"A WORLD OF FINE FABLING"
Solon Denney's home, in charge of Mrs. Delia Sullivan, late of Kerry,
was four blocks up the shaded street from my own. Within one block of
its gate as I approached it that morning, the Sabbath calm was riven by
shouts that led me to the back of the house. In the yard next to
Solon's, Tobin Crowder, of Crowder & Fancett, Lumber, Coal and Building
Supplies, had left a magnificent green wagon-box flat upon the ground, a
thing so fine that it was almost a game of itself. An imagination of
even the second order could at once render it supremely fascinating. My
two babes, collaborating with four small Sullivans, had by child magic,
which is the only true magic, transformed this box into a splendid
express train. The train now sped across country at such terrific speed
that the small Sullivan at the throttle, an artist and a realist,
crouched low, with eyes strained upon the track-head, with one hand
tightly holding on his Sunday cap.
Another Sullivan was fireman, fiercely shovelling imaginary coal; still
another at the side of the box grasped the handle of the brake as one
ready to die at his post if need be. The last Sullivan paced the length
of the wagon-box, being thrown from side to side with fine artistry by
the train's jolting. He arrogantly demanded tickets from passengers
supposedly both to relinquish these. And in his wake went the official
most envied by all the others. With a horse's nose-bag upon his arm my
namesake chanted in pleading tones above the din, "Peanuts--freshly
buttered popcorn--Culver's celebrated double-X cough drops, cool and
refreshing!"
But the tragic eminence of the game was occupied by my woman child.
Perched in the middle of the high seat, her short legs impotently
projecting into space, she was the only passenger on this train--and
she, for whose sole behoof the ponderous machinery was operated, in
whose exclusive service this crew of trained hirelings toiled--she sat
aloft indignant, with tear-wet face, her soul revolted by the ignominy
of it.
I knew the truth in a glance. There had been clamors for the positions
of honor, and she, from weakness of sex, had been overborne. She, whose
heart cried out for the distinction of train-boy, conductor, engineer,
brakeman, or fireman, in the order named, had been forced into the only
degrading post in the game--a mere passenger without voice or office in
those delicate feats of administration. And she suffered--suffered with
a pathetic loyalty, for she knew as well as they that some one _had_ to
be the passenger.
I held an accusing eye upon my namesake and the train came to a sudden
halt, much embarrassed, though the brakeman, with artistic relish, made
a vast ado with his brake and pretended that "she" might start off again
any minute.
My namesake poised himself on the foot that had no stone-bruise and
began:--
"Now, Uncle Maje, I _told_ her she could be engineer after we got to the
next station--"
His tones were those of benevolence that has been ill-requited.
"_That_ was las' station," broke in the aggrieved passenger, "an' they
wouldn't stop the train there 'cause they said it was a 'spress train
and mustn't stop at such little stations--"
"I tried awful hard to stop her," said the crafty Sullivan at the
throttle, "but she got away from me. She did _so_, now!"
"And I said, 'First to be engineer,'" resumed the passenger, bitterly,
"an' they wouldn't let me, an' I said, 'Secon' to be engineer,' an' they
never let me, an' I said, 'Las' to be engineer,' an' they never let me."
"She wants to be _everything_" said my namesake, rendered a little
sullen by this concise putting of her case.
"You come with me," I said to the passenger, "and we'll do something
better than this--something fine!"
Her face brightened, for she knew that I never made idle promises as do
so many grown-ups. She jumped from her seat, even though the first
Sullivan tooted a throaty whistle and the second rattled his brake
machinery in warning. I helped her over the side of the box, and as we
walked away she shouted back to the bereaved express train a consolatory
couplet:--
"First the worst, second the same,
Last the best of all the game!"
That superb machinery of travel was silent, and the mechanics and
officials, robbed of their passenger, eyed us with disfavor.
"They are terrapin-buzzards!" exclaimed my woman child, with deep
conviction.
I shuddered fittingly at the violence of her speech.
Before we had gone far the train-boy deserted his post and came running
after us.
"John B. Gough!" he exclaimed bitterly--profanely.
"He's swearing," warned his sister. "Look out, Uncle Maje, or he'll say
'Gamboge' next."
"I don't care," retorted the indignant follower; "you can't have a train
without any passenger--it's silly. I don't care if I do say Gamboge.
There! Gamboge it!"
I turned upon him. I had endured "terrapin-buzzards," hurled at the
group by my woman child, perceiving need of relief for her pent-up
passion. I had, moreover, for the same reason, permitted my namesake to
roll under his tongue the formidable and satisfying expletive, "John B.
Gough!" But I felt that the line must be drawn at Gamboge.
Terrapin-buzzards was bad enough, though it was true that this might be
used innocently, as in a moment of mild dismay, or as an exclamation of
mere astonishment without sinister import. But Gamboge!--and ripped out
brazenly as it had been?--No! A thousand times No!
"Calvin," I said sternly, "aren't you ashamed to use such
language--before me--and before your little sister?"
But here the little sister sank beneath her true woman's level by
saying:--
"I know worse than that--Dut!"
With a look of deadly coldness I sought to chill the pride that shone in
her eyes as she achieved this new enormity.
"What is 'Dut'?" I asked severely.
"Dut is--is _a_ Dut," she answered, somewhat abashed by my want of
enthusiasm.
"A Dut is a baddix--a regular baddix," volunteered her brother.
Following a device familiar to philologists, he submitted concrete
examples.
"Two of those Sullivans are Duts, and so's Mrs. Sullivan sometimes when
she makes me split kindling and let the cat alone and--"
"That will do," I said; "that's enough of such talk. Come right into the
house."
"It ain't a baddix to say 'O Crackers!'" he observed tentatively, as he
followed us.
"It may not be for some people," I answered. "Nice people might say that
once in a great while, on week-days, if they never said any other
baddixes; but it's just as bad as any of them if you say all the
others--especially that horrible one--"
"Gamboge," he reminded me, brightly.
"Never mind saying it again!"
Then came a new uproar from the wagon-box. We perceived that the train
had moved off again, manned now entirely by Sullivans. They sought, I
detected, to produce in our minds an impression that the thing was going
better than ever. The toots of the Sullivan-throated whistle were louder
and more frequent, and the voice of the largest could be plainly heard.
He had combined the two offices of train-boy and conductor. We heard him
alternately demanding "Tickets!" and urging "Peanuts, cakes, and
candies!" If the intention had been to lure us back to witness a
Sullivan triumph, it failed. We shut our lips tightly and moved around
to the front porch.
The foiled Sullivans presently followed us here. They made a group at
the base of a maple on the lawn and, affecting not to notice us, talked
in a large, loud way so that we must overhear and be made envious,--even
awe-struck; for they had all secured jobs on the real railroad, it
appeared. They would have to begin to-morrow, probably. They didn't know
for sure, but they thought it would be to-morrow. It would be fine,
riding off on the big train. Probably they would never come back to this
town, but sleep on their big engine every night; and every day, from the
toothsome dainties of the train-boy Sullivan's basket, they would "eat
all they could hold." The elder Sullivan, aged eight, he of the
artistic temperament, here soared dizzily into the farthest ether of
romance. He had his uniform at home, at that very moment, and a cap with
"gold reading" on it--it read "Conductor" on one side, and "Candy" on
the other. Only--this veritably smacked of genius--the blue coat with
the gold buttons had been made too small for him, and he'd have to wait
until they sent him a larger size--"a No. 12," he said, with a careless,
unseeing glance at our group. This was a stroke that had nearly done for
one of us--but a moment's resistance and another of sober reflection
saved him. He flashed to me a look of scorn for the clumsy fabrication.
There was still a brakeman needed, it appeared,--a _good_ brakeman. The
Sullivans consulted importantly, wondering if "a good man" could by any
chance be found "around here." They named and rejected several possible
candidates--other boys that we knew. And they wondered again.
No--probably every one around here was afraid to leave home, or wouldn't
be strong enough.
I held my breath, perceiving at once, the villany on foot. They were
trying to lure one of us into a trap. They wished one of us to leap
forward with a glad, eager, artless shout--"_I'll_ be the other
brakeman!" At once they would jeer coarsely, slapping one another's
backs and affecting the utmost merriment that this one of us should have
been equal to so monstrous a pretension. This would last a long time.
They would take up other matters only for the sake of coming back to it
with sudden explosions of contemptuous mirth.
Happily, the one of us most liable to this ignominy remained unbelieving
to the bitter end; even did he pretend to a yawning sort of interest in
a book carelessly picked up. The Sullivans had been foiled at every
turn, and now we were relieved from the covert but not less pointed
insult of their presence.
Mrs. Delia, her morning's work done, came out dressed for church,
bidding me a briskly sad little "Good marnin', _Major!_" I responded
pleasantly, for in a way I liked Mrs. Sullivan, who came each day from
her bare little house under the hill to make a home for Solon and our
children. At least she was kind to them and kept them plump. That she
remained dismal under circumstances that seemed to me not to warrant it
was a detail of minor consequence. Terry Sullivan had been no good
husband to her. Beating her and the lesser Sullivans had been his
serious aim when in liquor and his diversion when out. But he fell from
a gracious scaffolding with a. bucket of azure paint one day and
fractured his stout neck, a thing which in the general opinion of Little
Arcady Heaven had meant to be consummated under more formal auspices.
But when they took Terry home and laid him on her bed, she had wailed
absurdly for the lost lover in him. Through the night her cry had been,
"Ah, Terry, Terry,--ye gev me manny a haird blow, darlin', but ye kep'
th' hairdest til th' last!"
It was not possible to avoid being irritated a little by such a woman,
but I always tried to conceal this from her. I suppose she had a right
to her own play-world. She was dressed now in a limp black of many rusty
ruffles that sagged close to her and glistened in spots through its
rust. Both the dress and the spiritless silk bonnet that circled her
keen little face seemed to have been cried over a long time--to be
always damp with her tears.
With parting injunctions to my namesake to let the cat alone, not to
"track up" the kitchen, and not to play with matches, the little woman
lovingly cuffed the conspiring lesser Sullivans into a decorous line
behind her and marched them off to church. There, I knew, she would give
from her poor wage that the soul of dead Terry should be the sooner
prayed out of a place, which, it would seem, might have been created
with an eye single to his just needs.
Thinking of woman's love,--that, like the peace of God it passeth all
understanding,--I officiated absently as one of two guests at a
"tea-party." My fellow-guest was a large doll braced stiffly in its
chair; a doll whose waxen face had been gouged by vandal nails. That was
an old tragedy, though a sickening one at the time. The doll had been my
Christmas offering to the woman child, and in the dusk of that joyous
day my namesake had craved of its proud mother the boon of holding it a
little while. Relinquished trustingly to him, he had sat with it by a
cheerful fire--without evil intent, I do truly believe. Surely it was
by chance that he found its waxen face softening under the stove's
glow--and has Heaven affixed nails to any boy of seven that, in a dusky
room at a quiet moment, would have behaved with more restraint? I trow
not. One surprised dig and all was lost. Of that fair surface of rounded
cheek, fattened chin, and noble brow not a square inch was left
ungouged. It was indeed a face of evil suggestion that the unsuspecting
mother took back.
That was the evening when the Crowders, living next door, had rushed
over in the belief that my woman child was being murdered. The criminal
had never been able to advance the shadow of a reason or excuse for his
mad act. He seemed to be as honestly puzzled by it as the rest of us,
though I rejoice to say that he was not left without reason to deplore
it.
But the mother--the true mother--had thereafter loved the disfigured
thing but the more. She promptly divested it of all its splendid
garments, as a precaution against further vandalism, and the naked thing
with its scarred face was ever an honored guest at our functions.
"You really must get some clothes for Irene," I said. "That's not quite
the right thing, you know, having her sit there without any."
In much annoyance she rebuked me, whispering, for this thoughtless lapse
from my rôle as guest. At our parties Irene was no longer Irene, but
"Mrs. Judge Robinson," and justly sensitive about her faulty complexion
and lack of clothes.
"Besides," came the whisper again, "I am going to make her some
clothes--a lovely veil to go over her face."
Resuming her company voice, and with the aplomb of a perfect hostess who
has rectified the gaucherie of an awkward guest, she pressed upon me
another cup of the custard coffee, and tactfully inquired of the
supposedly embarrassed Mrs. Judge Robinson if she did not think this was
_very_ warm weather for this time of year.
The proprieties being thus mended, our hostess raised her voice and bade
Mrs. Sullivan, within doors, to hurry with the next course, which, I was
charmed to learn, would be lemon soup and frosted cake. Mrs. Sullivan's
response, though audible only to her mistress, who was compelled to cock
an intent ear toward the kitchen, seemed to be in some manner shuffling
or evasive.
"What's _that_?" she exclaimed sharply, listening again. Then, with
dignity, "Well, if you _don't_ hurry, I'll have to come right in there
and see to you this minute!"
The threat happily availed, and the feast went forward, a phantom and
duly apologetic Mrs. Sullivan serving us with every delicacy which our
imaginations afforded. When we had eaten to repletion, of and from the
checkers which were our plates and food as well, Mrs. Judge Robinson
suddenly became Irene, who had eaten too much and had to be scolded and
put to bed. The lights were out, the revelry done.
"Going walking now?" asked my namesake. He did not know how to behave at
tea-parties, and, sitting at a little distance from us, he had been
aiming an imaginary gun at every fat robin that mined the lawn for
sustenance.
"Ask your father if you may go," I said. I had heard Solon pacing his
room--forever cogitating the imminent Potts. I did not enter the house
oftener than I could help, for always in those rooms I felt a troubled
presence, a homesick thing that pushed two frail white hands against an
intangible but sufficing curtain that held it from those it sickened
for. I could not long be easy there.
It was a day poised and serene, with white brush-dabs of cloud on a
wonderful canvas of blue,--a day when I longed for the honeyed fragrance
of the woods warming from the last night's rain.
But this was not to be my walk. Not for me the shaded arches of the wood
where glad birds piped, nor the velvet hillsides tufted with green and
yellow and brown, nor eke the quiet lane running between walls of
foliage, where simple rabbits scampered, amazed, but not yet taught
their fullest fear.
The butterflies we must chase hovered rather along urban ways. That of
the woman child was social. Ahead of us she flounced. Strangely, she was
herself Mrs. Judge Robinson now. I understood that she was decked in a
gown of royal purple, whose sweeping velvet train gave her no little
trouble. But she paid her calls. At each gate she stopped, and it seemed
that persons met her there, for she began:--
"Why, how do you _do?_ Yes, it's lovely weather we're having. Are your
children got the scarlet fever? That's too bad. So has mine. I'm afraid
they'll die. Well, I must be going now. _Good_ day!"
Sometimes she ran back to say, "Now do come over some day and bring your
work!"
The butterflies pursued by my namesake were various, and some of them
were more secret.
For one he made me stand with him while he gazed long into the
drug-store window. I divined at last that those giant chalices, one of
green and one of ruby liquor, were the objects of his worship. He could
not have told me this, but I knew that in his mind these were compounds
of unparalleled richness, potent with Heaven knows what wondrous charms.
It was not that he dreamed ever of securing any of the stuff; the spell
endured only while they must stand there, remote, splendid,
inaccessible.
Then we strolled down the quiet street to a road that went close to the
railway. And there, with beating hearts, we beheld the two-twenty
Eastern freight rattle superbly by us. From the cab of its inspiring
locomotive one of fortune's favorites rang a priceless gold bell with an
air of indifference which we believed in our hearts was assumed to
impress us. And notwithstanding our suspicion, we _were_ impressed, for
did we not know that he could reach up his other hand and blow the
splendid whistle if he happened to feel like it?
After the locomotive came the closed and mysterious box-cars, important
with big numbers and initials in cabalistic sequence, indicating a wide
and exciting range of travels. Then came stock cars, from between the
slats of which strange and envied cattle looked out on their way to a
wondrous city; and there was a car of squealing pigs, who seemed not to
want to ride on a real train; and some cars of sheep that were stupidly
indifferent about the whole thing. At the last was a palatial "caboose",
and toward this, over the tops of the moving cars, a happy brakeman made
his exciting progress, not having to hold on, or anything. He casually
waved an arm at us, a salute that one of our number, in acknowledging,
sought to imitate, for the cool, indifferent flourish of its arm, as if
it were a common enough thing for us to be noticed by the mighty from
their eminences.
This was my namesake's most beautiful of butterflies. Any one could
understand that. As the train lost itself in smoke I knew well what he
felt. I knew that that smoke of soft coal was so delicious, so wonderful
of portent in his nostrils, that throughout his life it would bring up
the wander-bidding in him--always a strange sweet passion of _starting_.
Even now the journey-wonder was in his eyes. I knew that he saw himself
jauntily stepping the perilous tops of cars, clad in a coat of padded
shoulders bound with wide braid, a lantern on his arm, coal dust
smudging the back of his neck, and two fingers felicitously gone from
his left hand.
I coughed, to recall him from visions. He looked up at me, a little
shyly, debating--but why should it not be told?
"Uncle Maje--when I grow up, I'm going off to be a brakeman."
"I know it," I said quietly.
"Won't it be just fine!"
"It's the very finest life in all the world. I hoped for it myself once,
but I was disappointed."
He gave me a quick look of sympathy.
"Wouldn't they let you?"
"Well, they were afraid I'd be hurt--only I knew I wouldn't be--anything
to speak of--a couple of fingers, perhaps--"
"Off the left hand," he suggested understandingly.
"Of course,--off the left hand."
"That brakeman on No. 3 has got two off _his_ left hand," was the final
comment.
We retraced our steps; but there was yet another butterfly of my
namesake's. He led us to a by-path that followed the river bank up to
the bridge, running far ahead of us. When we reached him he was seated,
dumb with yearning, before a newly painted sign,
"GO TO BUDD'S FOR AN UP-TO-DATE 25 CT. DINNER."
He was obliged to limp that day, for his stone-bruise was coming on
finely; but he had gone half a mile out of his way to worship at this
wayside shrine. Again he was dreaming. In the days of his opulence he
saw himself going to Budd's. Fortunately for his illusions the price was
now prohibitive. I had been to Budd's myself.
"Have you ever been there?" I asked of the dreamer.
"I've been in his store, in the front part, where the candy is--and if
you go 'round when he's freezing ice cream, he'll give you a whole
ten-cent dish just for turning the freezer; but Pop won't let me stay
out of school to do it, and Budd don't freeze Saturdays. But some day--"
he paused. Then, with seemingly another idea:--
"He's got an awful funny sign up over the counter."
He would not tell me what the sign was, though, He shuffled and talked
of other things. I entered Budd's on the morrow, purposely to read it,
and I knew that my namesake had quailed before it. The sign was in
white, frosted letters, on a blue ground, and it ran:--
TO TRUST IS TO BUST
TO BUST IS HELL
NO TRUST, NO BUST, NO HELL.
Its syllogistic hardness was repellant, but I dare say it preserved a
gorgeous butterfly from utter extinction.
Home again at early twilight, we ate of a cold supper set out for us by
Mrs. Sullivan. And here I reflected that good days often end badly, for
my namesake betrayed extreme dissatisfaction with the food.
"Why don't we have that pudding oftener--with lather on top of it?" was
his first outbreak. And at last he felt obliged to declare bitterly, "We
don't have a thing that's fit to eat!"
"Calvin," said his father, "if I have to whip, it will hurt you worse
than it does me."
Whereupon the complainer was wisely silent, but later I heard him
asserting, between catches of his breath, and out of his father's
hearing:--
"I don't care--(_a sniff_)--when I'm rich, I'll go to Budd's for an
up-to-date dinner, you bet--(_a snuffle_)--I'll probably go there every
day of my life--(_two snuffles_)--yes, sir--Sundays and all!"
I cheered him as best I could.
His sister had saved her day to a happy end, babbling off to bed with
the distressing Irene, to whom she would show a book of pictures until
sleep shut off her little eyelid.
A wise old man--I believe he was a bishop--once said he knew "that
outside the real world is a world of fine fabling."
I had stolen a day from that world. Now I hurried through the gloom of
the hall, past the poor striving hands, to sit with Solon Denney and
tell him of a peculiar thing I had observed during the afternoon's walk.