delusive +eyes, "w'y don't you talk straight out from the +shoulder? I reckon 'the boys in this town,' as you +call 'em, didn't send YOU round here to tell me what +THEY was goin' to do! But ef you want to take it +up fer 'em, and got any sand to back you, jest say it, +and I'll come down there and knock them durn +twisted eyes o' yourn straight ag'in!" + +"Yes, you will!" muttered the cross-eyed boy, +with dubious articulation, glancing uneasily up the +alley. + +"What?" growled The Boy from Zeeny, thrusting +one dangling leg farther out the window, supporting +his weight by the palms of his hands, and poised as +though about to spring--"what 'id you say?" + +"Didn't say nothin'," said the cross-eyed boy, +feebly; and then, as a sudden and most bewildering +smile lighted up his defective eyes, he exclaimed: +"Oh, I tell you what le's do! Le's me and you +git up a show in your stable, and don't let none o' +the other boys be in it! I kin turn a handspring +like you, and purt' nigh walk on my hands; and +you kin p'form on the slack-rope--and spraddle +out like the 'inja-rubber man'--and hold a pitch- +fork on yer chin-and stand up on a horse 'ithout +a-holdin'--and--and--Oh! ever'thing!" And as the +cross-eyed boy breathlessly concluded this list of +strong attractions, he had The Boy from Zeeny so +thoroughly inoculated with the enterprise that he +warmly closed with the proposition, and the preparations +and the practise for the show were at once +inaugurated. + +Three hours later, an extremely cross-eyed boy, +with the freckles of his face thrown into vivid relief +by an intense pallor, rushed pantingly into the +doctor's office with the fateful intelligence that The +Boy from Zeeny had "fell and broke his arm ag'in." +And this time, as it seemed, the hapless boy had +surpassed the seriousness of all former fractures, +this last being of a compound nature, and very +painful in the setting, and tedious in recovery; the +recovery, too, being anything but perfect, since it +left the movement of the elbow somewhat restricted, +and threw the little fellow's arm into an unnatural +position, with the palm of the hand turned forward +as he walked. But for all that, the use of it was, +to all appearances, little impaired. + +Doubtless it was through such interludes from +rough service as these accidents afforded that The +Boy from Zeeny had acquired the meager education +he possessed. The doctor's wife, who had from the +first been kind to him, grew to like him very much. +Through her gentle and considerate interest he was +stimulated to study by the occasional present of a +simple volume. Oftentimes the good woman would +devote an hour to his instruction in the mysteries of +the book's orthography and rhetoric. + +Nor was The Boy from Zeeny a dull pupil, nor +was he an ungrateful one. He was quick to learn, +and never prouder than when a mastered lesson +gained for him the approbation of his patient instructor. + +The history of The Boy from Zeeny, such as had +been gathered by the doctor and his wife, was +corroborative in outline with the brief hint of it +communicated to the curious listeners at the rear +window of the doctor's office on the memorable day +of the boy's first appearance in the town. He was +without family, save a harsh, unfeeling father, who, +from every evidence, must have neglected and +abused the child most shamefully, the circumstantial +proof of this fact being evidenced in the boy's +frank acknowledgment that he had repeatedly "run +away" from him, and his still firm resolve to keep +his name a secret, lest he might thereby be traced +to his present security and fall once more into the +hands of his unnatural parent. + +Certain it was that the feelings of all who knew +the lad's story showed hearty sympathy with him, +and when one morning it was rumored that The Boy +from Zeeny had mysteriously disappeared, and the +rumor rapidly developed into an unquestionable +fact, there was a universal sense of regret in the +little town, which in turn resolved itself into positive +indignation when it was learned from the doctor +that an explanation, printed in red keel on the +back of a fragment of circus-poster, had been +found folded and tucked away an the buckle-strap +of his horse's bridle. The somewhat remarkable +communication, in sprawling capitals, ran thus: + + +"PAPS GOT ME AGIN. I HAF TO GO. DAM HIM. DOC TEL +HER TO KEEP MY BOOCKS. GOOD BY. I FED OLE CHARLY. I +FED HIM OTES AND HA AN CORN. HE WONT NEED NO MORE FER +A WEAK. AN BRAND TO. DOC TEL HER GOOD BY." + + +It was a curious bit of composition--uncouth, +assuredly, and marred, maybe, with an unpardonable +profanity--but it served. In the silence and gloom +of the old stable, the doctor's fingers trembled as +he read, and the good wife's eyes, peering anxiously +above his heaving shoulder, filled and overflowed +with tears. + +I wish that it were in the veracious sequence of +this simple history to give this wayward boy back +to the hearts that loved him, and that still in memory +enshrine him with affectionate regard; but the +hapless lad--the little ragged twelve-year-old that +wandered out of nowhere into town, and wandered +into nowhere out again--never returned. Yet we +who knew him in those old days--we who were +children with him, and, in spite of boyish jealousy +and petty bickerings, admired the gallant spirit of +the lad--are continually meeting with reminders of +him; the last instance of which, in my own experience, +I can not refrain from offering here: + +For years I have been a wanderer from the dear +old town of my nativity, but through all my +wanderings a gracious fate has always kept me somewhere +in its pleasant neighborhood, and, in consequence, +I often pay brief visits to the scenes of my +long-vanished boyhood. It was during such a visit, +but a few short years ago, that remembrances of +my lost youth were most forcibly recalled by the +progress of the county fair, which institution I +was permitted to attend through the kindness of an +old chum who drove me over in his buggy. + +Although it was not the day for racing, we found +the track surrounded by a dense crowd of clamorous +and applauding people. + +"What does it mean?" I asked my friend, as he +guided his horse in and out among the trees toward +the edge of the enclosure. + +"It's Professor Andrus, I suspect," he answered, +rising in the buggy as he spoke, and peering eagerly +above the heads of the surging multitude. + +"And who's Professor Andrus?" I asked, striking +a match against the tire of the now stationary buggy- +wheel, and lighting the stump of my cigar. + +"Why, haven't you heard of the famous Professor?" +he answered, laughingly--immediately adding +in a serious tone: "Professor Andrus is the famous +'horse-tamer' who has been driving the country +absolutely wild here for two or three days. Stand up +here where you can see!" he went on, excitedly. + +"Yonder he comes! Isn't that splendid?" + +And it was. + +Across the sea of heads, and facing toward us +down the track, I caught sight of a glossy span of +horses that in their perfect beauty of symmetry, +high heads and tossing manes looked as though +they were just prancing out of some Arabian dream. +The animals seemed nude of rein or harness, save +only a jeweled strap that crossed the breast of each, +together with a slender trace at either side connecting +with a jaunty little phaeton whose glittering +wheels slivered the sunshine into splinters as they +spun. Upon the narrow seat of the airy vehicle sat +the driver. No lines were wound about his hands +--no shout or lash to goad the horses to their telling +speed. They were simply directed and controlled +by the graceful motions of a long and slender whip +which waved slowly to and fro above their heads. +The great crowd cheered the master as he came. He +arose deliberately, took off his hat, and bowed. The +applause was deafening. Still standing, he whizzed +past us and was gone. But something in the manner +of the handsome fellow struck me with a strange +sense of familiarity. Was it the utter disregard of +fear that I saw on his face? Was it the keenness +of the eye and the perfect self-possession of the +man? Or was it--was it the peculiar way in which +the right arm had dropped to his side after his +salute to us while curving past us, and did I fancy, +for that reason, that the palm of his hand turned +forward as he stood? + +"Clear the track, there!" came a far voice across +the ring.--"Don't cross there, in God's name! Drive +back!" + +The warning evidently came too late. There was +an instant's breathless silence, then a far-away, pent- +sounding clash, then utter havoc in the crowd: The +ropes about the ring were broken over, and a tumultuous +tide of people poured across the ring, myself +borne on the very foremost wave. + +"Jest the buggy smashed, that's all!" cried a voice. +"The hosses hain't hurt--ner the man." + +The man referred to was the Professor. I caught +a glimpse of him as he rose from the grassy bank +where he had been flung. He was very pale, but +calm. An uncouth man brought him his silk hat +from where it had rolled in the dust. + +"Wish you'd just take this handkerchief and +brush it off," said the Professor; "I guess I've broke +my arm." + +It was The Boy from Zeeny. + + + +WHERE IS MARY ALICE SMITH? + +"Where--is--Mary--Alice--Smith? Oh-- +she--has--gone--home!" It was the thin +mysterious voice of little Mary Alice Smith herself +that so often queried and responded as above-- +every word accented with a sweet and eery intonation, +and a very gaiety of solemn earnestness that +baffled the cunning skill of all childish imitators. A +slender wisp of a girl she was, not more than ten +years in appearance, though her age had been +given to us as fourteen. The spindle ankles that +she so airily flourished from the sparse concealment +of a worn and shadowy calico skirt seemed scarce +a fraction more in girth than the slim blue-veined +wrists she tossed among the loose and ragged tresses +of her yellow hair, as she danced around the room. +She was, from the first, an object of curious and +most refreshing interest to our family--to us children +in particular--an interest, though years and +years have interposed to shroud it in the dull dust +of forgetfulness, that still remains vivid and bright +and beautiful. Whether an orphan child only, or +with a father that could thus lightly send her adrift, +I do not know now, nor do I care to ask, but I do +recall distinctly that on a raw bleak day in early +winter she was brought to us, from a wild country settlement, by +a reputed uncle--a gaunt round- +shouldered man, with deep eyes and sallow cheeks +and weedy-looking beard, as we curiously watched +him from the front window stolidly swinging this +little, blue-lipped, red-nosed waif over the muddy +wagon-wheel to father's arms, like so much country +produce. And even as the man resumed his seat +upon the thick board laid across the wagon, and +sat chewing a straw, with spasmodic noddings of +the head, as some brief further conference detained +him, I remember mother quickly lifting my sister +up from where we stood, folding and holding the +little form in unconscious counterpart of father and +the little girl without. And how we gathered round +her when father brought her in, and mother fixed +a cozy chair for her close to the blazing fire, and +untied the little summer hat, with its hectic +trimmings, together with the dismal green veil that had +been bound beneath it round the little tingling ears. +The hollow, pale blue eyes of the child followed +every motion with an alertness that suggested a +somewhat suspicious mind. + +"Dave gimme that!" she said, her eyes proudly +following the hat as mother laid it on the pillow of +the bed. "Mustn't git it mussed up, sir! er you'll +have Dave in yer wool!" she continued warningly, +as our childish interest drew us to a nearer view of +the gaudy article in question. + +Half awed, we shrank back to our first wonderment, +one of us, however, with the bravery to ask: +"Who's Dave?" + +"Who's Dave?" reiterated the little voice half +scornfully.--"W'y, Dave's a great big boy! Dave +works on Barnes's place. And he kin purt' nigh +make a full hand, too. Dave's purt' nigh tall as +your pap! He's purt' nigh growed up--Dave is! +And--David--Mason--Jeffries," she continued, +jauntily teetering her head from left to right, and +for the first time introducing that peculiar deliberation +of accent and undulating utterance that we +afterward found to be her quaintest and most +charming characteristic--"and--David--Mason-- +Jeffries--he--likes--Mary--Alice--Smith!" And +then she broke abruptly into the merriest laughter, +and clapped her little palms together till they fairly +glowed. + +"And who's Mary Alice Smith?" clamored a +chorus of merry voices. + +The elfish figure straightened haughtily in the +chair. Folding the slender arms tightly across her +breast, and tilting her wan face back with an +imperious air, she exclaimed sententiously, "W'y, +Mary Alice Smith is me--that's who Mary Alice +Smith is!" + +It was not long, however, before her usual bright +and infectious humor was restored, and we were +soon piloting the little stranger here and there about +the house, and laughing at the thousand funny little +things she said and did. The winding stairway in +the hall quite dazed her with delight. Up and down +she went a hundred times, it seemed. And she +would talk and whisper to herself, and oftentimes +would stop and nestle down and rest her pleased +face close against the steps and pat one softly with +her slender hand, peering curiously down at us +with half-averted eyes. And she counted them and +named them, every one, as she went up and down. + +"I'm mighty glad I'm come to live in this-here +house," she said. + +We asked her why. + +"Oh, 'cause," she said, starting up the stairs again +by an entirely novel and original method of her +own--" 'cause Uncle Tomps ner Aunt 'Lizabeth +don't live here; and when they ever come here to +git their dinners, like they will ef you don't watch +out, w'y, then I kin slip out here on these-here +stairs and play like I was climbin' up to the Good +World where my mother is--that's why!" + +Then we hushed our laughter, and asked her +where her home was, and what it was like, and +why she didn't like her Uncle Tomps and Aunt +'Lizabeth, and if she wouldn't want to visit them +sometimes. + +"Oh, yes," she artlessly answered in reply to the +concluding query; "I'll want to go back there lots +o' times; but not to see them! I'll--only--go--back +--there--to--see"--and here she was holding up +the little flared-out fingers of her left hand, and +with the index finger of the right touching their +pink tips in ordered notation with the accent of +every gleeful word--"I'll--only--go--back--there +--to--see--David--Mason--Jeffries--'cause--he's +--the--boy--fer--me!" And then she clapped her +hands again and laughed in that half-hysterical, half- +musical way of hers till we all joined in and made +the echoes of the old hall ring again. "And then," +she went on, suddenly throwing out an imperative +gesture of silence--"and then, after I've been in this-- +here house a long, long time, and you all gits so's +you like me awful--awful--awful well, then some +day you'll go in that room there--and that room +there--and in the kitchen--and out on the porch-- +and down the cellar--and out in the smoke-house-- +and the wood-house--and the loft--and all around +--oh, ever' place--and in here--and up the stairs-- +and all them rooms up there--and you'll look behind +all the doors--and in all the cubboards--and under +all the beds--and then you'll look sorry-like, and +holler out, kind o' skeert, and you'll say: 'Where-- +is--Mary--Alice--Smith?' And then you'll wait +and listen and hold yer breath; and then somepin' 'll +holler back, away fur off, and say: 'Oh--she--has +gone--home!' And then ever'thing'll be all still +ag'in, and you'll be afraid to holler any more--and +you dursn't play--and you can't laugh, and yer +throat'll thist hurt and hurt, like you been a-eatin' +too much calamus-root er somepin'!" And as the +little gipsy concluded her weird prophecy, with a +final flourish of her big pale eyes, we glanced +furtively at one another's awestruck faces, with a +superstitious dread of a vague indefinite disaster +most certainly awaiting us around some shadowy +corner of the future. Through all this speech she +had been slowly and silently groping up the winding +steps, her voice growing fainter and fainter, +and the littly pixy form fading, and wholly vanishing +at last around the spiral banister of the upper +landing. Then down to us from that alien recess +came the voice alone, touched with a tone as of +wild entreaty and despair: "Where--is--Mary-- +Alice--Smith?" And then a long breathless pause, +in which our wide-eyed group below huddled still +closer, pale and mute. Then--far off and faint +and quavering with a tenderness of pathos that +dews the eyes of memory even now--came, like a +belated echo, the voice all desolate: "Oh--she--has +--gone--home!" + +What a queer girl she was, and what a fascinating +influence she unconsciously exerted over us! +We never tired of her presence; but she, deprived +of ours by the many household tasks that she herself +assumed, so rigidly maintained and deftly executed, +seemed always just as happy when alone as +when in our boisterous, fun-loving company. Such +resources had Mary Alice Smith--such a wonderful +inventive fancy! She could talk to herself--a +favorite amusement, I might almost say a popular +amusement, of hers, since these monologues at times +would involve numberless characters, chipping in +from manifold quarters of a wholesale discussion, +and querying and exaggerating, agreeing and +controverting, till the dishes she was washing would +clash and clang excitedly in the general badinage. +Loaded with a pyramid of glistening cups and +saucers, she would improvise a gallant line of march +from the kitchen table to the pantry, heading an +imaginary procession, and whistling a fife-tune that +would stir your blood. Then she would trippingly +return, rippling her rosy fingers up and down the +keys of an imaginary portable piano, or stammering +flat-soled across the floor, chuffing and tooting like +a locomotive. And she would gravely propound to +herself the most intricate riddles--ponder thoughtfully +and in silence over them--hazard the most +ridiculous answers, and laugh derisively at her +own affected ignorance. She would guess again +and again, and assume the most gleeful surprise +upon at last giving the proper answer, and then +she would laugh jubilantly, and mockingly scout +herself with having given out "a fool-riddle" that +she could guess "with both eyes shut." + +"Talk about riddles," she said abruptly to us, +one evening after supper, as we lingered watching +her clearing away the table--"talk about riddles, +it--takes--David--Mason--Jeffries--to--tell--riddles! +Bet you don't know + + 'Riddle-cum, riddle-cum right! + Where was I last Saturd'y night? + The winds blow--the boughs did shake-- + I saw the hole a fox did make!' " + + +Again we felt that indefinable thrill never +separate from the strange utterance, suggestive always +of some dark mystery, and fascinating and holding +the childish fancy in complete control. + +"Bet you don't know this-'un neether: + + 'A holler-hearted father, + And a hump-back mother-- + Three black orphants + All born together!' " + + +We were dumb. + +"You can't guess nothin'!" she said half pityingly. +"W'y, them's easy as fallin' off a chunk! First-un's +a man named Fox, and he kilt his wife and chopped +her head off, and they was a man named Wright +lived in that neighberhood--and he was a-goin' +home--and it was Saturd'y night--and he was +a-comin' through the big woods--and they was a +storm--and Wright he clumb a tree to git out of +the rain, and while he was up there here come +along a man with a dead woman--and a pickax, +and a spade. And he drug the dead woman under +the same tree where Mr. Wright was--so ever' +time it 'ud lightnin', w'y, Wright he could look down +and see him a-diggin' a grave there to bury the +woman in. So Wright, he kep' still tel he got her +buried all right, you know, and went back home; +and then he clumb down and lit out fer town, and +waked up the constabul--and he got a supeeny and +went out to Fox's place, and had him jerked up +'fore the gran' jury. Then, when Fox was in +court and wanted to know where their proof was +that he kilt his wife, w'y, Wright he jumps up and +says that riddle to the judge and all the neighbers +that was there. And so when they got it all studied +out--w'y, they tuk old Fox out and hung him under +the same tree where he buried Mrs. Fox under. And +that's all o' that'n; and the other'n--I promised-- +David--Mason--Jeffries--I wouldn't--never--tell +--no--livin'--soul--'less--he--gimme--leef,--er-- +they--guessed--it--out--their--own--se'f!" And +as she gave this rather ambiguous explanation of +the first riddle, with the mysterious comment on the +latter in conclusion, she shook her elfin tresses back +over her shoulders with a cunning toss of her head +and a glimmering twinkle of her pale bright eyes +that somewhat reminded us of the fairy godmother +in Cinderella. + +And Mary Alice Smith was right, too, in her early +prognostications regarding the visits of her Uncle +Tomps and Aunt 'Lizabeth. Many times through +the winter they "jest dropped in," as Aunt 'Lizabeth +always expressed it, "to see how we was a-gittin' on +with Mary Alice." And once, "in court week," +during a prolonged trial in which Uncle Tomps and +Aunt 'Lizabeth rather prominently figured, they +"jest dropped in" on us and settled down and dwelt +with us for the longest five days and nights we +children had ever in our lives experienced. Nor +was our long term of restraint from childish sports +relieved wholly by their absence, since Aunt 'Lizabeth +had taken Mary Alice back with them, saying +that "a good long visit to her dear old home--pore +as it was--would do the child good." + +And then it was that we went about the house in +moody silence, the question, "Where--is--Mary-- +Alice--Smith?" forever yearning at our lips for +utterance, and the still belated echo in the old hall +overhead forever answering, "Oh--she--has--gone +--home!" + +It was early spring when she returned. And +we were looking for her coming, and knew a week +beforehand the very day she would arrive--for had +not Aunt 'Lizabeth sent special word by Uncle +Tomps, who "had come to town to do his millin', and +git the latest war news, not to fail to jest drop in +and tell us that they was layin' off to send Mary +Alice in next Saturd'y." + +Our little town, like every other village and +metropolis throughout the country at that time, was, +to the children at least, a scene of continuous +holiday and carnival. The nation's heart was +palpitating with the feverish pulse of war, and already +the still half-frozen clods of the common highway +were beaten into frosty dust by the tread of marshaled +men; and the shrill shriek of the fife, and +the hoarse boom and jar and rattling patter of the +drums stirred every breast with something of that +rapturous insanity of which true patriots and heroes +can alone be made. + +But on the day--when Mary Alice Smith was +to return--what was all the gallant tumult of the +town to us? I remember how we ran far up +the street to welcome her--for afar off we had +recognized her elfish face and eager eyes peering +expectantly from behind the broad shoulders of a +handsome fellow mounted on a great high-stepping +horse that neighed and pranced excitedly as we ran +scurrying toward them. + +"Whoo-ee!" she cried in perfect ecstasy, as we +paused in breathless admiration. "Clear--the-- +track--there,--old--folks--young--folks!--fer-- +Mary--Alice--Smith--and--David--Mason--Jeffries-- +is--come--to--town!" + +O what a day that was! And how vain indeed +would be the attempt to detail here a tithe of its +glory, or our happiness in having back with us our +dear little girl, and her hysterical delight in seeing +us so warmly welcome to the full love of our childish +hearts the great, strong, round-faced, simple- +natured "David--Mason--Jeffries"! Long and +long ago we had learned to love him as we loved +the peasant hero of some fairy tale of Christian +Andersen's; but now that he was with us in most +wholesome and robust verity, our very souls seemed +scampering from our bodies to run to him and be +caught up and tossed and swung and dandled in +his gentle giant arms. + +All that long delicious morning we were with +him. In his tender charge we were permitted to go +down among the tumult and the music of the +streets, his round good-humored face and big blue +eyes lit with a luster like our own. And happy +little Mary Alice Smith--how proud she was of +him! And how closely and how tenderly, through +all that golden morning, did the strong brown hand +clasp hers! A hundred times at least, as we promenaded +thus, she swung her head back jauntily to +whisper to us in that old mysterious way of hers +that "David--Mason--Jeffries--and--Mary--Alice +--Smith--knew--something--that--we--couldn't +--guess!" But when he had returned us home, and +after dinner had started down the street alone, with +little Mary Alice clapping her hands after him +above the gate and laughing in a strange new voice, +and with the backs of her little fluttering hands +vainly striving to blot out the big tear-drops that +gathered in her eyes, we vaguely guessed the secret +she and David kept. That night at supper-time we +knew it fully. He had enlisted. + +. . . . . . . + + +Among the list of "killed" at Rich Mountain, +Virginia, occurred the name of "Jeffries, David M." +We kept it from her as long as we could. At last +she knew. + +. . . . . . . + + +"It don't seem like no year ago to me!" Over +and over she had said these words. The face was +very pale and thin, and the eyes so bright--so +bright! The kindly hand that smoothed away the +little sufferer's hair trembled and dropped tenderly +again upon the folded ones beneath the snowy +spread. + +"Git me out the picture again!" + +The trembling hand lifted once more and searched +beneath the pillow. + +She drew the thin hands up, and, smiling, pressed +the pictured face against her lips. "David--Mason +--Jeffries," she said--"le's--me--and--you--go-- +play--out--on--the--stairs!" + +And ever in the empty home a voice goes +moaning on and on, and "Where is Mary Alice?" it +cries, and "Where--is--Mary--Alice--Smith?" +And the still belated echo, through the high depths +of the old hall overhead, answers quaveringly back, +"Oh--she--has--gone--home!" But her voice-- +it is silent evermore! + +"Oh, where is Mary Alice Smith?" She taught +us how to call her thus--and now she will not +answer us! Have we no voice to reach her with? +How sweet and pure and glad they were in those old +days, as we recall the accents ringing through the +hall--the same we vainly cry to her. Her fancies +were so quaint--her ways so full of prankish +mysteries! We laughed then; now, upon our knees, +we wring our lifted hands and gaze, through streaming +tears, high up the stairs she used to climb in +childish glee, to call and answer eerily. And now, +no answer anywhere! + +How deft the little finger-tips in every task! The +hands, how smooth and delicate to lull and soothe! +And the strange music of her lips! The very +crudeness of their speech made chaster yet the +childish thought her guileless utterance had caught +from spirit-depths beyond our reach. And so her +homely name grew fair and sweet and beautiful +to hear, blent with the echoes pealing clear and +vibrant up the winding stair: "Where--where is Mary +Alice Smith?" She taught us how to call her thus +--but oh, she will not answer us! We have no +voice to reach her with. + + + + +THE OLD MAN + +[Response made to the sentiment, "The Old Man," +at a dinner of the Indianapolis Literary Club.] + + "You are old, Father William," the young man said, + "And your hair has become very white; + And yet you incessantly stand on your head-- + Do you think, at your age, it is right?" + +THE OLD MAN never grows so old as to be +come either stale, juiceless, or unpalatable. The +older he grows, the mellower and riper he becomes. +His eyes may fail him, his step falter, and his big- +mouthed shoes--"a world too wide for his shrunk +shank"--may cluck and shuffle as he walks; his +rheumatics may make great knuckles of his knees; +the rusty hinges of his vertebrae may refuse +cunningly to articulate, but all the same the "backbone" +of the old man has been time-seasoned, tried, and +tested, and no deerskin vest was ever buttoned +round a tougher! Look at the eccentric kinks and +curvings of it--its abrupt depression at the base, +and its rounded bulging at the shoulders; but don't +laugh with the smart young man who airily observes +how full-chested the old man would be if his head +were only turned around, and don't kill the young +man, either, until you take him out some place and +tell him that the old man got himself warped up in +that shape along about the time when everybody +had to hump himself. Try to bring before the +young man's defective mental vision a dissolving +view of a "good old-fashioned barn-raisin' "--and +the old man doing all the "raisin' " himself, and +"grubbin'," and "burnin' " logs and "underbrush," +and "dreenin' " at the same time, and trying to coax +something besides calamus to grow in the spongy +little tract of swamp-land that he could stand in the +middle of and "wobble" and shake the whole farm. +Or, if you can't recall the many salient features of +the minor disadvantages under which the old man +used to labor, your pliant limbs may soon overtake +him, and he will smilingly tell you of trials and +privations of the early days, until your anxiety about +the young man just naturally stagnates, and dries +up, and evaporates, and blows away. + +In this little side-show of existence the old man +is always worth the full price of admission. He +is not only the greatest living curiosity on exhibition, +but the object of the most genial solicitude and +interest to the serious observer. It is even good to +look upon his vast fund of afflictions, finding +prominent above them all that wholesome patience that +surpasseth understanding; to dwell compassionately +upon his prodigality of aches and ailments, and yet, +by his pride in their wholesale possession, and his +thorough resignation to the inevitable, continually to +be rebuked, and in part made envious of the old +man's right-of-title situation. Nature, after all, is +kinder than unkind to him, and always has a +compensation and a soothing balm for every blow that +age may deal him. And in the fading embers of +the old man's eyes there are, at times, swift flashes +and rekindlings of the smiles of youth, and the old +artlessness about the wrinkled face that dwelt there +when his cheeks were like the pippins, and his + + "Red lips redder still + Kissed by strawberries on the hill." + +And thus it is the children are intuitively drawn +toward him, and young, pure-faced mothers are +forever hovering about him, with just such humorings +and kindly ministrations as they bestow on +the little emperor of the household realm, strapped +in his high chair at the dinner-table, crying "Amen" +in the midst of "grace," and ignoring the "substantials" +of the groaning board, and at once insisting +upon a square deal of the more "temporal blessings" +of jelly, cake, and pie. And the old man has justly +earned every distinction he enjoys. Therefore let +him make your hearthstone all the brighter with the +ruddy coal he drags up from it with his pipe, as he +comfortably settles himself where, with reminiscent +eyes, he may watch the curling smoke of his tobacco +as it indolently floats, and drifts and drifts, +and dips at last, and vanishes up the grateful flue. +At such times, when a five-year-old, what a haven +every boy has found between the old grandfather's +knees! Look back in fancy at the faces blending +there--the old man's and the boy's--and, with the +nimbus of the smoke-wreaths round the brows, the +gilding of the firelight on cheek and chin, and the +rapt and far-off gazings of the eyes of both, why, +but for the silver tinsel of the beard of one and the +dusky elf-locks of the other, the faces seem almost +like twins. + +With such a view of age, one feels like whipping +up the lazy years and getting old at once. In heart +and soul the old man is not old--and never will be. +He is paradoxically old, and that is all. So it is that +he grows younger with increasing years, until old +age at worst is always at a level par with youth. +Who ever saw a man so old as not secretly and most +heartily to wish the veteran years upon years of +greater age? And at what great age did ever any +old man pass away and leave behind no sudden +shock, and no selfish hearts still to yearn after him +and grieve on unconsoled? Why, even in the slow +declining years of old Methuselah--the banner old +man of the universe,--so old that history grew +absolutely tired waiting for him to go off some place and +die--even Methuselah's taking off must have seemed +abrupt to his immediate friends, and a blow to the +general public that doubtless plunged it into the +profoundest gloom. For nine hundred and sixty-nine +years this durable old man had "smelt the rose above +the mold," and doubtless had a thousand times +been told by congratulating friends that he didn't +look a day older than nine hundred and sixty-eight; +and necessarily the habit of living, with him, was +hard to overcome. + +In his later years what an oracle he must +have been, and with what reverence his friends +must have looked upon the "little, glassy-headed, +hairless man," and hung upon his every utterance! +And with what unerring gift of prophecy +could he foretell the long and husky droughts +of summer--the gracious rains, at last,--the +milk-sick breeding autumn and the blighting +winter, simply by the way his bones felt after a +century's casual attack of inflammatory rheumatism! +And, having annually frosted his feet for some +odd centuries--boy and man--we can fancy with +what quiet delight he was wont to practise his +prognosticating facilities on "the boys," forecasting the +coming of the then fledgling cyclone and the gosling +blizzard, and doubtless even telling the day of the +month by the way his heels itched. And with what +wonderment and awe must old chronic maladies +have regarded him--tackling him singly or in solid +phalanx, only to drop back pantingly, at last, and +slink away dumfounded and abashed! And with +what brazen pride the final conquering disease must +have exulted over its shameless victory! But this is +pathos here, and not a place for ruthless speculation: +a place for asterisks--not words. Peace! +peace! The man is dead! "The fever called living +is over at last." The patient slumbers. He takes +his rest. He sleeps. Come away! He is the oldest +dead man in the cemetery. + +Whether the hardy, stall-fed old man of the +country, or the opulent and well-groomed old man of +the metropolis, he is one in our esteem and the still +warmer affections of the children. The old man +from the country--you are always glad to see him +and hear him talk. There is a breeziness of the +woods and hills and a spice of the bottom-lands and +thickets in everything he says, and dashes of shadow +and sunshine over the waving wheat are in all the +varying expressions of his swarthy face. The grip +of his hand is a thing to bet on, and the undue +loudness of his voice in greeting you is even lulling +and melodious, since unconsciously it argues for the +frankness of a nature that has nothing to conceal. +Very probably you are forced to smile, meeting the +old man in town, where he never seems at ease, +and invariably apologizes in some way for his presence, +saying, perhaps, by way of explanation: "Yessir, +here I am, in spite o' myself. Come in day +afore yisterd'y. Boys was thrashin' on the place, +and the beltin' kept a-troublin' and delayin' of 'em +--and I was potterin' round in the way anyhow, +tel finally they sent me off to town to git some +whang-luther and ribbets, and while I was in, +I thought--I thought I'd jest run over and see the +Jedge about that Henry County matter; and as I +was knockin' round the court-house, first thing I +knowed I'll be switched to death ef they didn't pop +me on the jury! And here I am, eatin' my head off +up here at the tavern. Reckon, tho', the county'll +stand good for my expenses. Ef hit cain't, I kin!" +And, with the heartiest sort of a laugh, the old man +jogs along, leaving you to smile till bedtime over +the happiness he has unconsciously contributed. + +Another instance of the old man's humor under +trying circumstances was developed but a few days +ago. This old man was a German citizen of an +inundated town in the Ohio valley. There was much +of the pathetic in his experience, but the bravery +with which he bore his misfortunes was admirable. +A year ago his little home was first invaded by the +flood, and himself and wife, and his son's family, +were driven from it to the hills for safety--but the +old man's telling of the story can not be improved +upon. It ran like this: "Last year, ven I svwim out +fon dot leedle home off mine, mit my vife, unt my +son, his vife unt leedle girls, I dink dot's der last +time goot-by to dose proberty! But afder der vater +is gone down, unt dry oop unt eberding, dere vas +yet der house dere. Unt my friends dey sait, 'Dot's +all you got yet.--Vell, feex oop der house--dot's +someding! feex oop der house, unt you vood still +hatt yet a home!' Vell, all summer I go to work, +unt spent me eberding unt feex der proberty. Den +I got yet a morgage on der house! Dees time here +der vater come again--till I vish it vas last year +vonce! Unt now all I safe is my vife, unt my son +his vife, unt my leedle grandchilderns! Else +everding is gone! All--everyding!--Der house gone--unt--unt--der +morgage gone, too!" And then the +old Teutonic face "melted all over in sunshiny +smiles," and, turning, he bent and lifted a sleepy +little girl from a pile of dirty bundles in the depot +waiting-room and went pacing up and down the +muddy floor, saying things in German to the child. +I thought the whole thing rather beautiful. That's +the kind of an old man who, saying good-by to +his son, would lean and kiss the young man's hand, +as in the Dutch regions of Pennsylvania, two or +three weeks ago, I saw an old man do. + +Mark Lemon must have known intimately and +loved the genteel old man of the city when the once +famous domestic drama of "Grandfather Whitehead" +was conceived. In the play the old man--a +once prosperous merchant--finds a happy home in +the household of his son-in-law. And here it is +that the gentle author has drawn at once the poem, +the picture, and the living proof of the old +Wordsworthian axiom, "The child is father to the man." +The old man, in his simple way, and in his great +love for his wilful little grandchild, is being +continually distracted from the grave sermons and +moral lessons he would read the boy. As, for +instance, aggrievedly attacking the little fellow's +neglect of his books and his inordinate tendency +toward idleness and play--the culprit, in the meantime, +down on the floor clumsily winding his top-- +the old man runs on something in this wise: + +"Play! play! play! Always play and no work, no +study, no lessons. And here you are, the only child +of the most indulgent parents in the world--parents +that, proud as they are of you, would be ten times +prouder only to see you at your book, storing +your mind with useful knowledge, instead of, day +in, day out, frittering away your time over your +toys and your tops and marbles. And even when +your old grandfather tries to advise you and wants +to help you, and is always ready and eager to assist +you, and all--why, what's it all amount to? Coax +and beg and tease and plead with you, and yet--and +yet"-- (Mechanically kneeling as he speaks)-- +"Now that's not the way to wind your top! How +many more times will I have to show you!" And +an instant later the old man's admonitions are +entirely forgotten, and his artless nature--dull now to +everything but the childish glee in which he shares-- +is all the sweeter and more lovable for its simplicity. + +And so it is, Old Man, that you are always +touching the very tenderest places in our hearts-- +unconsciously appealing to our warmest sympathies, +and taking to yourself our purest love. We look +upon your drooping figure, and we mark your tottering +step and trembling hand, yet a reliant something +in your face forbids compassion, and a something +in your eye will not permit us to look sorrowfully +on you. And, however we may smile at your +quaint ways and old-school oddities of manner and +of speech, our merriment is ever tempered with the +gentlest reverence. + + + +THE GILDED ROLL + +Nosing around in an old box--packed away, +and lost to memory for years--an hour ago +I found a musty package of gilt paper, or rather, +a roll it was, with the green-tarnished gold of the +old sheet for the outer wrapper. I picked it up +mechanically to toss it into some obscure corner, +when, carelessly lifting it by one end, a child's tin +whistle dropped therefrom and fell tinkling on the +attic floor. It lies before me on my writing table +now--and so, too, does the roll entire, though now +a roll no longer,--for my eager fingers have unrolled +the gilded covering, and all its precious contents +are spread out beneath my hungry eyes. + +Here is a scroll of ink-written music. I don't +read music, but I know the dash and swing of the +pen that rained it on the page. Here is a letter, +with the selfsame impulse and abandon in every +syllable; and its melody--however sweet the other +--is far more sweet to me. And here are other +letters like it--three--five--and seven, at least. Bob +wrote them from the front, and Billy kept them +for me when I went to join him. Dear boy! Dear +boy! + +Here are some cards of bristol-board. Ah! when +Bob came to these there were no blotches then. +What faces--what expressions! The droll, ridiculous, +good-for-nothing genius, with his "sad mouth," +as he called it, "upside down," laughing always-- +at everything, at big rallies, and mass-meetings and +conventions, county fairs, and floral halls, booths, +watermelon-wagons, dancing-tents, the swing, the +Daguerrean-car, the "lung-barometer," and the air- +gun man. Oh! what a gifted, good-for-nothing boy +Bob was in those old days! And here's a picture +of a girlish face--a very faded photograph--even +fresh from "the gallery," five and twenty years ago, +it was a faded thing. But the living face--how +bright and clear that was!--for "Doc," Bob's awful +name for her, was a pretty girl, and brilliant, clever, +lovable every way. No wonder Bob fancied her! +And you could see some hint of her jaunty loveliness +in every fairy face he drew, and you could +find her happy ways and dainty tastes unconsciously +assumed in all he did--the books he read--the +poems he admired, and those he wrote; and, ringing +clear and pure and jubilant, the vibrant beauty +of her voice could clearly be defined and traced +through all his music. Now, there's the happy pair +of them--Bob and Doc. Make of them just whatever +your good fancy may dictate, but keep in mind +the stern, relentless ways of destiny. + +You are not at the beginning of a novel, only at +the threshold of one of a hundred experiences that +lie buried in the past, and this particular one most +happily resurrected by these odds and ends found +in the gilded roll. + +You see, dating away back, the contents of this +package, mainly, were hastily gathered together +after a week's visit out at the old Mills farm; the +gilt paper, and the whistle, and the pictures, they +were Billy's; the music pages, Bob's, or Doc's; the +letters and some other manuscripts were mine. + +The Mills girls were great friends of Doc's, and +often came to visit her in town; and so Doc often +visited the Mills's. This is the way that Bob first +got out there, and won them all, and "shaped the +thing" for me, as he would put it; and lastly, we +had lugged in Billy,--such a handy boy, you know, +to hold the horses on picnic excursions, and to +watch the carriage and the luncheon, and all that.-- +"Yes, and," Bob would say, "such a serviceable +boy in getting all the fishing tackle in proper order, +and digging bait, and promenading in our wake up +and down the creek all day, with the minnow- +bucket hanging on his arm, don't you know!" + +But jolly as the days were, I think jollier were +the long evenings at the farm. After the supper in +the grove, where, when the weather permitted, +always stood the table ankle-deep in the cool green +plush of the sward; and after the lounge upon the +grass, and the cigars, and the new fish stories, and +the general invoice of the old ones, it was delectable +to get back to the girls again, and in the old +"best room" hear once more the lilt of the old +songs and the staccatoed laughter of the piano +mingling with the alto and falsetto voices of the Mills +girls, and the gallant soprano of the dear girl Doc. + +This is the scene I want you to look in upon, +as, in fancy, I do now--and here are the materials +for it all, husked from the gilded roll: + +Bob, the master, leans at the piano now, and Doc +is at the keys, her glad face often thrown up side- +wise toward his own. His face is boyish--for there +is yet but the ghost of a mustache upon his lip. +His eyes are dark and clear, of over-size when looking +at you, but now their lids are drooped above +his violin, whose melody has, for the time, almost +smoothed away the upward kinkings of the corners +of his mouth. And wonderfully quiet now +is every one, and the chords of the piano, too, are +low and faltering; and so, at last, the tune itself +swoons into the universal hush, and--Bob is rasping, +in its stead, the ridiculous, but marvelously +perfect imitation of the "priming" of a pump, while +Billy's hands forget the "chiggers" on the bare +backs of his feet, as, with clapping palms, he dances +round the room in ungovernable spasms of delight. +And then we all laugh; and Billy, taking advantage +of the general tumult, pulls Bob's head down and +whispers, "Git 'em to stay up 'way late to-night!" +And Bob, perhaps remembering that we go back +home to-morrow, winks at the little fellow and whispers, +"You let me manage 'em! Stay up till broad +daylight if we take a notion--eh?" And Billy +dances off again in newer glee, while the inspired +musician is plunking a banjo imitation on his +enchanted instrument, which is unceremoniously +drowned out by a circus-tune from Doc that is +absolutely inspiring to every one but the barefooted +brother, who drops back listlessly to his old position +on the floor and sullenly renews operations on +his "chigger" claims. + +"Thought you was goin' to have pop-corn to-night +all so fast!" he says, doggedly, in the midst of a +momentary lull that has fallen on a game of whist. +And then the oldest Mills girl, who thinks cards stupid +anyhow, says: "That's so, Billy; and we're going +to have it, too; and right away, for this game's +just ending, and I shan't submit to being bored with +another. I say 'pop-corn' with Billy! And after +that," she continues, rising and addressing the party +in general, "we must have another literary and +artistic tournament, and that's been in contemplation +and preparation long enough; so you gentlemen can +be pulling your wits together for the exercises, while +us girls see to the refreshments." + +"Have you done anything toward it!" queries +Bob, when the girls are gone, with the alert Billy in +their wake. + +"Just an outline," I reply. "How with you?" + +"Clean forgot it--that is, the preparation; but I've +got a little old second-hand idea, if you'll all help me +out with it, that'll amuse us some, and tickle Billy, +I'm certain." + +So that's agreed upon; and while Bob produces +his portfolio, drawing paper, pencils and so on, I +turn to my note-book in a dazed way and begin +counting my fingers in a depth of profound abstraction, +from which I am barely aroused by the reappearance +of the girls and Billy. + +"Goody, goody, goody! Bob's goin' to make +pictures!" cries Billy, in additional transport to that +the cake pop-corn had produced. + +"Now, you girls," says Bob, gently detaching the +affectionate Billy from one leg and moving a chair +to the table, with a backward glance of intelligence +toward the boy,--"you girls are to help us all you +can, and we can all work; but, as I'll have all the +illustrations to do, I want you to do as many of +the verses as you can--that'll be easy, you know,-- +because the work entire is just to consist of a series +of fool-epigrams, such as, for instance,--listen, +Billy: + + Here lies a young man + Who in childhood began + To swear, and to smoke, and to drink,-- + In his twentieth year + He quit swearing and beer, + And yet is still smoking, I think." + + +And the rest of his instructions are delivered in +lower tones, that the boy may not hear; and then, all +matters seemingly arranged, he turns to the boy with +--"And now, Billy, no lookin' over shoulders, you +know, or swinging on my chair-back while I'm at +work. When the pictures are all finished, then you +can take a squint at 'em, and not before. Is that all +hunky, now?" + +"Oh! who's a-goin' to look over your shoulder-- +only DOC." And as the radiant Doc hastily quits +that very post, and dives for the offending brother, +he scrambles under the piano and laughs derisively. + +And then a silence falls upon the group--a +gracious quiet, only intruded upon by the very juicy +and exuberant munching of an apple from a remote +fastness of the room, and the occasional thumping +of a bare heel against the floor. + +At last I close my note-book with a half slam. + +"That means," says Bob, laying down his pencil, +and addressing the girls,--"that means he's +concluded his poem, and that he's not pleased with it +in any manner, and that he intends declining to read +it, for that self-acknowledged reason, and that he +expects us to believe every affected word of his +entire speech--" + +"Oh, don't!" I exclaim. + +"Then give us the wretched production, in all its +hideous deformity!" + +And the girls all laugh so sympathetically, and +Bob joins them so gently, and yet with a tone, I +know, that can be changed so quickly to my further +discomfiture, that I arise at once and read, without +apology or excuse, this primitive and very callow +poem recovered here to-day from the gilded roll: + + +A BACKWARD LOOK + + As I sat smoking, alone, yesterday, + And lazily leaning back in my chair, + Enjoying myself in a general way-- + Allowing my thoughts a holiday + From weariness, toil and care, + My fancies--doubtless, for ventilation-- + Left ajar the gates of my mind,-- + And Memory, seeing the situation + Slipped out in the street of "Auld Lang Syne"-- + + Wandering ever with tireless feet + Through scenes of silence, and jubilee + Of long-hushed voices; and faces sweet + Were thronging the shadowy side of the street + As far as the eye could see; + Dreaming again, in anticipation, + The same old dreams of our boyhood's days + That never come true, from the vague sensation + Of walking asleep in the world's strange ways. + + Away to the house where I was born! + And there was the selfsame clock that ticked + From the close of dusk to the burst of morn, + When life-warm hands plucked the golden corn + And helped when the apples were picked. + And the "chany dog" on the mantel-shelf, + With the gilded collar and yellow eyes, + Looked just as at first, when I hugged myself + Sound asleep with the dear surprise. + + And down to the swing in the locust-tree, + Where the grass was worn from the trampled ground, + And where "Eck" Skinner, "Old" Carr, and three + Or four such other boys used to be + Doin' "sky-scrapers," or "whirlin' round": + And again Bob climbed for the bluebird's nest, + And again "had shows" in the buggy-shed + Of Guymon's barn, where still, unguessed, + The old ghosts romp through the best days dead! + + And again I gazed from the old schoolroom + With a wistful look, of a long June day, + When on my cheek was the hectic bloom + Caught of Mischief, as I presume-- + He had such a "partial" way, + It seemed, toward me.--And again I thought + Of a probable likelihood to be + Kept in after school--for a girl was caught + Catching a note from me. + + And down through the woods to the swimming-hole-- + Where the big, white, hollow, old sycamore grows,-- + And we never cared when the water was cold, + And always "ducked" the boy that told + On the fellow that tied the clothes.-- + When life went so like a dreamy rhyme, + That it seems to me now that then + The world was having a jollier time + Than it ever will have again. + + +The crude production is received, I am glad to +note, with some expressions of favor from the company +though Bob, of course, must heartlessly dissipate +my weak delight by saying, "Well, it's certainly +bad enough; though," he goes on with an air +of deepest critical sagacity and fairness, "considered, +as it should be, justly, as the production of a +jour.-poet, why, it might be worse--that is, a little +worse." + +"Probably," I remember saying,--"probably I +might redeem myself by reading you this little +amateurish bit of verse, enclosed to me in a letter by +mistake, not very long ago." I here fish an envelope +from my pocket, the address of which all recognize +as in Bob's almost printed writing. He smiles +vacantly at it--then vividly colors. + +"What date?" he stoically asks. + +"The date," I suggestively answer, "of your last +letter to our dear Doc, at boarding-school, two days +exactly in advance of her coming home--this veritable +visit now." + +Both Bob and Doc rush at me--but too late. The +letter and contents have wholly vanished. The +youngest Miss Mills quiets us--urgently distracting +us, in fact, by calling our attention to the immediate +completion of our joint production; "For now," she +says, "with our new reinforcement, we can, with +becoming diligence, soon have it ready for both printer +and engraver, and then we'll wake up the boy (who +has been fortunately slumbering for the last quarter +of an hour), and present to him, as designed and +intended, this matchless creation of our united +intellects." At the conclusion of this speech we all go +good-humoredly to work, and at the close of half an +hour the tedious, but most ridiculous, task is +announced completed. + +As I arrange and place in proper form here on the +table the separate cards-twenty-seven in number-- +I sigh to think that I am unable to transcribe for +you the best part of the nonsensical work--the +illustrations. All I can give is the written copy of-- + + +BILLY'S ALPHABETICAL ANIMAL SHOW + + A WAS an elegant Ape + Who tied up his ears with red tape, + And wore a long veil + Half revealing his tail + Which was trimmed with jet bugles and crape. + + B was a boastful old Bear + Who used to say,--"Hoomh! I declare + I can eat--if you'll get me + The children, and let me-- + Ten babies, teeth, toe-nails and hair!" + + C was a Codfish who sighed + When snatched from the home of his pride, + But could he, embrined, + Guess this fragrance behind, + How glad he would be to have died! + + D was a dandified Dog + Who said,--"Though it's raining like fog + I wear no umbrellah, + Me boy, for a fellah + Might just as well travel incog!" + + E was an elderly Eel + Who would say,--"Well, I really feel-- + As my grandchildren wriggle + And shout 'I should giggle'-- + A trifle run down at the heel!" + + F was a Fowl who conceded + SOME hens might hatch more eggs than SHE did,-- + But she'd children as plenty + As eighteen or twenty, + And that was quite all that she needed. + + G was a gluttonous Goat + Who, dining one day, table d'hote, + Ordered soup-bone, au fait, + And fish, papier-mache, + And a filet of Spring overcoat, + + H was a high-cultured Hound + Who could clear forty feet at a bound, + And a coon once averred + That his howl could be heard + For five miles and three-quarters around. + + I was an Ibex ambitious + To dive over chasms auspicious; + He would leap down a peak + And not light for a week, + And swear that the jump was delicious. + + J was a Jackass who said + He had such a bad cold in his head, + If it wasn't for leaving + The rest of us grieving, + He'd really rather be dead. + + K was a profligate Kite + Who would haunt the saloons every night; + And often he ust + To reel back to his roost + Too full to set up on it right. + + L was a wary old Lynx + Who would say,--"Do you know wot I thinks?-- + I thinks ef you happen + To ketch me a-nappin' + I'm ready to set up the drinks!" + + M was a merry old Mole, + Who would snooze all the day in his hole, + Then--all night, a-rootin' + Around and galootin'-- + He'd sing "Johnny, Fill up the Bowl!" + + N was a caustical Nautilus + Who sneered, "I suppose, when they've CAUGHT all us, +Like oysters they'll serve us, + And can us, preserve us, + And barrel, and pickle, and bottle us!" + + O was an autocrat Owl-- + Such a wise--such a wonderful fowl! + Why, for all the night through + He would hoot and hoo-hoo, + And hoot and hoo-hooter and howl! + + P was a Pelican pet, + Who gobbled up all he could get; + He could eat on until + He was full to the bill, + And there he had lodgings to let! + + Q was a querulous Quail, + Who said: "It will little avail + The efforts of those + Of my foes who propose + To attempt to put salt on my tail!" + + R was a ring-tailed Raccoon, + With eyes of the tinge of the moon, + And his nose a blue-black, + And the fur on his back + A sad sort of sallow maroon. + + S is a Sculpin--you'll wish + Very much to have one on your dish, + Since all his bones grow + On the outside, and so + He's a very desirable fish. + + T was a Turtle, of wealth + Who went round with particular stealth, + "Why," said he, "I'm afraid + Of being waylaid + When I even walk out for my health!" + + U was a Unicorn curious, + With one horn, of a growth so LUXURIOUS, + He could level and stab it-- + If you didn't grab it-- + Clean through you, he was so blamed furious! + + V was a vagabond Vulture + Who said: "I don't want to insult yer, + But when you intrude + Where in lone solitude + I'm a-preyin', you're no man o' culture!" + + W was a wild WOODchuck, + And you just bet that he COULD "chuck"-- + He'd eat raw potatoes, + Green corn, and tomatoes, + And tree roots, and call it all "GOOD chuck!" + + X was a kind of X-cuse + Of some-sort-o'-thing that got loose + Before we could name it, + And cage it, and tame it, + And bring it in general use. + + Y is the Yellowbird,--bright + As a petrified lump of starlight, + Or a handful of lightning + Bugs, squeezed in the tight'ning + Pink fist of a boy, at night. + + Z is the Zebra, of course!-- + A kind of a clown-of-a-horse,-- + Each other despising, + Yet neither devising + A way to obtain a divorce! + + & here is the famous--what-is-it? + Walk up, Master Billy, and quiz it: + You've seen the REST of 'em-- + Ain't this the BEST of 'em, + Right at the end of your visit? + + +At last Billy is sent off to bed. It is the prudent +mandate of the old folks: But so loathfully the poor +child goes, Bob's heart goes, too.--Yes, Bob himself, +to keep the little fellow company for a while, and, +up there under the old rafters, in the pleasant gloom, +lull him to famous dreams with fairy tales. And it +is during this brief absence that the youngest Mills +girl gives us a surprise. She will read a poem, she +says, written by a very dear friend of hers who, +fortunately for us, is not present to prevent her. We +guard door and window as she reads. Doc says she +will not listen; but she does listen, and cries, too-- +out of pure vexation, she asserts. The rest of us, +however, cry just because of the apparent honesty +of the poem of-- + + +BEAUTIFUL HANDS + + O your hands--they are strangely fair! + Fair--for the jewels that sparkle there,-- + Fair--for the witchery of the spell + That ivory keys alone can tell; + But when their delicate touches rest + Here in my own do I love them best + As I clasp with eager, acquisitive spans + My glorious treasure of beautiful hands! + + Marvelous--wonderful--beautiful hands! + They can coax roses to bloom in the strands + Of your brown tresses; and ribbons will twine, + Under mysterious touches of thine, + Into such knots as entangle the soul + And fetter the heart under such a control + As only the strength of my love understands-- + My passionate love for your beautiful hands. + + As I remember the first fair touch + Of those beautiful hands that I love so much, + I seem to thrill as I then was thrilled, + Kissing the glove that I found unfilled-- + When I met your gaze, and the queenly bow + As you said to me, laughingly, "Keep it now!" . . . + And dazed and alone in a dream I stand, + Kissing this ghost of your beautiful hand. + + When first I loved, in the long ago, + And held your hand as I told you so-- + Pressed and caressed it and gave it a kiss + And said "I could die for a hand like this!" + Little I dreamed love's fullness yet + Had to ripen when eyes were wet + And prayers were vain in their wild demands + For one warm touch of your beautiful hands. + + Beautiful Hands!--O Beautiful Hands! + Could you reach out of the alien lands + Where you are lingering, and give me, to-night + Only a touch--were it ever so light-- + My heart were soothed, and my weary brain + Would lull itself into rest again; + For there is no solace the world commands + Like the caress of your beautiful hands. + + . . . . . . . . + + +Violently winking at the mist that blurs my sight, +I regretfully awaken to the here and now. And is +it possible, I sorrowfully muse, that all this glory +can have fled away?--that more than twenty long, +long years are spread between me and that happy +night? And is it possible that all the dear old faces +--Oh, quit it! quit it! Gather the old scraps up and +wad 'em back into oblivion, where they belong! + +Yes, but be calm--be calm! Think of cheerful +things. You are not all alone. BILLY'S living yet. + +I know--and six feet high--and sag-shouldered-- +and owns a tin and stove-store, and can't hear +thunder! BILLY! + +And the youngest Mills girl--she's alive, too. + +S'pose I don't know that? I married her! + +And Doc.-- + +BOB married her. Been in California for more +than fifteen years--on some blasted cattle-ranch, or +something,--and he's worth a half a million! And +am I less prosperous with this gilded roll? + + + +A WILD IRISHMAN + +Not very many years ago the writer was for +some months stationed at South Bend, a thriving +little city of northern Indiana. Its population is +mainly on the one side of the St. Joseph River, but +quite a respectable fraction thereof takes its +industrial way to the opposite shore, and there gains an +audience and a hearing in the rather imposing +growth and hurly-burly of its big manufactories, +and the consequent rapid appearance of multitudinous +neat cottages, tenement houses and business +blocks. A stranger entering South Bend proper on +any ordinary day, will be at some loss to account for +its prosperous appearance--its flagged and bouldered +streets--its handsome mercantile blocks, banks, and +business houses generally. Reasoning from cause to +effect, and seeing but a meager sprinkling of people +on the streets throughout the day, and these seeming, +for the most part, merely idlers, and in nowise +accessory to the evident thrift and opulence of their +surroundings, the observant stranger will be puzzled +at the situation. But when evening comes, and the +outlying foundries, sewing-machine, wagon, plow, +and other "works," together with the paper-mills and all the +nameless industries--when the operations +of all these are suspended for the day, and the +workmen and workwomen loosed from labor--then, +as this vast army suddenly invades and overflows +bridge, roadway, street and lane, the startled stranger +will fully comprehend the why and wherefore +of the city's high prosperity. And, once acquainted +with the people there, the fortunate sojourner will +find no ordinary culture and intelligence, and, as +certainly, he will meet with a social spirit and a +whole-souled heartiness that will make the place a +lasting memory. The town, too, is the home of +many world-known people, and a host of local +celebrities, the chief of which latter class I found, +during my stay there, in the person of Tommy Stafford, +or "The Wild Irishman" as everybody called +him. + +"Talk of odd fellows and eccentric characters," +said Major Blowney, my employer, one afternoon, +"you must see our 'Wild Irishman' here before you +say you've yet found the queerest, brightest, cleverest +chap in all your travels. What d'ye say, +Stockford?" And the Major paused in his work of +charging cartridges for his new breech-loading shotgun +and turned to await his partner's response. + +Stockford, thus addressed, paused above the +shield-sign he was lettering, slowly smiling as he +dipped and trailed his pencil through the ivory black +upon a bit of broken glass and said, in his deliberate, +half absent-minded way,--"Is it Tommy you're telling +him about?" and then, with a gradual broadening +of the smile, he went on, "Well, I should say so. +Tommy! What's come of the fellow, anyway? I +haven't seen him since his last bout with the mayor, +on his trial for shakin' up that fast-horse man." + +"The fast-horse man got just exactly what he +needed, too," said the genial Major, laughing, and +mopping his perspiring brow. "The fellow was +barkin' up the wrong stump when he tackled +Tommy! Got beat in the trade, at his own game, +you know, and wound up by an insult that no Irishman +would take; and Tommy just naturally wore +out the hall carpet of the old hotel with him!" + +"And then collared and led him to the mayor's +office himself, they say!" + +"Oh, he did!" said the Major, with a dash of +pride in the confirmation; "that's Tommy all over!" + +"Funny trial, wasn't it?" continued the ruminating +Stockford. + +"Wasn't it though?" laughed the Major. "The +porter's testimony: You see, he was for Tommy, +of course, and on examination testified that the +horseman struck Tommy first. And here Tommy +broke in with: 'He's a-meanin' well, yer Honor, but +he's lyin' to ye--he's lyin' to ye. No livin' man iver +struck me first--nor last, nayther, for the matter o' +that!' And I thought--the--court--would--die!" +continued the Major, in a like imminent state of +merriment. + +"Yes, and he said if he struck him first," +supplemented Stockford, "he'd like to know why the +horseman was 'wearin' all the black eyes, and the +blood, and the boomps on that head of um!' And +it's that talk that got him off with so light a fine!" + +"As it always does," said the Major, coming to +himself abruptly and looking at his watch. "Stock, +you say you're not going along with our duck-shooting +party this time? The old Kankakee is just lousy +with 'em this season!" + +"Can't go possibly," said Stockford, "not on +account of the work at all, but the folks ain't just +as well as I'd like to see them, and I'll stay here till +they're better. Next time I'll try and be ready for +you. Going to take Tommy, of course?" + +"Of course! Got to have 'The Wild Irishman' +with us! I'm going around to find him now." Then +turning to me the Major continued, "Suppose you +get on your coat and hat and come along? It's the +best chance you'll ever have to meet Tommy. It's +late anyhow, and Stockford'll get along without you. +Come on." + +"Certainly," said Stockford; "go ahead. And you +can take him ducking, too, if he wants to go." + +"But he doesn't want to go--and won't go," +replied the Major with a commiserative glance at me. +"Says he doesn't know a duck from a poll-parrot-- +nor how to load a shotgun--and couldn't hit a house +if he were inside of it and the door shut. Admits +that he nearly killed his uncle once, on the other side +of a tree, with a squirrel runnin' down it. Don't +want him along!" + +When I reached the street with the genial Major, +he gave me this advice: "Now, when you meet Tommy, you mustn't +take all he says for dead earnest, +and you mustn't believe, because he talks loud, and +in italics every other word, that he wants to do all +the talking and won't be interfered with. That's the +way he's apt to strike folks at first--but it's their +mistake, not his. Talk back to him--controvert him +whenever he's aggressive in the utterance of his +opinions, and if you're only honest in the announcement +of your own ideas and beliefs, he'll like you all +the better for standing by them. He's quick-tempered, +and perhaps a trifle sensitive, so share your +greater patience with him, and he'll pay you back by +fighting for you at the drop of the hat. In short, he's +as nearly typical of his gallant country's brave, +impetuous, fun-loving race as one man can be." + +"But is he quarrelsome?" I asked. + +"Not at all. There's the trouble. If he'd only +quarrel there'd be no harm done. Quarreling's +cheap, and Tommy's extravagant. A big blacksmith +here, the other day, kicked some boy out of his +shop, and Tommy, on his cart, happened to be passing +at the time; and he just jumped off without a +word, and went in and worked on that fellow for +about three minutes, with such disastrous results that +they couldn't tell his shop from a slaughter-house; +paid an assault and battery fine, and gave the boy a +dollar besides, and the whole thing was a positive +luxury to him. But I guess we'd better drop the +subject, for here's his cart, and here's Tommy. Hi! +there, you 'Fardown' Irish Mick!" called the Major, +in affected antipathy, "been out raiding the honest +farmers' hen-roosts again, have you?" + +We had halted at a corner grocery and produce +store, as I took it, and the smooth-faced, shaven- +headed man in woolen shirt, short vest, and suspenderless +trousers so boisterously addressed by the +Major, was just lifting from the back of his cart +a coop of cackling chickens. + +"Arrah! ye blasted Kerryonian!" replied the +handsome fellow, depositing the coop on the curb +and straightening his tall, slender figure; "I were +jist thinkin' of yez and the ducks, and here ye come +quackin' into the prisence of r'yalty, wid yer canvas- +back suit upon ye and the schwim-skins bechuxt yer +toes! How air yez, anyhow--and air we startin' for +the Kankakee by the nixt post?" + +"We're to start just as soon as we get the boys +together," said the Major, shaking hands. "The +crowd's to be at Andrews' by four, and it's fully that +now; so come on at once. We'll go 'round by Munson's +and have Hi send a boy to look after your +horse. Come; I want to introduce my friend +here to you, and we'll all want to smoke and jabber +a little in appropriate seclusion. Come on." And +the impatient Major had linked arms with his hesitating +ally and myself, and was turning the corner +of the street. + +"It's an hour's work I have yet wid the squawkers," +mildly protested Tommy, still hanging back +and stepping a trifle high; "but, as one Irishman +would say til another, 'Ye're wrong, but I'm wid +ye!' " + +And five minutes later the three of us had joined +a very jolly party in a snug back room, with + + "The chamber walls depicted all around + With portraitures of huntsman, hawk, and hound, + And the hurt deer;" + +and where, as well, drifted over the olfactory +intelligence a certain subtle, warm-breathed aroma, that +genially combated the chill and darkness of the day +without, and, resurrecting long-dead Christmases, +brimmed the grateful memory with all comfortable +cheer. + +A dozen hearty voices greeted the appearance of +Tommy and the Major, the latter adroitly pushing +the jovial Irishman to the front, with a mock-heroic +introduction to the general company, at the conclusion +of which Tommy, with his hat tucked under +his left elbow, stood bowing with a grace of pose +and presence Lord Chesterfield might have applauded. + +"Gintlemen," said Tommy, settling back upon his +heels and admiringly contemplating the group; +"gintlemen, I congratu-late yez wid a pride that +shoves the thumbs o' me into the arrum-holes of me +weshkit! At the inshtigation of the bowld O'Blowney-- +axin' the gintleman's pardon--I am here wid +no silver tongue of illoquence to para-lyze yez, but +I am prisent, as has been ripresinted, to jine wid yez +in a stupendous waste of gunpowder, and duck- +shot, and 'high-wines,' and ham sandwiches, upon +the silvonian banks of the ragin' Kankakee, where +the 'di-dipper' tips ye good-by wid his tail, and the +wild loon skoots like a sky-rocket for his exiled +home in the alien dunes of the wild morass--or, as +Tommy Moore so illegantly describes the blashted +birrud,-- + + 'Away to the dizhmal shwamp he spheeds-- + His path is rugged and sore + Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds + And many a fen where the serpent feeds, + And birrud niver flew before-- + And niver will fly any more' + + +if iver he arrives back safe into civilization again-- +and I've been in the poultry business long enough to +know the private opinion and personal integrity of +ivery fowl that flies the air or roosts on poles. But, +changin' the subject of my few small remarks here, +and thankin' yez wid an overflowin' heart but a dhry +tongue, I have the honor to propose, gintlemen, long +life and health to ivery mother's son o' yez, and +success to the 'Duck-hunters of Kankakee.' " + +"The duck-hunters of the Kankakee!" chorused +the elated party in such musical uproar that for a +full minute the voice of the enthusiastic Major +who was trying to say something--could not be +heard. Then he said: + +"I want to propose that theme--'The Duck- +hunters of the Kankakee', for one of Tommy's +improvisations. I move we have a song now from +Tommy on 'The Duck Hunters of the Kankakee.' " + +"Hurrah! Hurrah! A song from Tommy," cried +the crowd. "Make us up a song, and put us all into +it! A song from Tommy! A song! A song!" + +There was a queer light in the eye of the +Irishman. I observed him narrowly--expectantly. Often +I had read of this phenomenal art of improvised +ballad-singing, but had always remained a little +skeptical in regard to the possibility of such a feat. +Even in the notable instances of this gift as +displayed by the very clever Theodore Hook, I had +always half suspected some prior preparation--some +adroit forecasting of the sequence that seemed the +instant inspiration of his witty verses. Here was +evidently to be a test example, and I was all alert +to mark its minutest detail. + +The clamor had subsided, and Tommy had drawn +a chair near to and directly fronting the Major's. +His right hand was extended, closely grasping the +right hand of his friend which he scarce perceptibly, +though measuredly, lifted and let fall throughout the +length of all the curious performance. The voice +was not unmusical, nor was the quaint old ballad-air +adopted by the singer unlovely in the least; simply +a monotony was evident that accorded with the +levity and chance-finish of the improvisation--and +that the song was improvised on the instant I am +certain--though in nowise remarkable, for other +reasons, in rhythmic worth or finish. And while his +smiling auditors all drew nearer, and leant, with +parted lips to catch every syllable, the words of the +strange melody trailed unhesitatingly into the line; +literally, as here subjoined: + + "One gloomy day in the airly Fall, + Whin the sunshine had no chance at all-- + No chance at all for to gleam and shine + And lighten up this heart of mine: + + " 'Twas in South Bend, that famous town, + Whilst I were a-strollin' round and round, + I met some friends and they says to me: + 'It's a hunt we'll take on the Kankakee!' " + + +"Hurrah for the Kankakee! Give it to us, +Tommy!" cried an enthusiastic voice between +verses. "Now give it to the Major!" And the song +went on: + + "There's Major Blowney leads the van, + As crack a shot as an Irishman,-- + For it's the duck is a tin decoy + That his owld shotgun can't destroy:" + + +And a half-dozen jubilant palms patted the +Major's shoulders, and his ruddy, good-natured +face beamed with delight. "Now give it to the rest +of 'em, Tommy!" chuckled the Major. And the +song continued:-- + + "And along wid 'Hank' is Mick Maharr, + And Barney Pince, at 'The Shamrock' bar-- + There's Barney Pinch, wid his heart so true; + And the Andrews Brothers they'll go too." + + +"Hold on, Tommy!" chipped in one of the +Andrews; "you must give 'the Andrews Brothers' a +better advertisement than that! Turn us on a full +verse, can't you?" + +"Make 'em pay for it if you do!" said the Major +in an undertone. And Tommy promptly amended.-- + + "O, the Andrews Brothers, they'll be there, + Wid good se-gyars and wine to sphare,-- + They'll treat us here on fine champagne, + And whin we're there they'll treat us again." + + +The applause here was vociferous, and only +discontinued when a box of Havanas stood open on the +table. During the momentary lull thus occasioned, +I caught the Major's twinkling eyes glancing evasively +toward me, as he leaned whispering some further +instructions to Tommy, who again took up his +desultory ballad, while I turned and fled for the +street, catching, however, as I went, and high above +the laughter of the crowd, the satire of this quatrain +to its latest line. + + "But R-R-Riley he'll not go, I guess, + Lest he'd get lost in the wil-der-ness, + And so in the city he will shtop + For to curl his hair in the barber shop." + + +It was after six when I reached the hotel, but I +had my hair trimmed before I went in to supper. +The style of trimming adopted then I still rigidly +adhere to, and call it "the Tommy Stafford stubble- +crop." + +Ten days passed before I again saw the Major. +Immediately upon his return--it was late afternoon +when I heard of it--I determined to take my +evening walk out the long street toward his pleasant +home and call on him there. This I did, and +found him in a wholesome state of fatigue, slippers +and easy chair, enjoying his pipe on the piazza. Of +course, he was overflowing with happy reminiscences +of the hunt--the wood-and-water-craft-- +boats--ambushes--decoys, and tramp, and camp, +and so on, without end;--but I wanted to hear him +talk of "The Wild Irishman"--Tommy; and I think, +too, now, that the sagacious Major secretly read my +desires all the time. To be utterly frank with the +reader I will admit that I not only think the Major +divined my interest in Tommy, but I know he did; +for at last, as though reading my very thoughts, he +abruptly said, after a long pause, in which he +knocked the ashes from his pipe and refilled and +lighted it:--"Well, all I know of 'The Wild Irishman' +I can tell you in a very few words--that is, +if you care at all to listen?" And the crafty old +Major seemed to hesitate. + +"Go on--go on!" I said eagerly. + +"About forty years ago," resumed the Major +placidly, "in the little, old, unheard-of town +Karnteel, County Tyrone, Province Ulster, Ireland, +Tommy Stafford was fortunate enough--despite +the contrary opinion on that point of his wretchedly +poor parents--to be born. And here, again, as I +advised you the other day, you must be prepared for +constant surprises in the study of Tommy's character." + +"Go on," I said; "I'm prepared for anything." + +The Major smiled profoundly and continued:-- + +"Fifteen years ago, when he came to America-- +and the Lord only knows how he got the passage-- +money--he brought his widowed mother with him +here, and has supported, and is still supporting her. +Besides," went on the still secretly smiling Major, +"the fellow has actually found time, through all his +adversities, to pick up quite a smattering of education, +here and there--" + +"Poor fellow!" I broke in sympathizingly, "what +a pity it is that he couldn't have had such advantages +earlier in life," and as I recalled the broad brogue +of the fellow, together with his careless dress, +recognizing beneath it all the native talent and +brilliancy of a mind of most uncommon worth, I could +not restrain a deep sigh of compassion and regret. + +The Major was leaning forward in the gathering +dusk, and evidently studying my own face, the +expression of which, at that moment, was very grave +and solemn, I am sure. He suddenly threw himself +backward in his chair, in an uncontrollable burst of +laughter. "Oh, I just can't keep it up any longer," +he exclaimed. + +"Keep what up?" I queried, in a perfect maze of +bewilderment and surprise. "Keep what up?" I +repeated. + +"Why, all this twaddle, farce, travesty and by- +play regarding Tommy! You know I warned you, +over and over, and you mustn't blame me for the +deception. I never thought you'd take it so in +earnest!" and here the jovial Major again went into +convulsions of laughter. + +"But I don't understand a word of it all," I cried, +half frenzied with the gnarl and tangle of the whole +affair. "What 'twaddle, farce and by-play,' is it, +anyhow?" And in my vexation, I found myself on +my feet and striding nervously up and down the +paved walk that joined the street with the piazza, +pausing at last and confronting the Major almost +petulantly. "Please explain," I said, controlling my +vexation with an effort. + +The Major arose. "Your striding up and down +there reminds me that a little stroll on the street +might do us both good," he said. "Will you wait +until I get a coat and hat?" + +He rejoined me a moment later, and we passed +through the open gate; and saying, "Let's go down +this way," he took my arm and turned into a street, +where, cooling as the dusk was, the thick maples +lining the walk seemed to throw a special shade of +tranquillity upon us. + +"What I meant was"--began the Major in a low +serious voice,--"What I meant was--simply this: +Our friend Tommy, though the truest Irishman in +the world, is a man quite the opposite every way of +the character he has appeared to you. All that rich +brogue of his is assumed. Though he was poor, as I +told you, when he came here, his native quickness, +and his marvelous resources, tact, judgment, business +qualities--all have helped him to the equivalent +of a liberal education. His love of the humorous +and the ridiculous is unbounded; but he has serious +moments, as well, and at such times is as dignified +and refined in speech and manner as any man you'd +find in a thousand. He is a good speaker, can stir +a political convention to highest excitement when he +gets fired up; and can write an article for the press +that goes spang to the spot. He gets into a great +many personal encounters of a rather undignified +character; but they are almost invariably bred of his +innate interest in the 'under dog,' and the fire and +tow of his impetuous nature." + +My companion had paused here, and was looking +through some printed slips in his pocketbook. "I +wanted you to see some of the fellow's articles in +print, but I have nothing of importance here only +some of his 'doggerel,' as he calls it, and you've had +a sample of that. But here's a bit of the upper spirit +of the man--and still another that you should hear +him recite. You can keep them both if you care to. +The boys all fell in love with that last one, +particularly, hearing his rendition of it. So we had a +lot printed, and I have two or three left. Put these +two in your pocket and read them at your leisure." + +But I read them there and then, as eagerly, too, +as I append them here and now. The first is +called-- + +SAYS HE + + "Whatever the weather may be," says he-- + "Whatever the weather may be + It's plaze, if ye will, an' I'll say me say,-- + Supposin' to-day was the winterest day, + Wud the weather be changing because ye cried, + Or the snow be grass were ye crucified? + The best is to make your own summer," says he, + "Whatever the weather may be," says he-- + "Whatever the weather may be! + + "Whatever the weather may be," says he-- + "Whatever the weather may be, + It's the songs ye sing, an' the smiles ye wear, + That's a-makin' the sun shine everywhere; + An' the world of gloom is a world of glee, + Wid the bird in the bush, an' the bud in the tree, + An' the fruit on the stim of the bough," says he, + "Whatever the weather may be," says he-- + "Whatever the weather may be! + + "Whatever the weather may be," says he-- + "Whatever the weather may be, + Ye can bring the Spring, wid its green an' gold, + An' the grass in the grove where the snow lies cold; + An' ye'll warm yer back, wid a smiling face, + As ye sit at yer heart, like an owld fireplace, + An' toast the toes o' yer sowl," says he, + "Whatever the weather may be," says he-- + "Whatever the weather may be!" + + +"Now," said the Major, peering eagerly above my +shoulder, "go on with the next. To my mind, it is +even better than the first. A type of character you'll +recognize.--The same 'broth of a boy,' only +AMERICANIZED, don't you know." + +And I read the scrap entitled-- + +CHAIRLEY BURKE + + It's Chairley Burke's in town, b'ys! He's down til "Jamesy's +Place," + Wid a bran'-new shave upon 'um, an' the fhwhuskers aff his face; + He's quit the Section-Gang last night, and yez can chalk it down + There's goin' to be the divil's toime, sence Chairley Burke's in +town. + + It's treatin' iv'ry b'y he is, an' poundin' on the bar + Till iv'ry man he's drinkin' wid must shmoke a foine cigar; + An' Missus Murphy's little Kate, that's coomin' there for beer, + Can't pay wan cint the bucketful, the whilst that Chairley's +here! + + He's joompin' oor the tops o' sthools, the both forninst an' +back! + He'll lave yez pick the blessed flure, an' walk the straightest +crack! + He's liftin' barrels wid his teeth, and singin "Garry Owen," + Till all the house be strikin' hands, sence Chairley Burke's in +town. + + The Road-Yaird hands coomes dhroppin' in, an' niver goin' back; + An' there's two freights upon the switch--the wan on aither +track-- + An' Mr. Gearry, from The Shops, he's mad enough to swear, + An' durstn't spake a word but grin, the whilst that Chairley's +there! + + Och! Chairley! Chairley! Chairley Burke! ye divil, wid yer ways + O' dhrivin' all the throubles aff, these dhark an' ghloomy days! + Ohone! that it's meself, wid all the graifs I have to dhrown, + Must lave me pick to resht a bit, sence Chairley Burke's in +town. + + +"Before we turn back, now," said the smiling +Major, as I stood lingering over the indefinable +humor of the last refrain, "before we turn back I +want to show you something eminently characteristic. +Come this way a half-dozen steps." + +As he spoke I looked up, first to observe that we +had paused before a handsome square brick residence, +centering a beautiful smooth lawn, its emerald +only littered with the light gold of the earliest +autumn leaves. On either side of the trim walk +that led up from the gate to the carved stone +ballusters of the broad piazza, with its empty easy +chairs, were graceful vases, frothing over with +late blossoms, and wreathed with laurel-looking +vines; and, luxuriantly lacing the border of the +pave that turned the farther corner of the house, +blue, white and crimson, pink and violet, went +fading away in perspective as my gaze followed the +gesture of the Major's. + +"Here, come a little farther. Now do you see +that man there?" + +Yes, I could make out a figure in the deepening +dusk--the figure of a man on the back stoop--a +tired-looking man, in his shirt-sleeves, who sat upon +a low chair--no, not a chair--an empty box. He +was leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, +and the hands dropped limp. He was smoking, +too, I could barely see his pipe, and but for the +odor of very strong tobacco, would not have known +he had a pipe. Why does the master of the house +permit his servants so to desecrate this beautiful +home? I thought. + +"Well, shall we go now?" said the Major. + +I turned silently and we retraced our steps. I +think neither of us spoke for the distance of a +square. + +"Guess you didn't know the man there on the +back porch?" said the Major. + +"No; why?" I asked dubiously. + +"I hardly thought you would, and besides the +poor fellow's tired, and it was best not to disturb +him," said the Major. + +"Why; who was it--some one I know?" + +"It was Tommy." + +"Oh," said I inquiringly, "he's employed there in +some capacity?" + +"Yes, as master of the house." + +"You don't mean it?" + +"I certainly do. He owns it, and made every +cent of the money that paid for it!" said the Major +proudly. "That's why I wanted you particularly +to note that 'eminent characteristic' I spoke of. +Tommy could just as well be sitting, with a fine +cigar, on the front piazza in an easy chair, as, with +his dhudeen, on the back porch, on an empty box, +where every night you'll find him. It's the +unconscious dropping back into the old ways of his +father, and his father's father, and his father's +father's father. In brief, he sits there the poor +lorn symbol of the long oppression of his race." + + + + +MRS. MILLER + +JOHN B. McKINNEY, Attorney and Counselor +at Law, as his sign read, was, for many reasons, +a fortunate man. For many other reasons he was +not. He was chiefly fortunate in being, as certain +opponents often strove witheringly to designate +him, "the son of his father," since that sound old +gentleman was the wealthiest farmer in that section; +with but one son and heir to supplant him, in +time, in the role of "county god," and haply +perpetuate the prouder title of "the biggest taxpayer on +the assessment list." And this fact, too, fortunate +as it would seem, was doubtless the indirect occasion +of a liberal percentage of all John's misfortunes. +From his earliest school-days in the little +town, up to his tardy graduation from a distant +college, the influence of his father's wealth invited +his procrastination, humored its results, encouraged +the laxity of his ambition, "and even now," as John +used, in bitter irony, to put it, "it is aiding and +abetting me in the ostensible practise of my chosen +profession, a listless, aimless undetermined man of +forty, and a confirmed bachelor at that!" At the +utterance of his self-depreciating statement, John generally +jerked his legs down from the top of his +desk; and rising and kicking his chair back to the +wall he would stump around his littered office till +the manila carpet steamed with dust. Then he +would wildly break away, seeking refuge either in +the open street, or in his room at the old-time +tavern, The Eagle House, "where," he would say, "I +have lodged and boarded, I do solemnly asseverate, +for a long, unbroken, middle-aged eternity of ten +years, and can yet assert, in the words of the more +fortunately-dying Webster, that 'I still live'!" + +Extravagantly satirical as he was at times, John +had always an indefinable drollery about him that +made him agreeable company to his friends, at +least; and such an admiring friend he had constantly +at hand in the person of Bert Haines. Both +were Bohemians in natural tendency, and, though +John was far in Bert's advance in point of age, he +found the young man "just the kind of a fellow to +have around;" while Bert, in turn, held his senior +in profound esteem--looked up to him, in fact, and +even in his eccentricities strove to pattern himself +after him. And so it was, when summer days were +dull and tedious, these two could muse and doze the +hours away together; and when the nights were long, +and dark, and deep, and beautiful, they could drift +out in the noonlight of the stars, and with "the soft +complaining flute" and "warbling lute," "lay the +pipes," as John would say, for their enduring +popularity with the girls! And it was immediately +subsequent to one of these romantic excursions, when +the belated pair, at two o'clock in the morning, had +skulked up a side stairway of the old hotel, and +gained John's room, with nothing more serious happening +than Bert falling over a trunk and smashing +his guitar,--just after such a night of romance and +adventure it was that, in the seclusion of John's +room, Bert had something of especial import to +communicate. + +"Mack," he said, as that worthy anathematized +a spiteful match, and then sucked his finger. + +"Blast the all-fired old torch!" said John, wrestling +with the lamp-flue, and turning on a welcome flame +at last. "Well, you said 'Mack'! Why don't you +go on? And don't bawl at the top of your lungs, +either. You've already succeeded in waking every +boarder in the house with that guitar, and you want +to make amends now by letting them go to sleep +again!" + +"But my dear fellow," said Bert with forced +calmness, "you're the fellow that's making all the +noise--and--" + +"Why, you howling dervish!" interrupted John, +with a feigned air of pleased surprise and +admiration. "But let's drop controversy. Throw the +fragments of your guitar in the wood-box there, and +proceed with the opening proposition." + +"What I was going to say was this," said Bert, +with a half-desperate enunciation; "I'm getting +tired of this way of living--clean, dead-tired, and +fagged out, and sick of the whole artificial business!" + +"Oh, yes!" exclaimed John, with a towering +disdain, "you needn't go any further! I know just +what malady is throttling you. It's reform--reform! +You're going to 'turn over a new leaf,' and +all that, and sign the pledge, and quit cigars, and +go to work, and pay your debts, and gravitate back +into Sunday-school, where you can make love to +the preacher's daughter under the guise of religion, +and desecrate the sanctity of the innermost pale of +the church by confessions at Class of your 'thorough +conversion'! Oh, you're going to--" + +"No, but I'm going to do nothing of the sort," +interrupted Bert resentfully. "What I mean--if +you'll let me finish--is, I'm getting too old to be +eternally undignifying myself with this 'singing of +midnight strains under Bonnybell's window-panes,' +and too old to be keeping myself in constant +humiliation and expense by the borrowing and stringing +up of old guitars, together with the breakage of the +same, and the general wear-and-tear on a constitution +that is slowly being sapped to its foundations +by exposure in the night-air and the dew." + +"And while you receive no further compensation +in return," said John, "than, perhaps, the coy turning +up of a lamp at an upper casement where the +jasmine climbs; or an exasperating patter of +invisible palms; or a huge dank wedge of fruit-cake +shoved at you by the old man, through a crack in +the door." + +"Yes, and I'm going to have my just reward, is +what I mean," said Bert, "and exchange the lover's +life for the benedict's. Going to hunt out a good +sensible girl and marry her." And as the young +man concluded this desperate avowal he jerked the +bow of his cravat into a hard knot, kicked his hat +under the bed, and threw himself on the sofa like +an old suit. + +John stared at him with absolute compassion. +"Poor devil," he said half musingly, "I know just +how he feels-- + + "Ring in the wind his wedding chimes, + Smile, villagers, at every door; + Old churchyards stuffed with buried crimes, + Be clad in sunshine o'er and o'er.--" + + +"Oh, here!" exclaimed the wretched Bert, jumping +to his feet; "let up on that dismal recitative. It +would make a dog howl to hear that!" + +"Then you 'let up' on that suicidal talk of +marrying," replied John, "and all that harangue of +incoherency about your growing old. Why, my dear +fellow, you're at least a dozen years my junior, +and look at me!" and John glanced at himself in the +glass with a feeble pride, noting the gray sparseness +of his side-hair, and its plaintive dearth on +top. "Of course I've got to admit," he continued, +"that my hair is gradually evaporating; but for all +that, I'm 'still in the ring,' don't you know; as +young in society, for the matter of that, as yourself! +And this is just the reason why I don't want +you to blight every prospect in your life by marrying +at your age--especially a woman--I mean the +kind of woman you'd be sure to fancy at your age." + +"Didn't I say 'a good sensible girl' was the kind +I had selected?" Bert remonstrated. + +"Oh!" exclaimed John, "you've selected her, +then?--and without one word to me!" he ended, +rebukingly. + +"Well, hang it all!" said Bert impatiently; "I +knew how YOU were, and just how you'd talk me +out of it; and I made up my mind that for once, at +least, I'd follow the dictations of a heart that-- +however capricious in youthful frivolities--should +beat, in manhood, loyal to itself and loyal to its +own affinity." + +"Go it! Fire away! Farewell, vain world!" +exclaimed the excited John.--"Trade your soul off for +a pair of ear-bobs and a button-hook--a hank of +jute hair and a box of lily-white! I've buried not +less than ten old chums this way, and here's another +nominated for the tomb." + +"But you've got no REASON about you," began +Bert,--"I want to"-- + +"And so do _I_ 'want to,' " broke in John finally, +--"I want to get some sleep.--So 'register' and +come to bed.--And lie up on edge, too, when you +DO come--'cause this old catafalque-of-a-bed is just +about as narrow as your views of single blessedness! +Peace! Not another word! Pile in! Pile +in! I'm three-parts sick, anyhow, and I want +rest!" And very truly he spoke. + +It was a bright morning when the slothful John +was aroused by a long vociferous pounding on the +door. He started up in bed to find himself alone-- +the victim of his wrathful irony having evidently +risen and fled away while his pitiless tormentor +slept--"Doubtless to accomplish at once that +nefarious intent as set forth by his unblushing +confession of last night," mused the miserable John. +And he ground his fingers in the corners of his +swollen eyes, and leered grimly in the glass at the +feverish orbs, blood-shot, blurred and aching. + +The pounding on the door continued. John +looked at his watch; it was only eight o'clock. + +"Hi, there!" he called viciously. "What do you +mean, anyhow?" he went on, elevating his voice +again; "shaking a man out of bed when he's just +dropping into his first sleep?" + +"I mean that you're going to get up; that's what!" +replied a firm female voice. "It's eight o'clock, and I +want to put your room in order; and I'm not going +to wait all day about it, either! Get up and go +down to your breakfast, and let me have the room!" +And the clamor at the door was industriously renewed. + +"Say!" called John querulously, hurrying on his +clothes, "Say, you!" + +"There's no 'say' about it!" responded the +determined voice: "I've heard about you and your +ways around this house, and I'm not going to put +up with it! You'll not lie in bed till high noon +when I've got to keep your room in proper order!" + +"Oh, ho!" bawled John intelligently: "reckon +you're the new invasion here? Doubtless you're +that girl that's been hanging up the new window- +blinds that won't roll, and disguising the pillows +with clean slips, and hennin' round among my +books and papers on the table here, and aging me +generally till I don't know my own handwriting by +the time I find it! Oh, yes, you're going to +revolutionize things here; you're going to introduce +promptness, and system, and order. See you've +even filled the wash-pitcher and tucked two starched +towels through the handle. Haven't got any tin +towels, have you? I rather like this new soap, too! +So solid and durable, you know; warranted not to +raise a lather. Might as well wash one's hands with +a door-knob!" + +And as John's voice grumbled away into the +sullen silence again, the determined voice without +responded: "Oh, you can growl away to your +heart's content, Mr. McKinney, but I want you +to understand distinctly that I'm not going to humor +you in any of your old bachelor, sluggardly, +slovenly ways, and whims and notions. And I +want you to understand, too, that I'm not hired +help in this house, nor a chambermaid, nor anything +of the kind. I'm the landlady here; and I'll give you +just ten minutes more to get down to your breakfast, +or you'll not get any--that's all!" And as +the reversed cuff John was in the act of buttoning +slid from his wrist and rolled under the dresser, he +heard a stiff rustling of starched muslin flouncing +past the door, and the quick italicized patter of +determined gaiters down the hall. + +"Look here," said John to the bright-faced boy +in the hotel office, a half hour later. "It seems the +house here's been changing hands again." + +"Yes, sir," said the boy, closing the cigar case, +and handing him a lighted match. "Well, the new +landlord, whoever he is," continued John, patronizingly, +"is a good one. Leastwise, he knows what's +good to eat, and how to serve it." + +The boy laughed timidly,--"It ain't a 'landlord,' +though--it's a landlady; it's my mother." + +"Ah," said John, dallying with the change the +boy had pushed toward him. "Your mother, eh? +And where's your father?" + +"He's dead," said the boy. + +"And what's this for?" abruptly asked John, +examining his change. + +"That's your change," said the boy: "You got +three for a quarter, and gave me a half." + +"Well, YOU just keep it," said John, sliding back +the change. "It's for good luck, you know, my boy. +Same as drinking your long life and prosperity. +And, oh yes, by the way, you may tell your mother +I'll have a friend to dinner with me to-day." + +"Yes, sir, and thank you, sir," said the beaming +boy. + +"Handsome boy!" mused John, as he walked +down street. "Takes that from his father, though, +I'll wager my existence!" + +Upon his office desk John found a hastily written +note. It was addressed in the well-known hand of +his old chum. He eyed the missive apprehensively, +and there was a positive pathos in his voice as he +said aloud, "It's our divorce. I feel it!" The note, +headed, "At the Office, Four in Morning," ran like +this: + + +"Dear Mack--I left you slumbering so soundly +that, by noon, when you waken, I hope, in your +refreshed state, you will look more tolerantly on my +intentions as partially confided to you this night. I +will not see you here again to say good-by. I +wanted to, but was afraid to 'rouse the sleeping +lion.' I will not close my eyes to-night--fact is, I +haven't time. Our serenade at Josie's was a +prearranged signal by which she is to be ready and at +the station for the five morning train. You may +remember the lighting of three consecutive matches +at her window before the igniting of her lamp. +That meant, 'Thrice dearest one, I'll meet thee at +the depot at four-thirty sharp.' So, my dear Mack, +this is to inform you that, even as you read, Josie +and I have eloped. It is all the old man's fault, yet +I forgive him. Hope he'll return the favor. Josie +predicts he will, inside of a week--or two weeks +anyhow. Good-by, Mack, old boy; and let a fellow +down as easy as you can. Affectionately, + "BERT." + + +"Heavens!" exclaimed John, stifling the note in +his hand and stalking tragically around the room. +"Can it be possible that I have nursed a frozen +viper? An ingrate? A wolf in sheep's clothing? +An orang-outang in gent's furnishings?" + +"Was you calling me, sir?" asked a voice at the +door. It was the janitor. + +"No!" thundered John; "Quit my sight! get out +of my way! No, no, Thompson, I don't mean +that," he called after him. "Here's a half-dollar +for you, and I want you to lock up the office, and +tell anybody that wants to see me that I've been +set upon, and sacked and assassinated in cold blood; +and I've fled to my father's in the country, and am +lying there in the convulsions of dissolution, babbling +of green fields and running brooks, and thirsting +for the life of every woman that comes in gunshot!" +And then, more like a confirmed invalid +than a man in the strength and pride of his prime, +he crept down into the street again, and thence back +to his hotel. + +Dejectedly and painfully climbing to his room, he +encountered, on the landing above, a little woman +in a jaunty dusting-cap and a trim habit of crisp +muslin. He tried to evade her, but in vain. She +looked him squarely in the face--occasioning him +the dubious impression of either needing shaving +very badly, or having egg-stains on his chin. + +"You're the gentleman in Number II, I believe? +Why, Mr. McKinney, are you ill?" + +He nodded confusedly. + +"Mr. McKinney is your name, I think," she +queried, with a pretty elevation of the eyebrows. + +"Yes, ma'am," said John rather abjectly. "You +see, ma'am--But I beg pardon," he went on +stammeringly, and with a very awkward bow--"I beg +pardon, but I am addressing--ah--the--ah--the--" + +"You are addressing the new landlady," she +interpolated pleasantly. "Mrs. Miller is my name. I +think we should be friends, Mr. McKinney, since I +hear that you are one of the oldest patrons of the +house." + +"Thank you--thank you!" said John, completely +embarrassed. "Yes, indeed!--ha, ha. Oh, yes-- +yes--really, we must be quite old friends, I assure +you, Mrs.--Mrs.--" + +"Mrs. Miller," smilingly prompted the little +woman. + +"Yes, ah, yes,--Mrs. Miller. Lovely morning, +Mrs. Miller," said John, edging past her and backing +toward his room. + +But as Mrs. Miller was laughing outright, for +some mysterious reason, and gave no affirmation +in response to his proposition as to the quality of +the weather, John, utterly abashed and nonplused, +darted into his room and closed the door, "Deucedly +extraordinary woman!" he thought; "wonder +what's her idea!" + +He remained locked in his room till the dinner- +hour; and, when he promptly emerged for that occasion, +there was a very noticeable improvement in +his personal appearance, in point of dress, at least, +though there still lingered about his smoothly- +shaven features a certain haggard, care-worn, +anxious look that would not out. + +Next his own at the table he found a chair tilted +forward, as though in reservation for some honored +guest. What did it mean? Oh, he remembered +now. Told the boy to tell his mother he would have +a friend to dine with him. Bert--and, blast the fellow!-- +was, doubtless, dining then with a far preferable +companion--his wife--in a palace-car on the +P., C. & St. L., a hundred miles away. The thought +was maddening. Of course, now, the landlady +would have material for a new assault. And how +could he avert it? A despairing film blurred his +sight for the moment--then the eyes flashed daringly. +"I will meet it like a man!" he said, mentally-- +"yea, like a State's Attorney,--I will invite +it! Let her do her worst!" + +He called a servant, giving some message in an +undertone. + +"Yes, sir," said the agreeable servant, "I'll go +right away, sir," and left the room. + +Five minutes elapsed, and then a voice at his +shoulder startled him: + +"Did you send for me, Mr. McKinney? What +is it I can do?" + +"You are very kind, Mrs.--Mrs.--" + +"Mrs. Miller," said the lady, with a smile that he +remembered. + +"Now, please spare me even the mildest of +rebukes. I deserve your censure, but I can't stand it +--I can't positively!" and there was a pleading +look in John's lifted eyes that changed the little +woman's smile to an expression of real solicitude. +"I have sent for you," continued John, "to ask of +you three great favors. Please be seated while I +enumerate them. First--I want you to forgive and +forget that ill-natured, uncalled-for grumbling of +mine this morning when you awakened me." + +"Why, certainly," said the landlady, again smiling, +though quite seriously. + +"I thank you," said John with dignity. "And, +second," he continued--"I want your assurance that +my extreme confusion and awkwardness on the occasion +of our meeting later were rightly interpreted." + +"Certainly--certainly," said the landlady with the +kindliest sympathy. + +"I am grateful--utterly," said John, with newer +dignity. "And then," he went on,--"after informing +you that it is impossible for the best friend I +have in the world to be with me at this hour, as +intended, I want you to do me the very great honor +of dining with me. Will you?" + +"Why, certainly," said the charming little +landlady--"and a thousand thanks besides! But tell me +something of your friend," she continued, as they +were being served. "What is he like--and what is +his name--and where is he?" + +"Well," said John warily,--"he's like all young +fellows of his age. He's quite young, you know-- +not over thirty, I should say--a mere boy, in fact, +but clever--talented--versatile." + +"--Unmarried, of course," said the chatty little +woman. + +"Oh, yes!" said John, in a matter-of-course tone +--but he caught himself abruptly--then stared intently +at his napkin--glanced evasively at the side- +face of his questioner, and said,--"Oh, yes! Yes, +indeed! He's unmarried.--Old bachelor like myself, +you know. Ha! Ha!" + +"So he's not like the young man here that +distinguished himself last night?" said the little woman +archly. + +The fork in John's hand, half-lifted to his lips, +faltered and fell back toward his plate. + +"Why, what's that?" said John in a strange +voice; "I hadn't heard anything about it--I mean +I haven't heard anything about any young man. +What was it?" + +"Haven't heard anything about the elopement?" +exclaimed the little woman in astonishment.-- +"Why it's been the talk of the town all morning. +Elopement in high life--son of a grain-dealer, name +of Hines, or Himes, or something, and a preacher's +daughter--Josie somebody--didn't catch her last +name. Wonder if you don't know the parties-- +Why, Mr. McKinney, are you ill?" + +"Oh, no--not at all!" said John: "Don't mention +it. Ha--ha! Just eating too rapidly, that's all. +Go on with--you were saying that Bert and Josie +had really eloped." + +"What 'Bert'?" asked the little woman quickly. + +"Why, did I say Bert?" said John, with a guilty +look. "I meant Haines, of course, you know-- +Haines and Josie.--And did they really elope?" + +"That's the report," answered the little woman, +as though deliberating some important evidence; +"and they say, too, that the plot of the runaway +was quite ingenious. It seems the young lovers +were assisted in their flight by some old fellow-- +friend of the young man's--Why, Mr. McKinney, +you ARE ill, surely?" + +John's face was as ashen. + +"No--no!" he gasped painfully: "Go on--go +on! Tell me more about the--the--the old fellow +--the old reprobate! And is he still at large?" + +"Yes," said the little woman, anxiously regarding +the strange demeanor of her companion. "They +say, though, that the law can do nothing with him, +and that this fact only intensifies the agony of the +broken-hearted parents--for it seems they have, till +now, regarded him both as a gentleman and family +friend in whom"-- + +"I really am ill," moaned John, waveringly rising +to his feet; "but I beg you not to be alarmed. Tell +your little boy to come to my room, where I will +retire at once, if you'll excuse me, and send for +my physician. It is simply a nervous attack. I am +often troubled so; and only perfect quiet and +seclusion restores me. You have done me a great +honor, Mrs."--("Mrs. Miller," sighed the +sympathetic little woman)--"Mrs. Miller,--and I thank +you more than I have words to express." He bowed +limply, turned through a side door opening on a +stair, and tottered to his room. + +During the three weeks' illness through which he +passed, John had every attention--much more, indeed, +than he had consciousness to appreciate. For +the most part his mind wandered, and he talked of +curious things, and laughed hysterically, and serenaded +mermaids that dwelt in grassy seas of dew, +and were bald-headed like himself. He played +upon a fourteen-jointed flute of solid gold, with +diamond holes, and keys carved out of thawless ice. +His old father came at first to take him home; but +he could not be moved, the doctor said. + +Two weeks of John's illness had worn away, +when a very serious-looking young man, in a traveling +duster, and a high hat, came up the stairs to +see him. A handsome young lady was clinging to +his arm. It was Bert and Josie. She had guessed +the very date of their forgiveness. John awoke +even clearer in mind than usual that afternoon. He +recognized his old chum at a glance, and Josie-- +now Bert's wife. Yes, he comprehended that. He +was holding a hand of each when another figure +entered. His thin white fingers loosened their clasp, +and he held a hand toward the newcomer. "Here," +he said, "is my best friend in the world--Bert, you +and Josie will love her, I know; for this is Mrs.-- +Mrs."--"Mrs. Miller," said the radiant little woman. +--"Yes,--Mrs. Miller," said John, very proudly. + + + +AT ZEKESBURY + +The little town, as I recall it, was of just enough +dignity and dearth of the same to be an ordinary +county seat in Indiana--"The Grand Old +Hoosier State," as it was used to being howlingly +referred to by the forensic stump orator from the +old stand in the court-house yard--a political +campaign being the wildest delight that Zekesbury +might ever hope to call its own. + +Through years the fitful happenings of the town +and its vicinity went on the same--the same! Annually +about one circus ventured in, and vanished, +and was gone, even as a passing trumpet-blast; the +usual rainy season swelled the "Crick," the driftage +choking at "the covered bridge," and backing water +till the old road looked amphibious; and crowds +of curious townfolk struggled down to look upon +the watery wonder, and lean awestruck above it, +and spit in it, and turn mutely home again. + +The usual formula of incidents peculiar to an +uneventful town and its vicinity: The countryman +from "Jessup's Crossing," with the corn-stalk coffin- +measure, loped into town, his steaming little gray- +and-red-flecked "roadster" gurgitating, as it were, with that +mysterious utterance that ever has +commanded and ever must evoke the wonder and +bewilderment of every boy; the small-pox rumor +became prevalent betimes, and the subtle aroma of +the asafetida-bag permeated the graded schools +"from turret to foundation-stone"; the still +recurring expose of the poor-house management; the +farm-hand, with the scythe across his shoulder, +struck dead by lightning; the long-drawn quarrel +between the rival editors culminating in one of them +assaulting the other with a "sidestick," and the other +kicking the one down-stairs and thenceward ad +libitum; the tramp, suppositiously stealing a ride, +found dead on the railroad; the grand jury returning +a sensational indictment against a bar-tender +non est; the Temperance outbreak; the "Revival;" +the Church Festival; and the "Free Lectures on +Phrenology, and Marvels of Mesmerism," at the +town hall. It was during the time of the last-mentioned +sensation, and directly through this scientific +investigation, that I came upon two of the +town's most remarkable characters. And however +meager my outline of them may prove, my material +for the sketch is most accurate in every detail, and +no deviation from the cold facts of the case shall +influence any line of my report. + +For some years prior to this odd experience +I had been connected with a daily paper at the +state capital; and latterly a prolonged session of +the legislature, where I specially reported, having +told threateningly upon my health, I took both the +advantage of a brief vacation, and the invitation of a +young bachelor senator, to get out of the city for +a while, and bask my respiratory organs in the +revivifying rural air of Zekesbury--the home of my +new friend. + +"It'll pay you to get out here," he said cordially, +meeting me at the little station, "and I'm glad you've +come, for you'll find no end of odd characters to +amuse you." And under the very pleasant sponsorship +of my senatorial friend, I was placed at +once on genial terms with half the citizens of the +little town--from the shirt-sleeved nabob of the +county office to the droll wag of the favorite loafing- +place--the rules and by-laws of which resort, by +the way, being rudely charcoaled on the wall above +the cutter's bench, and somewhat artistically +culminating in an original dialect legend which ran +thus: + + F'r instunce, now, when SOME folks gits + To relyin' on theyr wits, + Ten to one they git too smart + And SPILE it all, right at the start! + Feller wants to jest go slow + And do his THINKIN' first, you know, + 'F I CAST'T THINK UP SOMEPIN' GOOD, + I SET STILL AND CHAW MY COOD! + + +And it was at this inviting rendezvous, two or +three evenings following my arrival, that the general +crowd, acting upon the random proposition of +one of the boys, rose as a man and wended its +hilarious way to the town hall. + +"Phrenology," said the little, old, bald-headed +lecturer and mesmerist, thumbing the egg-shaped head +of a young man I remembered to have met that afternoon +in some law office; "phrenology," repeated +the Professor--"or rather the TERM phrenology--is +derived from two Greek words signifying MIND +and DISCOURSE; hence we find embodied in phrenology- +proper, the science of intellectual measurement, +together with the capacity of intelligent communication +of the varying mental forces and their flexibilities, +etc., etc. The study, then, of phrenology is, +to simplify it wholly--is, I say, the general +contemplation of the workings of the mind as made +manifest through the certain corresponding depressions +and protuberances of the human skull when, of +course, in a healthy state of action and development, +as we find the conditions exemplified in the subject +before us." + +Here the "subject" vaguely smiled. + +"You recognize that mug, don't you?" whispered +my friend. "It's that coruscating young ass, you +know, Hedrick--in Cummings' office--trying to +study law and literature at the same time, and +tampering with 'The Monster that Annually,' don't +you know?--where we found the two young students +scuffling round the office, and smelling of +peppermint?--Hedrick, you know, and Sweeney. +Sweeney, the slim chap, with the pallid face, and +frog-eyes, and clammy hands! You remember I +told you 'there was a pair of 'em'? Well, they're +up to something here to-night. Hedrick, there on +the stage in front; and Sweeney--don't you see?-- +with the gang on the rear seats." + +"Phrenology--again," continued the lecturer, "is, +we may say, a species of mental geography, as it +were; which--by a study of the skull--leads also +to a study of the brain within, even as geology +naturally follows the initial contemplation of the +earth's surface. The brain, thurfur, or intellectual +retort, as we may say, natively exerts a molding +influence on the skull contour; thurfur is the expert +in phrenology most readily enabled to accurately +locate the multitudinous intellectual forces, and +most exactingly estimate, as well, the sequent +character of each subject submitted to his scrutiny. As, +in the example before us--a young man, doubtless +well known in your midst, though, I may say, an +entire stranger to myself--I venture to disclose +some characteristic trends and tendencies, as +indicated by this phrenological depression and +development of the skull proper, as later we will show, +through the mesmeric condition, the accuracy of our +mental diagnosis." + +Throughout the latter part of this speech my +friend nudged me spasmodically, whispering something +which was jostled out of intelligent utterance +by some inward spasm of laughter. + +"In this head," said the Professor, straddling +his malleable fingers across the young man's bumpy +brow--"In this head we find Ideality large--abnormally +large, in fact; thurby indicating--taken in +conjunction with a like development of the perceptive +qualities--language following, as well, in the +prominent eye--thurby indicating, I say, our +subject as especially endowed with a love for the +beautiful--the sublime--the elevating--the refined and +delicate--the lofty and superb--in nature, and in all +the sublimated attributes of the human heart and +beatific soul. In fact, we find this young man +possessed of such natural gifts as would befit him for +the exalted career of the sculptor, the actor, the +artist, or the poet--any ideal calling; in fact, any +calling but a practical, matter-of-fact vocation; +though in poetry he would seem to best succeed." + +"Well," said my friend seriously, "he's FEELING +for the boy!" Then laughingly: "Hedrick HAS written +some rhymes for the county papers, and Sweeney +once introduced him, at an Old Settlers' Meeting, +as 'The Best Poet in Center Township,' and never +cracked a smile! Always after each other that way, +but the best friends in the world. SWEENEY'S strong +suit is elocution. He has a native ability that way +by no means ordinary, but even that gift he abuses +and distorts simply to produce grotesque, and oftentimes, +ridiculous effects. For instance, nothing +more delights him than to 'loathfully' consent to +answer a request, at The Mite Society, some evening, +for 'an appropriate selection,' and then, with +an elaborate introduction of the same, and an +exalted tribute to the refined genius of the author, +proceed with a most gruesome rendition of 'Alonzo +The Brave and The Fair Imogene,' in a way to +coagulate the blood and curl the hair of his fair +listeners with abject terror. Pale as a corpse, you +know, and with that cadaverous face, lit with those +malignant-looking eyes, his slender figure, and his +long thin legs and arms and hands, and his whole +diabolical talent and adroitness brought into play-- +why, I want to say to you, it's enough to scare 'em +to death! Never a smile from him, though, till he +and Hedrick are safe out into the night again-- +then, of course, they hug each other and howl +over it like Modocs! But pardon; I'm interrupting +the lecture. Listen." + +"A lack of continuity, however," continued the +Professor, "and an undue love of approbation, +would, measurably, at least, tend to retard the +young man's progress toward the consummation of +any loftier ambition, I fear; yet as we have intimated, +if the subject were appropriately educated +to the need's demand, he could doubtless produce +a high order of both prose and poetry--especially +the latter--though he could very illy bear being +laughed at for his pains." + +"He's dead wrong there," said my friend; +"Hedrick enjoys being laughed at; he's used to it--gets +fat on it!" + +"Is fond of his friends," continued the Professor, +"and the heartier they are the better; might even +be convivially inclined--if so tempted--but prudent +--in a degree," loiteringly concluded the speaker, +as though unable to find the exact bump with which +to bolster up the last named attribute. + +The subject blushed vividly--my friend's right +eyelid dropped, and there was a noticeable, though +elusive sensation throughout the audience. + +"BUT!" said the Professor explosively, "selecting +a directly opposite subject, in conjunction with the +study of the one before us [turning to the group at +the rear of the stage and beckoning], we may find +a newer interest in the practical comparison of these +subjects side by side." And the Professor pushed +a very pale young man into position. + +"Sweeney!" whispered my friend delightedly; +"now look out!" + +"In THIS subject," said the Professor, "we find +the practical business head. Square--though small +--a trifle light at the base, in fact; but well balanced +at the important points at least; thoughtful +eye--wide-awake--crafty--quick--restless--a policy +eye, though not denoting language--unless, perhaps, +mere business forms and direct statements." + +"Fooled again!" whispered my friend; "and I'm +afraid the old man will fail to nest out the fact +also that Sweeney is the cold-bloodedest guyer on +the face of the earth, and with more diabolical +resources than a prosecuting attorney; the Professor +ought to know this, too, by this time--for these +same two chaps have been visiting the old man in +his room at the hotel,--that's what I was trying to +tell you a while ago. The old chap thinks he's +'playing' the boys, is my idea; but it's the other way, +or I lose my guess." + +"Now, under the mesmeric influence--if the two +subjects will consent to its administration," said +the Professor, after some further tedious preamble, +"we may at once determine the fact of my assertions, +as will be proved by their action while in +this peculiar state." Here some apparent +remonstrance was met with from both subjects, though +amicably overcome by the Professor first manipulating +the stolid brow and pallid front of the imperturbable +Sweeney--after which the same mysterious +ordeal was loathfully submitted to by Hedrick-- +though a noticeably longer time was consumed in +securing his final loss of self-control. At last, however, +this curious phenomenon was presented, and there +before us stood the two swaying figures, the heads +dropped back, the lifted hands, with thumb and +finger-tips pressed lightly together, the eyelids +languid and half closed, and the features, in +appearance, wan and humid. + +"Now, sir!" said the Professor, leading the limp +Sweeney forward, and addressing him in a quick +sharp tone of voice.--"Now, sir, you are a great +contractor--own large factories, and with untold +business interests. Just look out there! [pointing +out across the expectant audience] look there, and +see the countless minions toiling servilely at your +dread mandates. And yet--ha! ha! See! see!-- +They recognize the avaricious greed that would thus +grind them in the very dust; they see, alas! they see +themselves, half-clothed--half-fed, that you may +glut your coffers. Half-starved, they listen to the +wail of wife and babe, and with eyes upraised in +prayer, they see YOU rolling by in gilded coach, and +swathed in silk attire. But--ha! again! Look-- +look! they are rising in revolt against you! Speak +to them before too late! Appeal to them--quell +them with the promise of the just advance of wages +they demand!" + +The limp figure of Sweeney took on something +of a stately and majestic air. With a graceful and +commanding gesture of the hand, he advanced a +step or two; then, after a pause of some seconds +duration, in which the lifted face grew pale, as it +seemed, and the eyes a denser black, he said: + + "But yesterday + I looked away + O'er happy lands, where sunshine lay + In golden blots, + Inlaid with spots + Of shade and wild forget-me-nots." + + +The voice was low, but clear, and even musical. +The Professor started at the strange utterance, +looked extremely confused, and, as the boisterous +crowd cried "Hear, hear!" he motioned the subject +to continue, with some gasping comment interjected, +which, if audible, would have run thus: +"My God! It's an inspirational poem!" + + "My head was fair + With flaxen hair--" + +resumed the subject. + + +"Yoop-ee!" yelled an irreverent auditor. + +"Silence! silence!" commanded the excited Professor +in a hoarse whisper; then, turning enthusiastically +to the subject--"Go on, young man! Go +on!--'Thy head was fair with flaxen hair----' " + + "My head was fair + With flaxen hair, + And fragrant breezes, faint and rare, + And, warm with drouth + From out the south, + Blew all my curls across my mouth." + + +The speaker's voice, exquisitely modulated, yet +resonant as the twang of a harp, now seemed of itself +to draw and hold each listener; while a certain +extravagance of gesticulation--a fantastic movement +of both form and feature--seemed very near +akin to fascination. And so flowed on the curious +utterance:-- + + "And, cool and sweet, + My naked feet + Found dewy pathways through the wheat; + And out again + Where, down the lane, + The dust was dimpled with the rain." + + +In the pause following there was a breathlessness +almost painful. The poem went on: + + "But yesterday + I heard the lay + Of summer birds, when I, as they + With breast and wing, + All quivering + With life and love, could only sing. + + "My head was leant + Where, with it, blent + A maiden's, o'er her instrument: + While all the night, + From vale to height, + Was filled with echoes of delight. + + "And all our dreams + Were lit with gleams + Of that lost land of reedy streams, + Along whose brim + Forever swim + Pan's lilies, laughing up at him." + +And still the inspired singer held rapt sway. + + +"It is wonderful!" I whispered, under breath. + +"Of course it is!" answered my friend. "But +listen; there is more:" + + "But yesterday! . . . . + O blooms of May, + And summer roses-where away? + O stars above; + And lips of love, + And all the honeyed sweets thereof!-- + + "O lad and lass, + And orchard pass, + And briered lane, and daisied grass! + O gleam and gloom, + And woodland bloom + And breezy breaths of all perfume!-- + + "No more for me + Or mine shall be + Thy raptures--save in memory,-- + No more--no more-- + Till through the Door + Of Glory gleam the days of yore." + +This was the evident conclusion of the remarkable +utterance, and the Professor was impetuously +fluttering his hands about the subject's upward- +staring eyes, stroking his temples, and snapping his +fingers in his face. + +"Well," said Sweeney, as he stood suddenly +awakened, and grinning in an idiotic way, "how did +the old thing work?" And it was in the consequent +hilarity and loud and long applause, perhaps, +that the Professor was relieved from the explanation +of this rather astounding phenomenon of the +idealistic workings of a purely practical brain--or, as +my impious friend scoffed the incongruity later, +in a particularly withering allusion, as the "blank- +blanked fallacy, don't you know, of staying the +hunger of a howling mob by feeding 'em on spring +poetry!" + +The tumult of the audience did not cease even +with the retirement of Sweeney, and cries of "Hedrick! +Hedrick!" only subsided with the Professor's +high-keyed announcement that the subject was even +then endeavoring to make himself heard, but +could not until utter quiet was restored, adding +the further appeal that the young man had already +been a long time under the mesmeric spell, and +ought not be so detained for an unnecessary period. +"See," he concluded, with an assuring wave of the +hand toward the subject, "see; he is about to address +you. Now, quiet!--utter quiet, if you please!" + +"Great heavens!" exclaimed my friend stiflingly; +"just look at the boy! Get on to that position for a +poet! Even Sweeney has fled from the sight of +him!" + +And truly, too, it was a grotesque pose the young +man had assumed; not wholly ridiculous either, +since the dwarfed position he had settled into +seemed more a genuine physical condition than an +affected one. The head, back-tilted, and sunk between +the shoulders, looked abnormally large, while +the features of the face appeared peculiarly child- +like--especially the eyes--wakeful and wide apart, +and very bright, yet very mild and very artless; and +the drawn and cramped outline of the legs and feet, +and of the arms and hands, even to the shrunken, +slender-looking fingers, all combined to convey most +strikingly to the pained senses the fragile frame +and pixy figure of some pitiably afflicted child, +unconscious altogether of the pathos of its own deformity. + +"Now, mark the cuss, Horatio!" gasped my +friend. + +At first the speaker's voice came very low, and +somewhat piping, too, and broken--an eery sort of +voice it was, of brittle and erratic timbre and undulant +inflection. Yet it was beautiful. It had the +ring of childhood in it, though the ring was not pure +golden, and at times fell echoless. The SPIRIT of its +utterance was always clear and pure and crisp and +cheery as the twitter of a bird, and yet forever ran +an undercadence through it like a low-pleading +prayer. Half garrulously, and like a shallow brook +might brawl across a shelvy bottom, the rhythmic +little changeling thus began:-- + + "I'm thist a little crippled boy, an' never goin' to grow + An' git a great big man at all!--'cause Aunty told me so. + When I was thist a baby onc't I falled out of the bed + An' got 'The Curv'ture of the Spine'--'at's what the Doctor +said. + I never had no Mother nen--fer my Pa runned away + An' dassn't come back here no more--'cause he was drunk one day + An' stobbed a man in thish-ere town, an' couldn't pay his fine! + An' nen my Ma she died--an' I got 'Curv'ture of the Spine'!" + + +A few titterings from the younger people in the +audience marked the opening stanza, while a certain +restlessness, and a changing to more attentive positions +seemed the general tendency. The old Professor, +in the meantime, had sunk into one of the +empty chairs. The speaker went on with more gaiety:-- + + "I'm nine years old! An' you can't guess how much I weigh, I +bet!-- + Last birthday I weighed thirty-three!--An' I weigh thirty yet! + I'm awful little fer my size--I'm purt' nigh littler 'an + Some babies is!--an' neighbers all calls me 'The Little Man'! + An' Doc one time he laughed an' said: 'I 'spect, first think +you know, + You'll have a little spike-tail coat an' travel with a show!' + An' nen I laughed-till I looked round an' Aunty was a-cryin'-- + Sometimes she acts like that, 'cause I got 'Curv'ture of the +Spine'!" + + +Just in front of me a great broad-shouldered +countryman, with a rainy smell in his cumbrous +overcoat, cleared his throat vehemently, looked +startled at the sound, and again settled forward, his +weedy chin resting on the knuckles of his hands as +they tightly clutched the seat before him. And it +was like being taken into a childish confidence as the +quaint speech continued:-- + + "I set--while Aunty's washin'--on my little long-leg stool, + An' watch the little boys an' girls a-skippin' by to school; + An' I peck on the winder, an' holler out an' say: + 'Who wants to fight The Little Man at dares you all to-day?' + An' nen the boys climbs on the fence, an' little girls peeks +through, + An' they all says: 'Cause you're so big, you think we're 'feard +o' you!' + An' nen they yell, an' shake their fist at me, like I shake +mine-- + They're thist in fun, you know, 'cause I got 'Curv'ture of the +Spine'!" + + +"Well," whispered my friend, with rather odd +irrelevance, I thought, "of course you see through +the scheme of the fellows by this time, don't you?" + +"I see nothing," said I, most earnestly, "but a +poor little wisp of a child that makes me love him +so I dare not think of his dying soon, as he surely +must! There; listen!" And the plaintive gaiety +of the homely poem ran on:-- + + "At evening, when the ironin' 's done, an' Aunty's fixed the +fire, + An' filled an' lit the lamp, an' trimmed the wick an' turned it +higher, + An' fetched the wood all in fer night, an' locked the kitchen +door, + An' stuffed the ole crack where the wind blows in up through the +floor-- + She sets the kittle on the coals, an' biles an' makes the tea, + An' fries the liver an' the mush, an' cooks a egg fer me, + An' sometimes--when I cough so hard--her elderberry wine + Don't go so bad fer little boys with 'Curv'ture of the Spine'!" + + +"Look!" whispered my friend, touching me with +his elbow. "Look at the Professor!" + +"Look at everybody!" said I. And the artless +little voice went on again half quaveringly:-- + + "But Aunty's all so childish-like on my account, you see + I'm 'most afeard she'll be took down--an' 'at's what bothers +ME!-- + 'Cause ef my good ole Aunty ever would git sick an' die, + I don't know what she'd do in Heaven--till _I_ come, by an' by:-- + Fer she's so ust to all my ways, an' ever'thing, you know, + An' no one there like me, to nurse an' worry over so!-- + 'Cause all the little childerns there's so straight an' strong +an' fine, + They's nary angel 'bout the place with 'Curv'ture of the +Spine'!" + + +The old Professor's face was in his handkerchief; +so was my friend's in his; and so was mine in mine, +as even now my pen drops and I reach for it again. +I half regret joining the mad party that had gathered +an hour later in the old law office where these +two graceless characters held almost nightly revel, +the instigators and conniving hosts of a reputed +banquet whose MENU'S range confined itself to herrings, +or "blind robins," dried beef, and cheese, with +crackers, gingerbread, and sometimes pie; the whole +washed down with anything but + + "----Wines that heaven knows when + Had sucked the fire of some forgotten sun, + And kept it through a hundred years of gloom + Still glowing in a heart of ruby." + + +But the affair was memorable. The old Professor +was himself lured into it and loudest in his praise +of Hedrick's realistic art; and I yet recall him at the +orgie's height, excitedly repulsing the continued +slurs and insinuations of the clammy-handed +Sweeney, who, still contending against the old man's +fulsome praise of his more fortunate rival, at last +openly declared that Hedrick was NOT a poet, NOT a +genius, and in no way worthy to be classed in the +same breath with HIMSELF--"the gifted but unfortunate +SWEENEY, sir--the unacknowledged author, +sir 'y gad, sir!--of the two poems that held you +spellbound to-night!" + + + +A CALLER FROM BOONE + +BENJ. F. JOHNSON VISITS THE EDITOR + +It was a dim and chill and loveless afternoon in +the late fall of eighty-three when I first saw +the genial subject of this hasty sketch. From time +to time the daily paper on which I worked had been +receiving, among the general literary driftage of +amateur essayists, poets and sketch-writers, some +conceits in verse that struck the editorial head as +decidedly novel; and, as they were evidently the +production of an unlettered man, and an OLD man, +and a farmer at that, they were usually spared the +waste-basket, and preserved--not for publication, +but to pass from hand to hand among the members +of the staff as simply quaint and mirth-provoking +specimens of the verdancy of both the venerable +author and the Muse inspiring him. Letters as +quaint as were the poems invariably accompanied +them, and the oddity of these, in fact, had first called +attention to the verses. I well remember the general +merriment of the office when the first of the old +man's letters was read aloud, and I recall, too, some +of his comments on his own verse, verbatim. In +one place he said: "I make no doubt you will find some purty SAD +spots in my poetry, considerin'; but +I hope you will bear in mind that I am a great +sufferer with rheumatizum, and have been, off and +on, sence the cold New Years. In the main, however," +he continued, "I allus aim to write in a cheerful, +comfortin' sperit, so's ef the stuff hangs fire, +and don't do no good, it hain't a-goin' to do no +harm,--and them's my honest views on poetry." + +In another letter, evidently suspecting his poem +had not appeared in print because of its dejected +tone, he said: "The poetry I herewith send was +wrote off on the finest Autumn day I ever laid eyes +on! I never felt better in my life. The morning air +was as invigoratin' as bitters with tanzy in it, and the +folks at breakfast said they never saw such a' appetite +on mortal man before. Then I lit out for the +barn, and after feedin', I come back and tuck my +pen and ink out on the porch, and jest cut loose. I +writ and writ till my fingers was that cramped I +couldn't hardly let go of the penholder. And the +poem I send you is the upshot of it all. Ef you don't +find it cheerful enough fer your columns, I'll have +to knock under, that's all!" And that poem, as I recall +it, certainly was cheerful enough for publication, +only the "copy" was almost undecipherable, and the +ink, too, so pale and vague, it was thought best to +reserve the verses, for the time, at least, and later on +revise, copy, punctuate, and then print it sometime, +as much for the joke of it as anything. But it +was still delayed, neglected, and in a week's time +almost entirely forgotten. And so it was upon this +chill and somber afternoon I speak of that an event +occurred which most pleasantly reminded me of +both the poem with the "sad spots" in it, and the +"cheerful" one, "writ out on the porch" that glorious +autumn day, that poured its glory through the +old man's letter to us. + +Outside and in the sanctum the gloom was too +oppressive to permit an elevated tendency of either +thought or spirit. I could do nothing but sit listless +and inert. Paper and pencil were before me, but +I could not write--I could not even think coherently, +and was on the point of rising and rushing out into +the streets for a wild walk, when there came a +hesitating knock at the door. + +"Come in!" I snarled, grabbing up my pencil and +assuming a frightfully industrious air: "Come in!" +I almost savagely repeated, "Come in! And shut the +door behind you!" and I dropped my lids, bent my +gaze fixedly upon the blank pages before me and +began scrawling some disconnected nothings with +no head or tail or anything. + +"Sir; howdy," said a low and pleasant voice. And +at once, in spite of my perverse resolve, I looked up. +I someway felt rebuked. + +The speaker was very slowly, noiselessly closing +the door. I could hardly face him when he turned +around. An old man, of sixty-five, at least, but with +a face and an eye of the most cheery and wholesome +expression I had ever seen in either youth or age. +Over his broad bronzed forehead and white hair +he wore a low-crowned, wide-brimmed black felt +hat, somewhat rusted now, and with the band +grease-crusted, and the binding frayed at intervals, +and sagging from the threads that held it on. An +old-styled frock coat of black, dull brown in streaks, +and quite shiny about the collar and lapels. A waistcoat +of no describable material or pattern, and a +clean white shirt and collar of one piece, with a black +string-tie and double bow, which would have been +entirely concealed beneath the long white beard +but for its having worked around to one side +of the neck. The front outline of the face was +cleanly shaven, and the beard, growing simply from +the under chin and throat, lent the old pioneer the +rather singular appearance of having hair all over +him with this luxurious growth pulled out above +his collar for mere sample. + +I arose and asked the old man to sit down, handing +him a chair decorously. + +"No--no," he said--"I'm much obleeged. I hain't +come in to bother you no more'n I can he'p. All +I wanted was to know ef you got my poetry all right. +You know I take yer paper," he went on, in an +explanatory way, "and seein' you printed poetry in it +once-in-a-while, I sent you some of mine--neighbors +kindo' advised me to," he added apologetically, "and +so I sent you some--two or three times I sent you +some, but I hain't never seed hide-ner-hair of it in +your paper, and as I wus in town to-day, anyhow, +I jest thought I'd kindo' drap in and git it back, ef +you ain't goin' to print it--'cause I allus save up +most the things I write, aimin' sometime to git 'em +all struck off in pamphlet-form, to kindo' distribit +round 'mongst the neighbors, don't you know." + +Already I had begun to suspect my visitor's identity, +and was mechanically opening the drawer of +our poetical department. + +"How was your poetry signed?" I asked. + +"Signed by my own name," he answered proudly, +--"signed by my own name,--Johnson--Benjamin +F. Johnson, of Boone County--this state." + +"And is this one of them, Mr. Johnson?" I asked, +unfolding a clumsily-folded manuscript, and closely +scrutinizing the verse. + +"How does she read?" said the old man eagerly, +and searching in the meantime for his spectacles. +"How does she read?--Then I can tell you!" + +"It reads," said I, studiously conning the old +man's bold but bad chirography, and tilting my chair +back indolently,--"it reads like this--the first verse +does,"--and I very gravely read:-- + + "Oh! the old swimmin'-hole!"-- + + +"Stop! Stop!" said the old man excitedly--"Stop +right there! That's my poetry, but that's not the +way to read it by a long shot! Give it to me!" and +he almost snatched it from my hand. "Poetry like +this ain't no poetry at all, 'less you read it NATCHURL +and IN JEST THE SAME SPERIT 'AT IT'S WRIT IN, don't you +understand. It's a' old man a-talkin', rickollect, and +a-feelin' kindo' sad, and yit kindo' sorto' good, too, +and I opine he wouldn't got that off with a face on +him like a' undertaker, and a voice as solemn as a cow-bell after +dark! He'd say it more like this."-- +And the old man adjusted his spectacles and read:-- + + + "THE OLD SWIMMIN'-HOLE" + + "Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! whare the crick so still and deep + Looked like a baby-river that was laying half asleep, + And the gurgle of the worter round the drift jest below + Sounded like the laugh of something we onc't ust to know + Before we could remember anything but the eyes + Of the angels lookin' out as we left Paradise; + But the merry days of youth is beyond our controle, + And it's hard to part ferever with the old swimmin'-hole." + + +I clapped my hands in genuine applause. "Read +on!" I said,--"Read on! Read all of it!" + +The old man's face was radiant as he continued:-- + + "Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! In the happy days of yore, + When I ust to lean above it on the old sickamore, + Oh! it showed me a face in its warm sunny tide + That gazed back at me so gay and glorified, + It made me love myself, as I leaped to caress + My shadder smilin' up at me with sich tenderness. + But them days is past and gone, and old Time's tuck his toll + From the old man come back to the old swimmin'-hole. + + "Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! In the long, lazy days + When the humdrum of school made so many "run-a-ways," + How pleasant was the jurney down the old dusty lane, + Whare the tracks of our bare feet was all printed so plane + You could tell by the dent of the heel and the sole + They was lots o' fun on hands at the old swimmin'-hole. + But the lost joys is past! Let your tears in sorrow roll + Like the rain that ust to dapple up the old swimmin'-hole. + + "Thare the bullrushes growed, and the cattails so tall, + And the sunshine and shadder fell over it all; + And it mottled the worter with amber and gold + Till the glad lilies rocked in the ripples that rolled; + And the snake-feeder's four gauzy wings fluttered by + Like the ghost of a daisy dropped out of the sky, + Or a wownded apple-blossom in the breeze's controle + As it cut acrost some orchurd to'rds the old swimmin'-hole. + + "Oh! the old swimmin'-hole! When I last saw the place, + The scenes was all changed, like the change in my face; + The bridge of the railroad now crosses the spot + Whare the old divin'-log lays sunk and fergot. + And I stray down the banks whare the trees ust to be-- + But never again will theyr shade shelter me! + And I wish in my sorrow I could strip to the soul, + And dive off in my grave like the old swimmin'-hole." + + +My applause was long and loud. The old man's +interpretation of the poem was a positive revelation, +though I was glad enough to conceal from him my +moistened eyes by looking through the scraps for +other specimens of his verse. + +"Here," said I enthusiastically, "is another one, +signed 'Benj. F. Johnson,' read me this," and I +handed him the poem. + +The old man smiled and took the manuscript. +"This-here one's on 'The Hoss,' " he said, simply +clearing his throat. "They ain't so much fancy- +work about this as the other'n, but they's jest as +much FACT, you can bet--'cause, they're no animal +a-livin' 'at I love better 'an + +"THE HOSS" + + "The hoss he is a splendud beast; + He is man's friend, as heaven desined, + And, search the world from west to east, + No honester you'll ever find! + + "Some calls the hoss 'a pore dumb brute,' + And yit, like Him who died fer you, + I say, as I theyr charge refute, + 'Fergive; they know not what they do!' + + "No wiser animal makes tracks + Upon these earthly shores, and hence + Arose the axium, true as facts, + Extoled by all, as 'Good hoss-sense!' + + "The hoss is strong, and knows his stren'th,-- + You hitch him up a time er two + And lash him, and he'll go his len'th + And kick the dashboard out fer you! + + "But, treat him allus good and kind, + And never strike him with a stick, + Ner aggervate him, and you'll find + He'll never do a hostile trick. + + "A hoss whose master tends him right + And worters him with daily care, + Will do your biddin' with delight, + And act as docile as YOU air. + + "He'll paw and prance to hear your praise, + Because he's learnt to love you well; + And, though you can't tell what he says + He'll nicker all he wants to tell. + + "He knows you when you slam the gate + At early dawn, upon your way + Unto the barn, and snorts elate, + To git his corn, er oats, er hay. + + "He knows you, as the orphant knows + The folks that loves her like theyr own, + And raises her and "finds" her clothes, + And "schools" her tel a womern-grown! + + "I claim no hoss will harm a man, + Ner kick, ner run away, cavort, + Stump-suck, er balk, er 'catamaran,' + Ef you'll jest treat him as you ort. + + "But when I see the beast abused, + And clubbed around as I've saw some, + I want to see his owner noosed, + And jest yanked up like Absolum! + + "Of course they's differunce in stock,-- + A hoss that has a little yeer, + And slender build, and shaller hock, + Can beat his shadder, mighty near! + + "Whilse one that's thick in neck and chist + And big in leg and full in flank, + That tries to race, I still insist + He'll have to take the second rank. + + "And I have jest laid back and laughed, + And rolled and wallered in the grass + At fairs, to see some heavy-draft + Lead out at FIRST, yit come in LAST! + + "Each hoss has his appinted place,-- + The heavy hoss should plow the soil;-- + The blooded racer, he must race, + And win big wages fer his toil. + + "I never bet--ner never wrought + Upon my feller man to bet-- + And yit, at times, I've often thought + Of my convictions with regret. + + "I bless the hoss from hoof to head-- + From head to hoof, and tale to mane!-- + I bless the hoss, as I have said, + From head to hoof, and back again! + + "I love my God the first of all, + Then Him that perished on the cross, + And next, my wife,--and then I fall + Down on my knees and love the hoss." + + +Again I applauded, handing the old man still +another of his poems, and the last received. "Ah!" +said he, as his gentle eyes bent on the title; "this-- +here's the cheerfullest one of 'em all. This is the +one writ, as I wrote you about--on that glorious +October morning two weeks ago--I thought your +paper would print this-un, shore!" + +"Oh, it WILL print it," I said eagerly; "and it will +print the other two as well! It will print ANYTHING +that you may do us the honor to offer, and we'll +reward you beside just as you may see fit to designate.-- +But go on--go on! Read me the poem." + +The old man's eyes were glistening as he responded +with the poem entitled + + +"WHEN THE FROST IS ON THE PUNKIN" + + "When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock, + And you hear the kyouck and gobble of the struttin' turkey-cock, +And the clackin' of the guineys, and the cluckin' of the hens, + And the rooster's hallylooyer as he tiptoes on the fence + O, it's then's the times a feller is a-feelin' at his best, + With the risin' sun to greet him from a night of peaceful rest, + As he leaves the house, bareheaded, and goes out to feed the +stock, + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. + + "They's something kindo' harty-like about the atmusfere + When the heat of summer's over and the coolin' fall is here-- + Of course we miss the flowers, and the blossums on the trees, + And the mumble of the hummin'-birds and buzzin' of the bees; + But the air's so appetizin'; and the landscape through the haze + Of a crisp and sunny morning of the airly autumn days + Is a pictur' that no painter has the colorin' to mock-- + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock. + + "The husky, rusty russel of the tossels of the corn, + And the raspin' of the tangled leaves, as golden as the morn; + The stubble in the furries--kindo' lonesome-like, but still + A-preachin' sermuns to us of the barns they growed to fill; + The strawstack in the medder, and the reaper in the shed; + The hosses in theyr stalls below--the clover overhead!-- + O, it sets my hart a-clickin' like the tickin' of a clock, + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock! + + "Then your apples all is getherd, and the ones a feller keeps + Is poured around the celler-floor in red and yeller heaps; + And your cider-makin' 's over, and your wimmern-folks is through + With theyr mince and apple-butter, and theyr souse and saussage, +too! . . . + I don't know how to tell it--but ef sich a thing could be + As the Angels wantin' boardin', and they'd call around on ME-- + I'd want to 'commodate 'em-all the whole-indurin' flock-- + When the frost is on the punkin and the fodder's in the shock!" + + +That was enough! "Surely," thought I, "here is a +diamond in the rough, and a 'gem,' too, 'of purest +ray serene'!" I caught the old man's hand and +wrung it with positive rapture; and it is needless to +go further in explanation of how the readers of our +daily came to an acquaintance through its columns +with the crude, unpolished, yet most gentle genius of +Benj. F. Johnson, of Boone. + + + +THE OLD SOLDIER'S STORY + +AS TOLD BEFORE THE NEW ENGLAND SOCIETY IN NEW +YORK CITY + +Since we have had no stories to-night I will +venture, Mr. President, to tell a story that I +have heretofore heard at nearly all the banquets I +have ever attended. It is a story simply, and you +must bear with it kindly. It is a story as told by +a friend of us all, who is found in all parts of all +countries, who is immoderately fond of a funny +story, and who, unfortunately, attempts to tell a +funny story himself--one that he has been particularly +delighted with. Well, he is not a story-teller, +and especially he is not a funny story-teller. His +funny stories, indeed, are oftentimes touchingly +pathetic. But to such a story as he tells, being a +good-natured man and kindly disposed, we have to +listen, because we do not want to wound his feelings +by telling him that we have heard that story a +great number of times, and that we have heard it +ably told by a great number of people from the time +we were children. But, as I say, we can not hurt his +feelings. We can not stop him. We can not kill him; +and so the story generally proceeds. He selects a very old story +always, and generally tells it in about +this fashion: + +I heerd an awful funny thing the other day--ha! +ha! I don't know whether I kin git it off er not, +but, anyhow, I'll tell it to you. Well!--le's see now +how the fool-thing goes. Oh, yes!--W'y, there was +a feller one time--it was during the army and this +feller that I started in to tell you about was in the +war and--ha! ha!--there was a big fight a-goin' on, +and this feller was in the fight, and it was a big battle +and bullets a-flyin' ever' which way, and bomb- +shells a-bu'stin', and cannon-balls a-flyin' 'round +promiskus; and this feller right in the midst of it, +you know, and all excited and het up, and chargin' +away; and the fust thing you know along come a +cannon-ball and shot his head off--ha! ha! ha! +Hold on here a minute!--no, sir; I'm a-gittin' ahead +of my story; no, no; it didn't shoot his HEAD off-- +I'm gittin' the cart before the horse there--shot his +LEG off; that was the way; shot his leg off; and +down the poor feller drapped, and, of course, in that +condition was perfectly he'pless, you know, but yit +with presence o' mind enough to know that he was +in a dangerous condition ef somepin' wasn't done fer +him right away. So he seen a comrade a-chargin', +by that he knowed, and he hollers to him and called +him by name--I disremember now what the feller's +name was. . . . + +Well, that's got nothin' to do with the story, +anyway; he hollers to him, he did, and says, "Hello, +there," he says to him; "here, I want you to come +here and give me a lift; I got my leg shot off, and +I want you to pack me back to the rear of the battle" +--where the doctors always is, you know, during a +fight--and he says, "I want you to pack me back +there where I can get med-dy-cinal attention er I'm +a dead man, fer I got my leg shot off," he says, +"and I want you to pack me back there so's +the surgeons kin take keer of me." Well-- +the feller, as luck would have it, ricko'nized him +and run to him and throwed down his own musket, +so's he could pick him up; and he stooped down and +picked him up and kindo' half-way shouldered him +and half-way helt him betwixt his arms like, and +then he turned and started back with him--ha! ha! +ha! Now, mind, the fight was still a-goin' on--and +right at the hot of the fight, and the feller, all +excited, you know, like he was, and the soldier that +had his leg shot off gittin' kindo' fainty like, and his +head kindo' stuck back over the feller's shoulder +that was carryin' him. And he hadn't got more'n a +couple o' rods with him when another cannon-ball +come along and tuk his head off, shore enough!-- +and the curioust thing about it was--ha! ha!--that +the feller was a-packin' him didn't know that he +had been hit ag'in at all, and back he went--still +carryin' the deceased back--ha! ha! ha!--to where +the doctors could take keer of him--as he thought. +Well, his cap'n happened to see him, and he thought +it was a ruther cur'ous p'ceedin's--a soldier carryin' +a dead body out o' the fight--don't you see? And +so he hollers at him, and he says to the soldier, the +cap'n did, he says, "Hullo, there; where you goin' +with that thing?" the cap'n said to the soldier who +was a-carryin' away the feller that had his leg shot +off. Well, his head, too, by that time. So he says, +"Where you going with that thing?" the cap'n said +to the soldier who was a-carryin' away the feller that +had his leg shot off. Well, the soldier he stopped-- +kinder halted, you know, like a private soldier will +when his presidin' officer speaks to him--and he says +to him, "W'y," he says, "Cap, it's a comrade o' mine +and the pore feller has got his leg shot off, and I'm +a-packin' him back to where the doctors is; and there +was nobody to he'p him, and the feller would 'a' died +in his tracks--er track ruther--if it hadn't a-been fer +me, and I'm a-packin' him back where the surgeons +can take keer of him; where he can get medical +attendance--er his wife's a widder!" he says, " 'cause +he's got his leg shot off!" Then CAP'N says, "You +blame fool you, he's got his HEAD shot off." So then +the feller slacked his grip on the body and let it +slide down to the ground, and looked at it a minute, +all puzzled, you know, and says, "W'y, he told me +it was his leg!" Ha! ha! ha! + + + + +DIALECT IN LITERATURE + +'And the common people heard him gladly' + +Of what shall be said herein of dialect, let it be +understood the term dialect referred to is of +that general breadth of meaning given it to-day, +namely, any speech or vernacular outside of the +prescribed form of good English in its present state. +The present state of the English is, of course, not +any one of its prior states. So first let it be +remarked that it is highly probable that what may +have been the best of English once may now by some +be counted as a weak, inconsequent patois, or +dialect. + +To be direct, it is the object of this article to show +that dialect is not a thing to be despised in any event +--that its origin is oftentimes of as royal caste as +that of any speech. Listening back, from the stand- +point of to-day, even to the divine singing of that old +classic master to whom England's late laureate +refers as + + ". . . the first warbler, whose sweet breath + Preluded those melodious bursts that fill + The spacious times of great Elizabeth + With sounds that echo still"; + +or to whom Longfellow alludes, in his matchless +sonnet, as + + ". . . the poet of the dawn, who wrote + The Canterbury Tales, and his old age + Made beautiful with song"-- + +Chaucer's verse to us is NOW as veritably dialect as +to that old time it was the chastest English; and even +then his materials were essentially dialect when his +song was at best pitch. Again, our present dialect, +of most plebeian ancestry, may none the less prove +worthy. Mark the recognition of its own personal +merit in the great new dictionary, where what was, +in our own remembrance, the most outlandish dialect, +is now good, sound, official English. + +Since Literature must embrace all naturally +existing materials--physical, mental and spiritual--we +have no occasion to urge its acceptance of so-called +dialect, for dialect IS in Literature, and HAS been +there since the beginning of all written thought and +utterance. Strictly speaking, as well as paradoxically, +all verbal expression is more or less dialectic, +however grammatical. While usage establishes +grammar, it no less establishes so-called dialect. +Therefore we may as rightfully refer to "so-called +grammar." + +It is not really a question of Literature's position +toward dialect that we are called upon to consider, +but rather how much of Literature's valuable time +shall be taken up by this dialectic country cousin. +This question Literature her gracious self most +amiably answers by hugging to her breast voluminous +tomes, from Chaucer on to Dickens, from +Dickens on to Joel Chandler Harris. And this +affectionate spirit on the part of Literature, in the +main, we all most feelingly indorse. + +Briefly summed, it would appear that dialect +means something more than mere rude form of +speech and action--that it must, in some righteous +and substantial way, convey to us a positive force +of soul, truth, dignity, beauty, grace, purity and +sweetness that may even touch us to the tenderness +of tears. Yes, dialect as certainly does all this as +that speech and act refined may do it, and for the +same reasons: it is simply, purely natural and +human. + +Yes, the Lettered and the Unlettered powers are +at sword's points; and very old and bitter foemen, +too, they are. As fairly as we can, then, let us look +over the field of these contending forces and note +their diverse positions: First, THE LETTERED--they +who have the full advantages of refined education, +training, and association--are undoubtedly as +wholly out of order among the UNLETTERED as the +Unlettered are out of order in the exalted presence +of the Lettered. Each faction may in like aversion +ignore or snub the other; but a long-suffering Providence +must bear with the society of both. There +may be one vague virtue demonstrated by this feud: +each division will be found unwaveringly loyal to +its kind, and mutually they desire no interchange of +sympathy whatever.--Neither element will accept +from the other any PATRONIZING treatment; and, +perhaps, the more especially does the UNLETTERED faction +reject anything in vaguest likeness of this spirit. Of +the two divisions, in graphic summary,--ONE knows +the very core and center of refined civilization, and +this only; the OTHER knows the outlying wilds and +suburbs of civilization, and this only. Whose, therefore, +is the greater knowledge, and whose the just +right of any whit of self-glorification? + +A curious thing, indeed, is this factional pride, as +made equally manifest in both forces; in one, for +instance, of the Unlettered forces: The average +farmer, or countryman, knows, in reality, a far better +and wider range of diction than he permits himself +to use. He restricts and abridges the vocabulary +of his speech, fundamentally, for the reason +that he fears offending his rural NEIGHBORS, to whom +a choicer speech might suggest, on his part, an +assumption--a spirit of conscious superiority, and +therewith an implied reflection on THEIR lack of +intelligence and general worthiness. If there is any +one text universally known and nurtured of the +Unlettered masses of our common country, it is that +which reads, "All men are created equal." Therefore +it is a becoming thing when true gentility prefers +to overlook some variations of the class who, +more from lack of cultivation than out of rude +intent, sometimes almost compel a positive doubt of +the nice veracity of the declaration, or at least a +grief at the munificent liberality of the so-bequoted +statement. The somewhat bewildering position of +these conflicting forces leaves us nothing further to +consider, but how to make the most and best of the +situation so far as Literature may be hurt or helped +thereby. + +Equally with the perfect English, then, dialect +should have full justice done it. Then always it is +worthy, and in Literature is thus welcome. The +writer of dialect should as reverently venture in its +use as in his chastest English. His effort in the +SCHOLARLY and ELEGANT direction suffers no neglect-- +he is SCHOOLED in that, perhaps, he may explain. +Then let him be SCHOOLED in DIALECT before he sets +up as an expounder of it--a teacher, forsooth a +master! The real master must not only know each +varying light and shade of dialect expression, but +he must as minutely know the inner character of the +people whose native tongue it is, else his product is +simply a pretense--a wilful forgery, a rank +abomination. Dialect has been and is thus insulted, +vilified, and degraded, now and continually; and +through this outrage solely, thousands of generous- +minded readers have been turned against dialect +who otherwise would have loved and blessed it in +its real form of crude purity and unstrained sweetness-- + + Honey dripping from the comb. + + +Let no impious faddist, then, assume its just +interpretation. He may know everything else in the +world, but not dialect, nor dialectic people, for both +of which he has supreme contempt, which same, be +sure, is heartily returned. Such a "superior" +personage may even go among these simple country +people and abide indefinitely in the midst of them, +yet their more righteous contempt never for one instant +permits them to be their real selves in his presence. +In consequence, his most conscientious report +of them, their ways, lives, and interests, is absolutely +of no importance or value in the world. He +never knew them, nor will he ever know them. They +are not his kind of people, any more than he is their +kind of man; and THEIR disappointment grieves us +more than his. + +The master in Literature, as in any art, is that +"divinely gifted man" who does just obeisance to +all living creatures, "both man and beast and bird." +It is this master only who, as he writes, can sweep +himself aside and leave his humble characters to do +the thinking and the talking. This man it is who +celebrates his performance--not himself. His work +he celebrates because it is not his only, but because +he feels it to be the conscientious reproduction of +life itself--as he has seen and known and felt it;--a +representation it is of God's own script, translated +and transcribed by the worshipful mind and heart +and hand of genius. This virtue is impartially +demanded in all art, and genius only can fully +answer the demand in any art for which we claim +perfection. The painter has his expression of it, +with no slighting of the dialect element; so, too, the +sculptor, the musician, and the list entire. In the +line of Literature and literary material, an illustration +of the nice meaning and distinction of the art +of dialect will be found in Charles Dudley Warner's +comment on George Cable's work, as far back as +1883, referring to the author's own rendition of it +from the platform. Mr. Warner says: + +While the author was unfolding to his audience a life +and society unfamiliar to them and entrancing them with +pictures, the reality of which none doubted and the spell +of which none cared to escape, it occurred to me that here +was the solution of all the pother we have recently got into +about the realistic and the ideal schools in fiction. In +"Posson Jone," an awkward camp-meeting country preacher +is the victim of a vulgar confidence game; the scenes are +the street, a drinking-place, a gambling-saloon, a bull-ring, +and a calaboose; there is not a "respectable" character in +it. Where shall we look for a more faithful picture of low +life? Where shall we find another so vividly set forth in +all its sordid details? And yet see how art steps in, with +the wand of genius, to make literature! Over the whole the +author has cast an ideal light; over a picture that, in the +hands of a bungling realist, would have been repellent he +has thrown the idealizing grace that makes it one of the +most charming sketches in the world. Here is nature, as +nature only ought to be in literature, elevated but never +departed from. + + +So we find dialect, as a branch of literature, +worthy of the high attention and employment of +the greatest master in letters--not the merest +mountebank. Turn to Dickens, in innumerable +passages of pathos: the death of poor Jo, or that +of the "Cheap John's" little daughter in her father's +arms, on the foot-board of his peddling cart before +the jeering of the vulgar mob; smile moistly, too, +at Mr. Sleary's odd philosophies; or at the trials +of Sissy Jupe; or lift and tower with indignation, +giving ear to Stephen Blackpool and the stainless +nobility of his cloyed utterances. + +The crudeness or the homeliness of the dialectic +element does not argue its unfitness in any way. +Some readers seem to think so; but they are wrong, +and very gravely wrong. Our own brief history as +a nation, and our finding and founding and maintaining +of it, left our forefathers little time indeed +for the delicate cultivation of the arts and graces +of refined and scholarly attainments. And there +is little wonder, and utter blamelessness on their +part, if they lapsed in point of high mental +accomplishments, seeing their attention was so absorbed +by propositions looking toward the protection of +their rude farm-homes, their meager harvests, and +their half-stabled cattle from the dread invasion of +the Indian. Then, too, they had their mothers and +their wives and little ones to protect, to clothe, to +feed, and to die for in this awful line of duty, as +hundreds upon hundreds did. These sad facts are +here accented and detailed not so much for the sake +of being tedious as to indicate more clearly why it +was that many of the truly heroic ancestors of "our +best people" grew unquestionably dialect of caste +--not alone in speech, but in every mental trait and +personal address. It is a grievous fact for us to +confront, but many of them wore apparel of the +commonest, talked loudly, and doubtless said "thisaway" +and "thataway," and "Watch y' doin' of?" +and "Whur yi goin' at?"--using dialect even in +their prayers to Him who, in His gentle mercy, +listened and was pleased; and who listens verily +unto this hour to all like prayers, yet pleased; yea, +haply listens to the refined rhetorical petitions of +those who are NOT pleased. + +There is something more at fault than the language +when we turn from or flinch at it; and, as +has been intimated, the wretched fault may be +skulkingly hidden away in the ambush of OSTENSIBLE +dialect--that type of dialect so copiously produced +by its sole manufacturers, who, utterly stark and +bare of the vaguest idea of country life or country +people, at once assume that all their "gifted pens" +have to do is stupidly to misspell every word; +vulgarly mistreat and besloven every theme, however +sacred; maim, cripple, and disfigure language never +in the vocabulary of the countryman--then smuggle +these monstrosities of either rhyme or prose somehow +into the public print that is innocently to smear +them broadcast all over the face of the country they +insult. + +How different the mind and method of the true +intrepreter. As this phrase goes down the man +himself arises--the type perfect--Colonel Richard +Malcolm Johnston, who wrote "The Dukesborough +Tales"--an accomplished classical scholar and +teacher, yet no less an accomplished master and +lover of his native dialect of middle Georgia. He, +like Dickens, permits his rustic characters to think, +talk, act and live, Just as nature designed them. He +does not make the pitiable error of either +patronizing or making fun of them. He knows them and +he loves them; and they know and love him in +return. Recalling Colonel Johnston's dialectic +sketches, with his own presentation of them from +the platform, the writer notes a fact that seems +singularly to obtain among all true dialect-writers, +namely, that they are also endowed with native +histrionic capabilities: HEAR, as well as read, Twain, +Cable, Johnston, Page, Smith, and all the list with +barely an exception. + +Did space permit, no better illustration of true +dialect sketch and characterization might here be +offered than Colonel Johnston's simple story of +"Mr. Absalom Billingslea," or the short and simple +annals of his like quaint contemporaries, "Mr. Bill +Williams" and "Mr. Jonas Lively." The scene is +the country and the very little country town, with +landscape, atmosphere, simplicity, circumstance--all +surroundings and conditions--VERITABLE--everything +rural and dialectic, no less than the simple, +primitive, common, wholesome-hearted men and women +who so naturally live and have their blessed being +in his stories, just as in the life itself. This is the +manifest work of the true dialect writer and +expounder. In every detail, the most minute, such +work reveals the master-hand and heart of the +humanitarian as well as artist--the two are indissolubly +fused--and the result of such just treatment +of whatever lowly themes or characters we can but +love and loyally approve with all our human hearts. Such masters +necessarily are rare, and such ripe +perfecting as is here attained may be in part the +mellowing result of age and long observation, +though it can be based upon the wisest, purest +spirit of the man as well as artist. + +With no less approval should the work of Joel +Chandler Harris be regarded: His touch alike is +ever reverential. He has gathered up the bruised +and broken voices and the legends of the slave, +and from his child-heart he has affectionately +yielded them to us in all their eery beauty and +wild loveliness. Through them we are made to +glorify the helpless and the weak and to revel in +their victories. But, better, we are taught that even +in barbaric breasts there dwells inherently the sense +of right above wrong-equity above law-and the +One Unerring Righteousness Eternal. With equal +truth and strength, too, Mr. Harris has treated the +dialectic elements of the interior Georgia country-- +the wilds and fastnesses of the "moonshiners." His +tale of Teague Poteet, of some years ago, was +contemporaneous with the list of striking mountain +stories from that strong and highly gifted Tennesseean, +Miss Murfree, or "Charles Egbert Craddock." +In the dialectic spirit her stories charm and +hold us. Always there is strangely mingled, but +most naturally, the gentle nature cropping out amid +the most desperate and stoical: the night scene in +the isolated mountain cabin, guarded ever without +and within from any chance down-swooping of the +minions of the red-eyed law; the great man-group +of gentle giants, with rifles never out of arm's- +reach, in tender rivalry ranged admiringly around +the crowing, wakeful little boy-baby; the return, at +last, of the belated mistress of the house--the sister, +to whom all do great, awkward reverence. Jealously +snatching up the babe and kissing it, she +querulously demands why he has not long ago been +put to bed. "He 'lowed he wouldn't go," is the +reply. + +Thomas Nelson Page, of Virginia, who wrote +Meh Lady--a positive classic in the negro dialect: +his work is veritable--strong and pure and +sweet; and as an oral reader of it the doubly gifted +author, in voice and cadence, natural utterance, +every possible effect of speech and tone, is doubtless +without rival anywhere. + +Many more, indeed, than may be mentioned now +there are of these real benefactors and preservers +of the wayside characters, times, and customs of our +ever-shifting history. Needless is it to speak here of +the earlier of our workers in the dialectic line--of +James Russell Lowell's New England Hosea Biglow, +Dr. Eggleston's Hoosier School-Master, or +the very rare and quaint, bright prattle of Helen's +Babies. In connection with this last let us very +seriously inquire what this real child has done that +Literature should so persistently refuse to give him +an abiding welcome? Since for ages this question +seems to have been left unasked, it may be timely +now to propound it. Why not the real child in +Literature? The real child is good enough (we all +know he is bad enough) to command our admiring +attention and most lively interest in real life, and +just as we find him "in the raw." Then why do we +deny him any righteous place of recognition in our +Literature? From the immemorial advent of our +dear old Mother Goose, Literature has been especially +catering to the juvenile needs and desires, and +yet steadfastly overlooking, all the time, the very +principles upon which Nature herself founds and +presents this lawless little brood of hers--the +children. It is not the children who are out of order; +it is Literature. And not only is Literature out of +order, but she is presumptuous; she is impudent. +She takes Nature's children and revises and corrects +them till "their own mother doesn't know them." +This is literal fact. So, very many of us are coming +to inquire, as we've a right, why is the real child +excluded from a just hearing in the world of letters +as he has in the world of fact? For instance, +what has the lovely little ragamuffin ever done of +sufficient guilt to consign him eternally to the +monstrous penalty of speaking most accurate grammar +all the literary hours of the days of the years of his +otherwise natural life? + + "Oh, mother, may I go to school + With brother Charles to-day? + The air is very fine and cool; + Oh, mother, say I may!" + +--Is this a real boy that would make such a request, +and is it the real language he would use? No, we +are glad to say that it is not. Simply it is a libel, +in every particular, on any boy, however fondly +and exactingly trained by parents however zealous +for his overdecorous future. Better, indeed, the +dubious sentiment of the most trivial nursery jingle, +since the latter at least maintains the lawless though +wholesome spirit of the child-genuine.-- + + "Hink! Minx! The old witch winks-- + The fat begins to fry; + There's nobody home but Jumping Joan, + Father and mother and I." + +Though even here the impious poet leaves the scar +of grammatical knowledge upon childhood's native +diction; and so the helpless little fellow is again +misrepresented, and his character, to all intents and +purposes, is assaulted and maligned outrageously +thereby. + +Now, in all seriousness, this situation ought not +to be permitted to exist, though to change it seems +an almost insurmountable task. The general public, +very probably, is not aware of the real gravity of +the position of the case as even unto this day it +exists. Let the public try, then, to contribute the +real child to the so-called Child Literature of its +country, and have its real child returned as promptly +as it dare show its little tousled head in the presence +of that scholarly and dignified institution. Then +ask why your real child has been spanked back +home again, and the wise mentors there will virtually +tell you that Child Literature wants no real children in it, that +the real child's example of +defective grammar and lack of elegant deportment +would furnish to its little patrician patrons suggestions +very hurtful indeed to their higher morals, +tendencies, and ambitions. Then, although the general +public couldn't for the life of it see why or +how, and might even be reminded that it was just +such a rowdying child itself, and that its FATHER-- +the Father of his Country--was just such a child; +that Abraham Lincoln was just such a lovable, lawless +child, and yet was blessed and chosen in the +end for the highest service man may ever render +unto man,--all--all this argument would avail not +in the least, since the elegantly minded purveyors +of Child Literature can not possibly tolerate the +presence of any but the refined children--the very +proper children--the studiously thoughtful, poetic +children,--and these must be kept safe from the +contaminating touch of our rough-and-tumble little +fellows in "hodden gray," with frowzly heads, +begrimed but laughing faces, and such awful, awful +vulgarities of naturalness, and crimes of simplicity, +and brazen faith and trust, and love of life and +everybody in it. All other real people are getting +into Literature; and without some real children +along will they not soon be getting lonesome, too? + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Etext: Complete Works of James Whitcomb Riley + Binary files differdiff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. 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