21. “All right!” says he. “That’ll be fine. I never had such fun in all
my life.”
[Sidenote: A tribute throughout to the dime dreadful.]
[Sidenote: Narrator lapses now and then into “better” language.]
22. We went to bed about eleven o’clock. We spread down some wide
blankets and quilts and put Red Chief between us. We weren’t afraid
he’d run away. He kept us awake for three hours, jumping up and
reaching for his rifle and screeching: “Hist! pard,” in mine and Bill’s
ears, as the fancied crackle of a twig or the rustle of a leaf revealed
to his young imagination the stealthy approach of the outlaw band.
At last, I fell into a troubled sleep, and dreamed that I had been
kidnapped and chained to a tree by a ferocious pirate with red hair.
[Sidenote: Contrast.]
23. Just at daybreak, I was awakened by a series of awful screams from
Bill. They weren’t yells, or howls, or shouts, or whoops, or yawps,
such as you’d expect from a manly set of vocal organs--they were simply
indecent, terrifying, humiliating screams, such as women emit when
they see ghosts or caterpillars. It’s an awful thing to hear a strong,
desperate, fat man scream incontinently in a cave at daybreak.
24. I jumped up to see what the matter was. Red Chief was sitting
on Bill’s chest, with one hand twined in Bill’s hair. In the other
he had the sharp case-knife we used for slicing bacon; and he was
industriously and realistically trying to take Bill’s scalp, according
to the sentence that had been pronounced upon him the evening before.
[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]
[Sidenote: Note that the author develops his story by the use of
progressive plot _situations_ and contributory (non-essential)
incidents.]
25. I got the knife away from the kid and made him lie down again. But,
from that moment, Bill’s spirit was broken. He laid down on his side
of the bed, but he never closed an eye again in sleep as long as that
boy was with us. I dozed off for a while, but along toward sun-up I
remembered that Red Chief had said I was to be burned at the stake at
the rising of the sun. I wasn’t nervous or afraid; but I sat up and lit
my pipe and leaned against a rock.
26. “What you getting up so soon for, Sam?” asked Bill.
27. “Me?” says I. “Oh, I got a kind of a pain in my shoulder. I thought
sitting up would rest it.”
28. “You’re a liar!” says Bill. “You’re afraid. You was to be burned at
sunrise, and you was afraid he’d do it. And he would, too, if he could
find a match. Ain’t it awful, Sam? Do you think anybody will pay out
money to get a little imp like that back home?”
29. “Sure,” said I. “A rowdy kid like that is just the kind that
parents dote on. Now, you and the Chief get up and cook breakfast,
while I go up on the top of this mountain and reconnoitre.”
[Sidenote: Note the humorous use of the language of
“literature”--sparingly.]
[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]
[Sidenote: KEY.]
30. I went up on the peak of the little mountain and ran my eye over
the contiguous vicinity. Over toward Summit I expected to see the
sturdy yeomanry of the village armed with scythes and pitchforks
beating the country-side for the dastardly kidnappers. But what I saw
was a peaceful landscape dotted with one man ploughing with a dun
mule. Nobody was dragging the creek; no couriers dashed hither and
yon, bringing tidings of no news to the distracted parents. There was
a sylvan attitude of somnolent sleepiness pervading the section of
the external outward surface of Alabama that lay exposed to my view.
“Perhaps,” says I to myself, “it has not yet been discovered that the
wolves have borne away the tender lambkin from the fold. Heaven help
the wolves!” says I, and I went down the mountain to breakfast.
31. When I got to the cave I found Bill backed up against the side of
it, breathing hard, and the boy threatening to smash him with a rock
half as big as a cocoanut.
[Sidenote: Contrast of unexpected.]
32. “He put a red-hot boiled potato down my back,” explained Bill, “and
then mashed it with his foot; and I boxed his ears. Have you got a gun
about you, Sam?”
33. I took the rock away from the boy and kind of patched up the
argument. “I’ll fix you,” says the kid to Bill. “No man ever yet struck
the Red Chief but what he got paid for it. You better beware!”
[Sidenote: Return to first style of narration.]
34. After breakfast the kid takes a piece of leather with strings
wrapped around it out of his pocket and goes outside the cave unwinding
it.
[Sidenote: A Frank R. Stockton expression.]
35. “What’s he up to now?” says Bill, anxiously. “You don’t think he’ll
run away, do you, Sam?”
36. “No fear of it,” says I. “He don’t seem to be much of a home body.
But we’ve got to fix up some plan about the ransom. There don’t seem
to be much excitement around Summit on account of his disappearance;
but maybe they haven’t realized yet that he’s gone. His folks may think
he’s spending the night with Aunt Jane or one of the neighbors. Anyhow,
he’ll be missed to-day. To-night we must get a message to his father
demanding the two thousand dollars for his return.”
[Sidenote: Plot situation hidden, action halts.]
37. Just then we heard a kind of war-whoop, such as David might have
emitted when he knocked out the champion Goliath. It was a sling that
Red Chief had pulled out of his pocket, and he was whirling it around
his head.
38. I dodged, and heard a heavy thud and a kind of a sigh from Bill,
like a horse gives out when you take his saddle off. A niggerhead
rock the size of an egg had caught Bill just behind the left ear. He
loosened himself all over and fell in the fire across the frying pan
of hot water for washing the dishes. I dragged him out and poured cold
water on his head for half an hour.
[Sidenote: This expression is more clever than natural to “Bill.”]
39. By and by, Bill sits up and feels behind his ear and says: “Sam, do
you know who my favorite Biblical character is?”
40. “Take it easy,” says I. “You’ll come to your senses presently.”
[Sidenote: Slaughter of the Innocents.]
41. “King Herod,” says he. “You won’t go away and leave me here alone,
will you, Sam?”
[Sidenote: See ¶4.]
42. I went out and caught that boy and shook him until his freckles
rattled.
[Sidenote: Note the use of the incongruous.]
43. “If you don’t behave,” says I, “I’ll take you straight home. Now,
are you going to be good, or not?”
44. “I was only funning,” says he sullenly. “I didn’t mean to hurt Old
Hank. But what did he hit me for? I’ll behave, Snake-eye, if you won’t
send me home, and if you’ll let me play the Black Scout to-day.”
45. “I don’t know the game,” says I. “That’s for you and Mr. Bill to
decide. He’s your playmate for the day. I’m going away for a while, on
business. Now, you come in and make friends with him and say you are
sorry for hurting him, or home you go, at once.”
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]
46. I made him and Bill shake hands, and then I took Bill aside and
told him I was going to Poplar Cove, a little village three miles from
the cave, and find out what I could about how the kidnapping had been
regarded in Summit. Also, I thought it best to send a peremptory letter
to old man Dorset that day, demanding the ransom and dictating how it
should be paid.
[Sidenote: Do these men seem like actual criminals? See comment on ¶
16.]
47. “You know, Sam,” says Bill, “I’ve stood by you without batting an
eye in earthquakes, fire and flood--in poker games, dynamite outrages,
police raids, train robberies and cyclones. I never lost my nerve yet
till we kidnapped that two-legged skyrocket of a kid. He’s got me
going. You won’t leave me long with him, will you, Sam?”
[Sidenote: Irony.]
48. “I’ll be back some time this afternoon,” says I. “You must keep the
boy amused and quiet till I return. And now we’ll write the letter to
old Dorset.”
[Sidenote: KEY.]
49. Bill and I got paper and pencil and worked on the letter while
Red Chief, with a blanket wrapped around him, strutted up and down,
guarding the mouth of the cave. Bill begged me tearfully to make the
ransom fifteen hundred dollars instead of two thousand. “I ain’t
attempting,” says he, “to decry the celebrated moral aspect of parental
affection, but we’re dealing with humans, and it ain’t human for
anybody to give up two thousand dollars for that forty-pound chunk of
freckled wildcat. I’m willing to take a chance at fifteen hundred
dollars. You can charge the difference up to me.”
[Sidenote: PREPARATION FOR CRISIS.]
50. So, to relieve Bill, I acceded, and we collaborated a letter that
ran this way:
[Sidenote: In intelligence of expression, does this letter correspond
to the general style of the narrator?]
_Ebenezer Dorset, Esq.:_
We have your boy concealed in a place far from Summit. It is
useless for you or the most skilful detectives to attempt to find
him. Absolutely, the only terms on which you can have him restored
to you are these: We demand fifteen hundred dollars in large bills
for his return; the money to be left at midnight at the same spot
and in the same box as your reply--as hereinafter described. If you
agree to these terms, send your answer in writing by a solitary
messenger to-night at half-past eight o’clock. After crossing Owl
Creek, on the road to Poplar Cove, there are three large trees
about a hundred yards apart, close to the fence of the wheat field
on the right-hand side. At the bottom of the fence-post, opposite
the third tree, will be found a small paste-board box.
The messenger will place the answer in this box and return
immediately to Summit.
If you attempt any treachery or fail to comply with our demand as
stated, you will never see your boy again.
If you pay the money as demanded, he will be returned to you safe
and well within three hours. These terms are final, and if you do
not accede to them no further communication will be attempted.
TWO DESPERATE MEN.
51. I addressed this letter to Dorset, and put it in my pocket. As I
was about to start, the kid comes up to me and says:
[Sidenote: Character delineation and by-play.]
52. “Aw, Snake-eye, you said I could play the Black Scout while you was
gone.”
53. “Play it, of course,” says I. “Mr. Bill will play with you. What
kind of a game is it?”
54. “I’m the Black Scout,” says Red Chief, “and I have to ride to the
stockade to warn the settlers that the Indians are coming. I’m so tired
of playing Indian myself. I want to be the Black Scout.”
55. “All right,” says I. “It sounds harmless to me. I guess Mr. Bill
will help you foil the pesky savages.”
56. “What am I to do?” says Bill, looking at the kid suspiciously.
57. “You are the hoss,” says Black Scout. “Get down on your hands and
knees. How can I ride to the stockade without a hoss?”
58. “You’d better keep him interested,” said I, “till we get the scheme
going. Loosen up.”
59. Bill gets down on his all fours, and a look comes in his eye like a
rabbit’s when you catch it in a trap.
[Sidenote: The two are typically in character in these paragraphs.]
60. “How far is it to the stockade, Kid?” he asks, in a husky manner of
voice.
61. “Ninety miles,” says the Black Scout. “And you have to hump
yourself to get there on time. Whoa, now!”
62. The Black Scout jumps on Bill’s back and digs his heels in his side.
63. “For Heaven’s sake,” says Bill, “hurry back, Sam, as soon as you
can. I wish we hadn’t made the ransom more than a thousand. Say, you
quit kicking me or I’ll get up and warm you good.”
[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]
64. I walked over to Poplar Cove and sat around the post-office
and store, talking with the chawbacons that came in to trade. One
whiskerando says that he hears Summit is all upset on account of Elder
Ebenezer Dorset’s boy having been lost or stolen. That was all I wanted
to know. I bought some smoking tobacco, referred casually to the price
of black-eyed peas, posted my letter surreptitiously and came away. The
postmaster said the mail-carrier would come by in an hour to take the
mail on to Summit.
65. When I got back to the cave Bill and the boy were not to be found.
I explored the vicinity of the cave, and risked a yodel or two, but
there was no response.
66. So I lighted my pipe and sat down on a mossy bank to await
developments.
67. In about half an hour I heard the bushes rustle, and Bill wabbled
out into the little glade in front of the cave. Behind him was the
kid, stepping softly like a scout, with a broad grin on his face. Bill
stopped, took off his hat and wiped his face with a red handkerchief.
The kid stopped about eight feet behind him.
[Sidenote: Typical O. Henry speech in this paragraph.]
68. “Sam,” says Bill, “I suppose you’ll think I’m a renegade, but I
couldn’t help it. I’m a grown person with masculine proclivities and
habits of self-defence, but there is a time when all systems of egotism
and predominance fail. The boy is gone. I have sent him home. All is
off. There was martyrs in old times,” goes on Bill, “that suffered
death rather than give up the particular graft they enjoyed. None of
’em ever was subjugated to such supernatural tortures as I have been. I
tried to be faithful to our articles of depredation; but there came a
limit.”
69. “What’s the trouble, Bill?” I asks him.
70. “I was rode,” says Bill, “the ninety miles to the stockade, not
barring an inch. Then, when the settlers was rescued, I was given oats.
Sand ain’t a palatable substitute. And then, for an hour I had to try
to explain to him why there was nothin’ in holes, how a road can run
both ways and what makes the grass green. I tell you, Sam, a human can
only stand so much. I takes him by the neck of his clothes and drags
him down the mountain. On the way he kicks my legs black-and-blue from
the knees down; and I’ve got to have two or three bites on my thumb and
hand cauterized.
[Sidenote: Note the stage trick of a character in ignorance while the
audience enjoys his delusion. The surprise is his, not ours.]
71. “But he’s gone”--continues Bill--“gone home. I showed him the road
to Summit and kicked him about eight feet nearer there at one kick. I’m
sorry we lose the ransom; but it was either that or Bill Driscoll to
the madhouse.”
72. Bill is puffing and blowing but there is a look of ineffable peace
and growing content on his rose-pink features.
73. “Bill,” says I, “there isn’t any heart disease in your family, is
there?”
74. “No,” says Bill, “nothing chronic except malaria and accidents.
Why?”
75. “Then you might turn around,” says I, “and have a look behind you.”
[Sidenote: Suggestion.]
[Sidenote: Straight delineation. The former is the better art.]
[Sidenote: PLOT SITUATION.]
76. Bill turns and sees the boy, and loses his complexion and sits down
plump on the ground and begins to pluck aimlessly at grass and little
sticks. For an hour I was afraid for his mind. And then I told him
that my scheme was to put the whole job through immediately and that
we would get the ransom and be off with it by midnight if old Dorset
fell in with our proposition. So Bill braced up enough to give the kid
a weak sort of a smile and a promise to play the Russian in a Japanese
war with him as soon as he felt a little better.
[Sidenote: PLOT INCIDENT.]
77. I had a scheme for collecting that ransom without danger of being
caught by counterplots that ought to commend itself to professional
kidnappers. The tree under which the answer was to be left--and the
money later on--was close to the road fence with big, bare fields on
all sides. If a gang of constables should be watching for any one to
come for the note they could see him a long way off crossing the fields
or in the road. But no sirree! At half-past eight I was up in that tree
as well hidden as a tree toad, waiting for the messenger to arrive.
78. Exactly on time, a half-grown boy rides up the road on a bicycle,
locates the paste-board box at the foot of the fence-post, slips a
folded piece of paper into it and pedals away again back toward Summit.
79. I waited an hour and then concluded the thing was square. I slid
down the tree, got the note, slipped along the fence till I struck the
woods, and was back at the cave in another half an hour. I opened the
note, got near the lantern and read it to Bill. It was written with a
pen in a crabbed hand, and the sum and substance of it was this:
[Sidenote: MAIN PLOT INCIDENT.]
[Sidenote: CLIMAX.]
_Two Desperate Men._
Gentlemen: I received your letter to-day by post, in regard to the
ransom you ask for the return of my son. I think you are a little
high in your demands, and I hereby make you a counter-proposition,
which I am inclined to believe you will accept. You bring Johnny
home and pay me two hundred and fifty dollars in cash, and I agree
to take him off your hands. You had better come at night for the
neighbors believe he is lost, and I couldn’t be responsible for
what they would do to anybody they saw bringing him back.
Very respectfully,
EBENEZER DORSET.
80. “Great pirates of Penzance!” says I, “of all the impudent--”
[Sidenote: Suggestion.]
81. But I glanced at Bill, and hesitated. He had the most appealing
look in his eyes I ever saw on the face of a dumb or a talking brute.
[Sidenote: Serio-comic.]
82. “Sam,” says he, “what’s two hundred and fifty dollars, after all?
We’ve got the money. One more night of this kid will send me to a bed
in Bedlam. Besides being a thorough gentleman, I think Mr. Dorset is a
spendthrift for making us a liberal offer. You ain’t going to let the
chance go, are you?”
83. “Tell you the truth, Bill,” says I, “this little he ewe lamb has
somewhat got on my nerves, too. We’ll take him home, pay the ransom,
and make our get-away.”
[Sidenote: Extreme of contrast.]
84. We took him home that night. We got him to go by telling him that
his father had bought a silver-mounted rifle and a pair of moccasins
for him, and we were going to hunt bears the next day.
[Sidenote: DENOUEMENT.]
[Sidenote: CONTRASTING PLOT SITUATION--Summary of the plot-outcome.]
85. It was just twelve o’clock when we knocked at Ebenezer’s front
door. Just at the moment when I should have been abstracting the
fifteen hundred dollars from the box under the tree, according to the
original proposition, Bill was counting out two hundred and fifty
dollars into Dorset’s hand.
[Sidenote: Note free use of simile.]
86. When the kid found out we were going to leave him at home he
started up a howl like a calliope and fastened himself as tight as
a leech to Bill’s leg. His father peeled him away gradually, like a
porous plaster.
87. “How long can you hold him?” asks Bill.
88. “I’m not as strong as I used to be,” says old Dorset. “But I think
I can promise you ten minutes.”
[Sidenote: Humor of hyperbole.]
89. “Enough,” says Bill. “In ten minutes I shall cross the Central,
Southern and Middle Western States, and be legging it trippingly for
the Canadian border.”
[Sidenote: RESULTANT CLIMAX.]
90. And, as dark as it was, and as fat as Bill was, and as good a
runner as I am, he was a good mile and half out of Summit before I
could catch up with him.
BARRIE AND HIS WRITINGS
James Matthew Barrie was born at Kirriemuir (“Thrums”), Scotland,
on the 9th of May, 1860. He is the son of a physician, whom he has
lovingly embodied as “Dr. McQueen”; his mother and sister also will
live as “Jess” and “Leeby.” He was educated at Dumfries Academy,
entering the University of Edinburgh at eighteen, from which he was
graduated in 1882 with the degree of M.A., taking honors in English
literature. He began writing literary criticisms for the _Edinburgh
Courant_ at this period. Several months after his graduation Barrie
took a position on a Nottingham newspaper, leaving that city for
London in 1885, where his literary career commenced in earnest;
but success did not come until after the customary struggles and
hindrances to which young literary aspirants are ever subject. In
1893 he married Miss Ansell, an actress, whom he divorced in 1909.
Some of his best-known books are _Auld Licht Idylls_; _A Window in
Thrums_; _Margaret Ogilvy_; _My Lady Nicotine_; _The Little Minister_
(afterwards dramatized); _Sentimental Tommy_; _Tommy and Grizel_ (a
sequel), and _The Little White Bird_. He also wrote several plays, the
most notable of which are _The Professor’s Love Story_; _Peter Pan_ (a
partial dramatization of _The Little White Bird_); _Quality Street_;
and _What Every Woman Knows_. It is interesting to note that Mr. Barrie
did not succeed in securing the magazine publication of “The Courting
of T’Nowhead’s Bell,” which is given herewith; it was first issued
between book covers, in 1888.
* * * * *
Barrie is a versatile story-teller, though he deals mostly with Scotch
characters. His early work exhibits his short-story ability at its
best. The warm human interest of _A Window in Thrums_ and _Auld Licht
Idylls_, is matched only by Ian Maclaren’s _Beside the Bonnie Briar
Bush_ and _The Days of Auld Lang Syne_. A quaint character-humor, with
swift flashes of pathos, pervades all his work, which for local-color
and insight into the character of the Scotch rural dweller has won a
place of distinction among the stories of present-day writers. With
Barrie, realism is rarely unpleasant; he sees all things with a gentle
eye. Even when in his keen ability to penetrate to the heart of things
he discovers the weaknesses of humanity, he also finds redeeming
virtues. Thus his characters are continually disclosing their true
natures underneath the garb and custom of picturesque life, and we
feel ourselves to be kin to them, every one. His dialect in itself is
masterly and often deliciously humorous, so that actions and dialogue
in themselves common-place take on an extraordinary interest. No modern
writer has a greater gift of character-drawing, and none is more
sympathetically human in his interpretations of the Scotch commoner.
It is my contemptible weakness that if I say a character smiled
vacuously, I must smile vacuously; if he frowns or leers, I frown
or leer; if he is a coward or given to contortions, I cringe, or
twist my legs until I have to stop writing to undo the knot. I bow
with him, eat with him, and gnaw my moustache with him. If the
character be a lady with an exquisite laugh, I suddenly terrify you
by laughing exquisitely. One reads of the astounding versatility
of an actor who is stout and lean on the same evening, but what is
he to the novelist who is a dozen persons within the hour?--J. M.
BARRIE, _Margaret Ogilvy_.
There are writers who can plan out their story beforehand as
clearly as though it were a railway journey, and adhere throughout
to their original design--they draw up what playwrights call a
scenario--but I was never one of those. I spend a great deal of
time indeed in looking for the best road in the map and mark it
with red ink, but at the first bypath off my characters go. “Come
back,” I cry, “you are off the road.” “We prefer this way,” they
reply. I try bullying. “You are only people in a book,” I shout,
“and it is my book, and I can do what I like with you, so come
back!” But they seldom come, and it ends with my plodding after
them.--J. M. BARRIE, Introduction to _When a Man’s Single_.
The chief features of Barrie’s style are a quaintness of
expression, a simple directness of narrative, and an unfailing
sense of humor--often as though the author were chuckling to
himself as he wrote. His gift for descriptive writing--probably the
best test of “style”--is very marked, though he makes little of
it.--J. A. HAMMERTON, _J. M. Barrie and His Books_.
_Auld Licht Idylls_ is a set of regular descriptions of the life
of “Thrums,” with special reference to the ways and character of
the “Old Lights,” the stubborn conservative Scotch Puritans; it
contains also a most amusing and characteristic love story of the
sect (“The Courting of T’Nowhead’s Bell”), and a satiric political
skit.--CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER’S _Library of the World’s Best
Literature_.
By the time “Auld Licht Idylls” appeared, he had achieved a
reputation,--at least a local one. This book had an immediate
success, and ran rapidly through several editions. His mother had
been an Auld Licht in her youth.... Mrs. Barrie, knowing them
from the inside, could tell all sorts of quaint and marvellous
tales about them, whose humor was sure to please. It was from her
stories that the Idylls were mainly drawn, so she was in a sense a
collaborator with her son in their production.--HATTIE T. GRISWOLD,
_Personal Sketches of Recent Authors_.