AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
A nice little man came up the lane,
And it was summer weather;
Said he, “It is jolly to meet again,
Like this, we two together.
And if there be no other thing
That you can think to say,
Then it’s ‘How do you do? ’ and ‘How do you do?’
And ‘How do you do, to-day? ’ “
It was “Figger-four” Avery who secured from Hiram Look the most
information about himself for general circulation. When, after the first
few days of wonderment, the attendance at the Squire’s premises dropped
off, it was “Figger-four” who remained loyal to the new attraction.
Hiram tolerated his constant presence because the little man’s
wide-eyed, wide-eared, wide-mouthed receptiveness of his tales flattered
the eminent impresario of Imogene and her appanage.
Avery was so small and inoffensive that the showman never resented any
questions that he asked. All others Hiram shooed off with profanity when
they hinted concerning his affairs and intentions.
“Blast him,” growled Hiram to his brother, “I feel like a sap tree with
a spile let into it when he’s around. I just drip and drip away to him
and he sets and laps it down and I can’t seem to shut off. But he’s an
obligin’ little fool.”
Avery’s soubriquet came from the appearance of his legs. A fever-sore
years before had shriveled the left leg, and the knee was set
permanently at an angle. As he bobbed along, alternately rising and
sinking, he kept presenting with his legs the shape of a grotesque 4.
“Everywhere I go,” said Hiram, “Figger-four is right at my elbow, still
askin’ questions. And I get interested in answerin’ and I forget and
try to keep step with him, and the first thing I know I’m hoppin’ along
worse than a darned jack-rabbit. But he’ll do errands like a fly.”
Therefore he did not rebuff the little man. In consequence Avery was
able to report that Hiram had travelled all over the country; that he
had brought his chariots to Palermo because he was going to start out
with another circus after he got rested up and had squared things with
his brother. Furthermore, the people who had bought his other show
property weren’t willing to pay a fair price for the waggons, and Hiram
didn’t propose to be “Jewed.” No one had ever got the better of Hiram,
so Hiram told Avery, and Avery told the people of Palermo. He had--at
this point Figger-four always took a long breath--rising forty thousand
dollars in the bank, beside what he carried in the fat pocketbook. He
was ready to lend money on first mortgages, and Avery was able to state
that already several persons whom Judge Willard had been squeezing for
bonuses on renewal of their notes had refunded their loans with
Hiram. As Avery bobbed around telling this, he served as an excellent
advertising medium, and other patrons of Judge Willard, who had been
the town’s sole financial man for years, came to the new capitalist
for loans. Avery admitted that probably the Judge would still enjoy a
monopoly of handling the money of the widows and orphans and old folks
who had placed their funds with him for investment, because Hiram was
not yet morally rehabilitated in the town’s opinion.
“But there ain’t a better man to borrow money from,” concluded his
champion. “He don’t take no bonus and he lets you have it for six per
cent, and set your own time.”
Moreover, Hiram started the hum of industry in Palermo by hiring Ezra
Mayo and several helpers to build a shelter for the circus waggons. And
he was also vaguely hinting to the admiring Avery that next season he
might start something in the way of business in Palermo that would make
people open their eyes.
“You’re all deader’n a side-show mermaid here in Palermo,” he said one
afternoon as he and Avery were sitting by the roadside under one of the
big Look poplars. “There’s a lot of things that need to be peppered up.
My brother Phin could have done it if he wasn’t too easy-goin’. Now, how
long has old Coll Willard been town treasurer?”
There was a queer glint in the good eye that Hiram turned on Avery.
“Goin’ on thirty years.”
“Does he give bonds?”
“Hain’t ever been asked to,” replied Figger-four, with the readiness
of one whose business is to know other people’s affairs. “This town
wouldn’t ask a Willard to do such a thing as that. He’s safer’n the Bank
of England, the Judge is.”
“Is, eh?” Hiram’s voice was hard. “I’ve seen a town note that was signed
with only his name as treasurer. Does the town allow him to borrow money
that way?”
“I believe Cap’n Ward did bring it up in town meetin’ once and say that
the selectmen ought to sign notes along with the treasurer. But there
wa’n’t anything done, as I remember. Cap’n was kind of a kicker. He died
the summer after that town meetin’,” added Avery, with an air as though
the death were a special visitation to punish temerity in attacking a
Willard.
“Well, I’m feelin’ pretty healthy, myself,” said Hiram, “and you watch
me go into the next town meetin’.”
“Lyme Bearce says he’ll bet you’re a disturbin’ element, no matter
where you light,” stated Avery, with the fearless naïveté of a village
news-bureau that proposes to do its full duty.
“Lyme Bearce and the whole of you be jiggered,” stormed Hiram. “I’ve
been ’round the world some, and got up against human nature, and I
tell you the only way to meet a man is with one hand hold of your wad
and the other doubled up behind your back. Old Willard ain’t goin’ to
run this town to suit himself. You watch me!”
“Then you ain’t goin’ off right away with your circus?” meekly asked
Avery.
“I shan’t be goin’ till things get dull ’round here,” crisply returned
the showman. “That’ll be after there’s a performance in one ring, me
with the whip, old Coll Willard ridin’ bareback, and ev’ry time I snap
he’ll turn a flip-flop.”
Figger-four blinked at him uncertainly.
“Let’s see, you ain’t ever seen Klebe since you--you----”
“Since I licked him! Say it; I ain’t ashamed of it,” blustered Hiram.
“Well, he’s thickened up solid’s a knot, and they say there’s more
knockin’ down o’ men on board the ‘Lycurgus Webb’ than on any other
schooner that sails out of Rockland. Terrible hard man Klebe has growed
to be!”
Avery glanced at the showman slyly to note how he received this
information.
“I have squared all accounts with Klebe Willard,” said Hiram, “but if
I owe him anything more he can come and collect it. As for his father,
that’s another matter. He took my old father by the throat after I went
away and he had the twist noose of a mortgage around him for a good
hold. He bought in accounts against us, as ev’ryone in P’lermo knows, so
that he could collect the bills in a way to add ev’ry cent of costs that
skin-skunk lawyers could tack on. And my old father and my brother was
caught foul and paid double--yes, treble--for ev’ry dollar I owed.
I ain’t nothin’ except plain muck, Avery--just a cheap renegade that
hasn’t woke up to be half decent till it is too late. Payin’ it back to
Phin don’t fix it. I shall always hate myself--but never mind that!” He
swallowed hard and shook his head violently to and fro. Sudden passion
blazed out of this moment of weakness. “There’s one thing I can do--I
can spend forty thousand dollars puttin’ Coll Willard where he put my
old father, and, by the gods, I’ll do it! That’s my business and no
one’s else, and they can’t oh-please-don’t me!--no one, Avery, no one!”
“Oh, I reckon the Judge is too well fixed for _you_,” observed Avery,
wagging his head. “The Willards was always wuth money--plenty of it.”
Hiram did not reply. But he snorted contemptuously and his eye had a
strange look of craft and secret intelligence. “S’pose your brother will
be your lawyer,” suggested Avery.
“Look-a-here, Figger-four,” cried the showman, “I’ve been drippin’ away
to you as usual without meanin’ to say half that I have. My brother Phin
has been abused by old Willard, right and left, but he has been too easy
to fight back the way he ought to. I’m squarin’ things for our family
in gen’ral, but it has got to be done without Phin’s knowin’ it. Do you
see? I want to use you some, first and last, and you’ll get your pay,
but if you say one single word to Phin about what I’m doin’, I’ll twist
that other leg of yours till the joint comes behind like a cow’s hind
gambrel. Me and you, and mum! You understand!”
Avery apprehensively promised and escaped, evidently fearful lest more
secrets were to be entrusted to him. He felt that he wasn’t capable of
safely holding any more just then. But the consciousness that Hiram Look
was meditating the overthrow of such a magnate as Judge Willard propped
his eyes open a bit more widely as he hopped about the street, and
people began to wonder why Figger-four so often caught himself up in his
discourse and looked scared and hurried away. They didn’t realise
how anxiously the poor sieve was struggling to hold his secrets. The
constant and sulphurous threats of Hiram started the cold sweat
whenever they conferred together. Day by day Avery brought new bits of
information that the showman sent him to dig out of people, and day by
day Hiram fitted the information, piece to piece, only himself knowing
to what it all tended.
He sat most of the time in the porch of the old house, smoking long
cigars, the parrot occasionally croaking his familiar cry as he waddled
about his cage, that was suspended from the porch roof.
“My office,” Hiram called the porch.
People who wanted to borrow money, old acquaintances, folks who loafed
along that way to hear his stories of wanderings, came and sat on the
turf of the yard or on the steps. The showman shunned Brickett’s store
and the other gathering places of the village. Once, Hard-Times Wharff
came up and started to have a weather-vane spell on the Look porch, but
Hiram drove him away with violent contumely.
“He’s crazier’n a barn rat in a thrashing machine,” the showman observed
to his faithful Avery. “Why, I hear he even said I was bringing trouble
into this place, the old liar. I’ve only come to straighten out trouble,
that’s all. Smoothin’ and glossin’ things over and lettin’ people kick
you around and never objectin’ may be some folks’ idea of livin’, but it
ain’t mine. And I don’t allow anyone to say I’m makin’ trouble when I’m
doin’ a duty. You tell that to ’em in the village, Avery, and you
tell old Whatyecallum Wharff, there, that I’ll feed him to Imogene if he
snoops ’round here again.”
But the next day Avery came bobbing hurriedly into the yard with the
breathless announcement:
“’Quar’us smelt it comin’! ’Twas a warnin’ to you, Hime!”
“Smelt what? That load of superphosphate that Cap’n Nymphus Bodfish just
brought in his packet? I can smell it, too.”
“Klebe Willard came in that packet,” gasped Avery. “His schooner is
loadin’ at Portland, and he’s up for his lay-off.”
“Well, what if he did come?” inquired Hiram, rocking on the hind legs of
his chair and boring Avery with his piercing eye.
“Why, all is, he’s talked with the Judge, and now he’s frothin’ ’round
Brickett’s store, and he’s comin’ up here. I stayed long enough to find
that out.”
“Let him come,” observed Hiram, with a calmness that troubled Avery.
The messenger snapped up the full length of his good leg and shook his
cane at the imperturbable man on the porch. “But there’s liable to be
trouble,” he cried. “Klebe’s pretty middlin’ how-come-ye-so, same as he
usually is when he’s ashore, and there’s enough folks in this place to
want to see trouble and they’ll poke him ahead. Why don’t you have him
put under bonds?”
Hiram got up and stepped down into the road. A man had already started
out of Brickett’s store and was stumping up the middle of the dusty
highway. A dozen men were leisurely following along the gravelled
sidewalks. When the distant pedestrian perceived Hiram, he shouted
hoarsely, shook both fists above his head and came on with brisk pace.
“Avery,” said Hiram, “you gallop down with your best high-Betty-Martin
tiptoe and tell that gent that’s in the middle of the road that there’s
nothing’ doin’ in the circus way here this afternoon.”
Avery stood hesitating.
“Hop along,” roared the showman, giving the man a push. “You’ve been
whinin’ that you didn’t want trouble here. Now get into the game and
stop it. You can inform Klebe Willard--for I reckon that’s him tackin’
up this way--that when he steps his foot onto the Look place he’s
steppin’ onto a proposition that has the burnin’ deck laid away in the
ice-box. Tell him I said so.”
Hiram left the road and went into the big barn.
The other came on more rapidly now, with a shout that was something
like a jeer. He violently bumped the entreating Avery from his path and
strode into the Look yard, the retinue following at a distance.
The new arrival set his sturdy legs wide apart, threw his cloth cap on
the ground, and bellowed:
“Come out here in the fair and open, where there’s sea-room, you old
woodchuck! Come out and see the mark I’ve lugged for twenty-five years.”
He slapped his hand against his cheek where a scar showed its wrinkled
whiteness across his flushed, brown face.
“Come out!” he bawled.
“Crack ’em down, gents,” squawked the parrot, and he seized a bar of
the cage in his beak and rattled away vigorously.
“Come out!” Willard kept shouting, stamping about on the turf. “If you
ain’t turned coward as well as skin-game thief, come out!” The parrot
interspersed in these invitations his raucous cries.
“Between you and Absalom a man can’t do his chores in much peace,”
calmly said Hiram, appearing in the tie-up door. He stepped into the
yard, set the tip of a long-handled pitchfork in the ground, and leaned
his shoulder against this support.
“You see that, do you?” yelled Willard, striding forward a few steps
and putting a thick forefinger end on the scar. “That’s been there
twenty-five years.”
“Let’s see. You’re Cap’n Klebe Willard, ain’t you?” inquired Hiram,
affably. And a wordless shout answering him, he said:
“Yes, I know you and I know the mark, because I put it there myself for
good reasons.” He looked around at the little group of spectators with
an air of secure triumph.
“And you threw my poor old father over his own fence, you coward, when I
wasn’t there to defend him. Now, Hime Look, you’ve got to meet a man and
not a boy.”
He rolled his sleeves up from his hairy wrists.
“You’ve got to fight a man and fight him in order to pay a bill you’ve
owed here in Palermo for a long time.”
Look still leaned on the pitchfork. “Put down your fork!” bawled the
frenzied skipper, “I’m not one of your tame animals,” and without other
preface he rushed at Hiram.
The showman had been watching him with his sound eye glowing redly, the
glass one glaring impassively. At the skipper’s rush, with the facility
an old circus man displays with a pitchfork, he shortened the handle in
his grasp, speared one tine through the generous cartilage of Willard’s
ear, and before that furious adversary fairly realised what had
happened, he swung him on his heel, forced him back by the pain of the
pierced ear, and then driving the tines into the side of the barn,
set both fists on the end of the handle and had the frantic man a safe
prisoner at the end of the fork. Willard writhed a few times, groaning
as his ear tugged against the steel. Then he stood up, perforce as stiff
as a soldier, and roared at Hiram all the billingsgate of a long coast
“language-artist.” The grim captor simply glared at him until he had
exhausted himself.
“A hyeny came at me in a cage once,” said the showman, reminiscently, in
the first pause, “and I caught him just like this, and I held him till
the fight was all out of him. Now, Klebe, you’ve come up here drunk as a
fiddler’s hoorah and wantin’ to fight. You can’t fight with me to make
a town spectacle. That’s what your father tried to do--make a town
spectacle of me. I won’t stand for it. The Willard family can have all
the trouble with me it’s lookin’ for, so far’s I’m personally concerned,
but not in knock-downs. Those don’t settle things. You can see that for
yourself. We fi’t twenty-five years ago, and here you are just as hot
for it next time I see you.”
The skipper burst into a fresh rage, and Hiram calmly waited.
“The idea is, Klebe,” he went on in a maddeningly patronising way,
“you’ve always done about as you wanted to and made others stand
’round. Now, I’ve come back to Palermo to do a little runnin’ of
things for myself. I’ll give you your chance at me when the right and
proper time comes, and fair warning ahead. And when you say that you’ll
walk off these premises, then I’ll pull out the fork. If you don’t
promise here before these people to keep away from me and shut up about
fights, you may as well make arrangements to have your meals brought.”
At that moment Squire Phin came hastily into the yard, in advance of the
puffing, hopping, terrified Figger-four, who had brought him.
“Hiram,” he called, as he came within hearing, “release Captain
Willard.”
“Not until he promises to behave himself.”
For answer the Squire, his face flaming with indignation, stepped behind
his brother, and, seizing him by the shoulders, yanked him backwards.
The fork came away and Willard stood free, clutching his bleeding ear.
As he rushed again at Hiram, the Squire stepped between. He said
slowly, quietly, yet with something in his face and his mien that was
soul-compelling:
“Captain Willard, you go home!”
After a long stare at him, a stare that at last grew wavering, Willard
turned and went out of the yard.
The Squire stood and looked at his brother while the spectators stole
sheepishly away. His hands were clasped behind his back; sorrow, anger,
and reproach were upon his face.
At last the showman stooped and dragged the fork tine to and fro on the
grass to restore its brightness.
“I don’t want to poison Imogene,” he growled.
The Squire was still silent.
“Well, say it,” snapped Hiram. “It’s on your mind. Let’s have it. I’m
gettin’ used to bein’ called names.”
But his brother only shook his head slowly, his eyes lowered to the
ground. He turned and walked back toward his office.
Hiram gazed after him as long as he was in sight, and then he went into
the barn. The big doors at the rear were open, and the elephant, with
eyes directed on the soothing landscape, was comfortably weaving to and
fro. She crooked her trunk at him as he came near and curved it around
his shoulders when he stood beside her.
“Old girl,” he said, mournfully, “I reckon the cards was stacked when
they dealt me my hand in this game o’ life. I’m a storm centre that
would put a barometer out of business, but”--he took hold of her ragged
ear and shouted into it, as though the affirmation did his resolution
good,--“it’s me for the Willard family, just the same, and Phin along
with me at the finish. You never _did_ give a continental for me, old
girl, till I had licked you to a standstill, and I know families that’s
like you.”