TO AN OBBLIGATO BY LOOK’S CORNET BRASS BAND
“Always a seat for another,
Providin’ we squeeze ’em tight;
Stampin’ in from the smother,
For ’tis snowin’ hard to-night.
Time for a bit o’ smokin’,
Time for another tale,
Time for a little jokin’,
Waitin’ here for the mail.”
--Ballad of “The Grocery Store.”
I think there’s more git-up and ginger in a fife and drum,” said Uncle
Lysimachus Buck. He had cocked his ear to listen. Then he held his cane
beside his lips and fingered imaginary stops.
The windows of Hobbs’s hall, across the street from Asa Brickett’s
store, shed their yellow gleams out upon the crisp winter night. A band
rehearsal was going on there. The loafers who hovered about the stove
in the store could hear the voice of the leader haranguing his men, then
the robust attack on the tune--bass horns bellowing “oomp-pah oomps,”
cornets blaring and clarinets wailing; then the false note, the wavering
in the melody and the sharp command of a voice, at which the music
shredded out into jargon and ceased. More harangue and away they all
went again from the start!
“If the dummed calves ever git so they can play a whole piece to once it
will be wuth while list’nin’,” growled Marriner Amazeen, settling down
once more to his whittling, after he had cocked his ear for a time.
“Near’s I can find out, Hime ain’t lettin’ ’em practise nothin’ but
them high-diddle-diddle circus tunes,” observed Uncle Buck. “Now, you
take a fife and drum in ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me,’ or a good fiddler
in ‘The Devil’s Dream’ or ‘Miss McCloud’s Reel,’ or even an accordion
in ‘Alice, Where Be Ye?’ and, by swanny, you’ve got the real old
ear-ticklers. But this squeaky-weaky, biff, bang, boom stuff ain’t music
no more’n poundin’ on a tin wash-boiler is.”
But when Brickett began knocking a soap box into pieces for firewood,
Uncle Buck bawled at him angrily.
“Band tootlin’ don’t keep _me_ warm,” said Brickett, as he stuffed the
fuel into the stove. “Any time my system of runnin’ things in this store
don’t suit the loafers, said loafers know what they can do.”
“Ain’t no need of goin’ ’round makin’ noise jest for the sake of
makin’ it,” replied Buck.
“Then you whistle whilst I pound boxes,” said the storekeeper, grinning,
“and p’raps it’ll remind you of a fife and drum.”
“Shet up a little while, won’t ye, now?” asked Micajah Dunham,
wistfully. “Here I drive clear in from my place on band-practisin’
nights so’s to git a little music, and you run your clack so that a
feller can’t hear.” He sat on the edge of a box, his purchases heaped in
his lap, his fur cap on the floor in order that the earlappers might
not obstruct his hearing. “Here’s a piece now that they play well,” he
added, with the air of conviction of one who had followed faithfully the
work of the new Palermo band.
The men around the stove listened, Uncle Buck tapping his cane
appreciatively.
“There! Ain’t that good?” sighed Dunham as the band came down the
homestretch and wound up the selection in a fine burst of melody.
“I guess there ain’t no doubt but what Wat Mayo is hunky-dory as a
musicianer,” agreed Amazeen. “I hear that the Port boys are gittin’ up a
band, and they’re even talkin’ of one over to Newry Gore, and are goin’
to have Wat to teach both of ’em. I s’pose it’s all right for him to
spend his time that way and earn a dollar, but it don’t seem much like
man’s work to me.”
“I s’pose you think the only real bus’ness a man ought to foller is to
raise pertaters and fat shotes?” sarcastically observed Dunham. “I tell
ye, I admire the Mayo boy’s spunk in makin’ something out of himself
instead of a day-labourer. You can’t fit square pegs into round holes.
He’s been woke up and put into the job that he fits. Now he’ll amount
to some thing. Folks gen’rally amount to something when they git woke
up--if it ain’t too late,” he added with a sigh. He snuggled his heap of
parcels together on his knees. “I ought to be goin’ home,” he said, half
to himself. “But, I swan, I’d like to hear one more tune.”
“You seem to be livin’ pretty well nowadays out to your house,” remarked
Uncle Buck, with a sly look at the bundles.
“’Tain’t no more than bringin’ up the gen’ral av’rage, when you think
of what we’ve missed to our house,” was Dunham’s stout rejoinder. He
was ready nowadays to meet fearlessly the malicious thrusts of his old
neighbours, with his new gospel of life.
The music recommenced again across the street. This time the band was
playing an accompaniment for a cornet solo by its leader. The notes,
dulcet in the distance, seemed almost phrasing a song. Dunham’s eyes
moistened with the sudden emotion of his simple nature.
“I know you all have a good deal of fun behind my back about the way
I’ve shifted over,” he said, quietly. “I know that it makes you laugh
to hear me go ’round preachin’ about gittin’ a little something out of
life as you go along. I don’t care if you do laugh. Laugh! The more ye
laugh, the less you’ll growl. But me and my wife has woke up, and we
don’t care who knows it, and if some of the rest of you would wake up,
too, you’d find that the only thing the sun shines for ain’t to raise
crops and make freckles.”
“P’raps if all of us could git holt of a ready-made, grown-up daughter,
as good as the one you’ve got, we might improve some,” said Buck, with a
wink at his associates in “hector.”
“P’raps you could,” Dunham answered, simply and earnestly.
“Well, it makes a pretty good berth for a poor girl, ’Caje,” said
a man behind the stove. “Most anyone would like to be adopted into a
fam’ly like yours.”
“It ain’t that way, neighbours,” Dunham said softly, his face in the
direction of the music. “When we adopted ’Liza Haskell we was gettin’
the best end of the bargain, if ye want to put it on that kind of a
basis. We was both all corners before--sharp corners at that. I ain’t
backward about ownin’ up--we f’it, me and Esther, like fury, and we
didn’t know what was the matter with us. But somehow there don’t seem to
be any corners in our house now. Them that ain’t filled with new chairs
and pictur’s is all full o’ sunshine. There ain’t a room in the house
that looks like it used to--with the furniture standin’ round jest as
though it had been used at a funeral last and was where the undertaker
arranged it. We didn’t know what the matter was, I say--me and Esther
didn’t. We don’t know jest how it’s come about nov. But we do know
that we’ve adopted something besides a poor little girl--we’ve adopted
sunshine and sweetness and comfort and new notions about livin’ and
lovin’ and havin’.”
He stood up and piled his parcels upon his arm.
“That’s the way it is to our house nowadays, neighbours. I used to like
to set here the whole ev’nin’ in the store before--but now--well,
when I git to thinkin’ about how home is, why, it takes more than them
pretty tunes to hold me here. There’s music to our house that’s better
than all the brass bands in the world.”
He went out and they heard the jingle of his sleigh-bells threading
through the mellow notes of the cornet.
“He was allus sort of a soft old fool when you got under his shell,”
scoffed Uncle Buck, grinding his cane against the rusty stove. “What I
can’t understand is how Esther ever come ’round as she did. I allus
thought she was harder’n nails.”
“Oh, it took Squire Phin to warm her ear-wax,” said Amazeen. “And when
you know how to handle a woman like that, why, you’ve got her--that’s
all. I cal’late there ain’t a man in the county that understands human
natur’ better’n Squire Phin does. He can handle ’em all right when he
makes up his mind to.”
Uncle Buck was plainly nettled by Amazeen’s air of easy confidence.
“Well, there’s one woman that he don’t seem to be able to handle--and I
reckon he’d like to at that,” he snorted. “Sylvene Willard ain’t hardly
spoke to him since he knocked her feller down.”
“I don’t cal’late as how you’ve got any right to call King Bradish her
feller,” objected Amazeen.
“I donno why not,” snapped Uncle Buck. “Jedge Willard come right out
after that happened and said that Sylvene and King was goin’ to git
married at Christmas time, and Sylvene didn’t dispute him. It’s past
Christmas time now, to be sure, but as I understand it, King is tied up
in New York by bus’ness and ain’t been able to git back since he went
away a little spell ago.”
“Little spell ago!” cried Amazeen. “He ain’t been back since he went
away that time in the fall when Hime’s el’phunt got loose.”
“Mebbe, but time slides away kind o’ fast,” grudgingly admitted Buck.
“Howsomever, they’ll git married all right when he comes back. If Coll
Willard says so, then they will, that’s all! Phin Look can’t stop it.
His cake was dough when he licked Bradish.”
“As I’ve allus understood the row, King had the right of it,” observed
the man behind the stove.
“Why, the Jedge himself told me,” said Buck, “that all King done in the
world was to step up to the Squire and call him into line for braggin’
round how he’d cut out King the night before and walked home with
Sylvene from the schoolhouse out Dunham’s way. Jedge told me so himself.
That’s comin’ pretty straight!”
“Well, now, that don’t seem like Squire Phin Look,” broke in Amazeen,
wagging his head decisively. “I’ve heard that version, but it don’t seem
like Squire Phin--and we’ve known him a long time, too.”
“He ain’t ever given the lie to the Jedge,” said Buck. “He ain’t ever
said aye, yes or no about it. Nat’rally think, then, he must be ashamed
of it, wouldn’t ye? I tell ye, boys, when there’s a woman in the case we
don’t none of us know what the best of us might do. Squire Phin Look is
an almighty nice man, good and kind-hearted and smarter’n a whip. I’ve
allus stood up for him, and I was in the scheme----” He checked himself
suddenly in some confusion with a side glance at Amazeen. “I was in
hopes that the match wouldn’t come off with Bradish. But the Squire
went and lost his head and kicked up---like the best do sometimes when
there’s a woman in the case. Sylvene Willard ain’t the woman to stand
that kind of bus’ness. You can’t blame her. I say she and Bradish will
git married, and you can mark my word on it.”
A man sat on a bit of board that was laid across an unheaded keg of
nails. He had been listening, elbows on his knees, his brown hands
braiding and unbraiding a length of rope with a sailor’s deftness. This
man was Mate Seekins of the _A. P. Bristol_, home in Palermo for his
midwinter lay-off.
“What do they hear here in town from Bradish?” he inquired. There was
a suppressed note of meaning in his voice that the little crowd did not
catch.
The men about the stove looked at each other. “Nothin’,” at last blurted
Uncle Buck.
“What bus’ness is he a-follerin’ of in New York?” asked Seekins.
“As near’s I’ve ever come to it,” said Buck, “him and the Jedge is in
some kind of financierin’ together and King’s handlin’ that end of it.
But the Jedge don’t put his bus’ness into the _Seaside Oracle_ and King
ain’t the kind that writes letters to be read out loud here in Ase’s
store,” he added grimly. “I s’pose his mother hears reg’lar and the
Jedge and Sylvene, but the Bradishes and the Willards never messed in
very thick with their neighbours. Sum and substance is, we don’t know
not the first dum thing about King Bradish nor his bus’ness, nor why
he closed up bus’ness here in the hurry that he did and got out of the
place. And I donno as I care. I never had no use for the skunk, anyway.”
He pared a corner from a black plug of tobacco, stuck it into his cheek
and relapsed into dignified silence.
The man on the keg braided at his rope-end.
“I shouldn’t want him to do no gre’t amount of financierin’ for me,” he
said at last. “Bradish, I mean.”
“I donno ’bout that,” Amazeen said. “He was allus pretty sharp on a
dicker ’round here.”
“I say I shouldn’t want him to do my financierin’ for me,” persisted
Mate Seekins.
The group waited for him to go on, but he kept at his braiding.
“Well, you’ve gone that fur. Keep on,” commanded Uncle Buck.
“I ain’t no hand to peddle gossip,” said Seekins.
“Who said ye was?” Lysimachus’s tone was indignant. “And there ain’t no.
call for you to hint that we’re gossips here. If you ain’t man enough to
dast to say what you know, then keep still and much good may it do you.”
But the old man’s eyes gleamed with curiosity. “Half truths are wusser’n
whole lies,” he muttered. “I ain’t no hand to talk and tell,” went on
Seekins, “but when I say I don’t want him to financier for me I mean to
say that I don’t want any man handlin’ my money that keeps drunk as a
fiddler’s hoorah.”
The music from across the street bellowed in louder blast, for the store
door opened with a bang and Hiram Look came stamping in.
“Do me up a slab of cheese and plenty of crackers, Colonel Brickett,”
he called. “Wider’n that,” he snapped as Brickett set his knife on the
cheese. “Look’s Cornet Brass Band ain’t eatin’ no half rations so long
as old Hime himself is on hand to buy for ’em.”
He beamed on the circle of faces about the stove, for the inspiration of
his favourite tunes made him genial.
“How does that sound to you, old turkles?” he cried, with a backward jab
of his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Hobbs’s hall. “It’s
sort of wakin’ up Palermo, hey?”
“I suppose it will be good enough when they can play without soundin’
like bullfrogs with the croup,” returned Uncle Buck, sulkily. Hiram had
come in at just the time when he had edged forward to put some leading
questions to Mate Seekins. He turned to the sailor again.
“You was sayin’----” he began.
“You never heard nothin’ in your life before but a melodeon and a jew’s
harp, you old Fiji,” shouted Hiram, thrusting forward close to the
stove. “There’s about a half dozen of you old mossbacks that ain’t come
to enough to appreciate what I’m doin’ for this place. But I’ve got the
crowd with me. I’ll show ye in town meeting next March! I can run that
band myself, so fur’s that comes to; but I’m goin’ to make some of
you old hogs of taxpayers chip in to support it. I’m goin’ to have an
article put in appropriating two hundred dollars for band concerts next
summer, and I’ll carry it through.”
“This town won’t vote for no such dum foolishness,” retorted Buck.
He turned to Seekins again, his curiosity mastering his spirit of
controversy.
“You was sayin’ as how----”
“Bet you fifty, and put the money in Brickett’s hands right now,”
bellowed Hiram, ever eager for opportunities to browbeat the old men of
the village. He dug into his trousers pocket.
“Why don’t you wear that wad o’ money hung round your neck out in
plain sight?” demanded Uncle Lysimachus, angrily. “You seem bound and
determined to have it under our noses all the whol’ time.”
“Put up your stuff,” cried Hiram. “Make a pool if ye want to. I ain’t
afraid of the gang of you.”
He whirled and ran his hale eye along their faces. Dow Babb, who had
been chief of the Palermo hand-tub brigade for many years, unhooked his
toe from his instep, recrossed his legs and said with decision:
“You can’t run the _whole_ of this town, Hime, even if you are runnin’ a
part of it jest now. You wait your turn with your brass band. I’ve been
before town meetin’ for four years, now, a-askin’ and implorin’ the
voters to appropriate enough to repair Hecla and buy some more hose.
They ain’t give me a cent. Now if you go to work and bull through any
such article in the warrant as you’re braggin’ you will, then all I’ve
got to say is that the next time a fire breaks out in the village, your
darned old band can go and play on it. The Hecla comp’ny never will.”
Uncle Buck, unable to control himself any longer, got up and pounded his
cane on the floor.
“I’ve heard all the tow-rowin’ I want to hear. Here I be tryin’ to talk
with Mr. Seekins about something that amounts to something. And ye can’t
hear yourself think. Take your cheese and your crackers, Hime Look, and
go over and stuff ’em into your toodle-oodlers. Let gentlemun that’s
a-talkin’ serious bus’ness go on with their serious bus’ness. Now,
Seekins, you said as how you’d seen King Bradish drunker’n a fiddler’s
hoorah. What else?”
“I never said I seen him,” returned the man, sullenly.
“It’s the same thing; you meant it. Go ahead.” The old man’s tone was
imperious.
Hiram and the rest of the crowd turned to him, inquiry on their faces.
The showman leaned forward with especial insistence.
“I ain’t no hand to tattle----”
“You said that before, consarn ye!” This persistent delay that baffled
Uncle Buck’s curiosity made him furious.
“No matter what you see or what you didn’t see,” said Hiram. “The
idea is, what do you _know?_” There was no resisting the force of
circumstances. “Well,” roared Seekins, “I know that King Bradish is
keepin’ full of licker in New York and throwin’ money right and left and
over his shoulder--or has been so long’s he had it to throw. He’s gone
to Tophet, that’s what he’s done, and if what I hear up at the other end
is true, he’s got a string hitched to certain parties in this place and
he’s goin’ to drag ’em with him. Now that’s all you’re goin’ to git
out of me,” he concluded, throwing the rope-end into the wood-box and
rising. “I don’t propose to git into no trouble by talkin’ and tellin’.
I’ve seen people that done that. If any’s interested, let ’em go to
New York and to the right people and they’ll find out for themselves.”
He pushed through the little circle and went out of the store.
Hiram seized his crackers and cheese and started after him, overtaking
the sailor in the middle of the square.
One after the other, the old men blunted their noses against the frosty
panes of Brickett’s front window, trying to spy and to hear. But only
the mumble of voices reached them, Hiram’s tone insistent, Seekins’s
deprecatory.
But at last Hiram slapped him cordially on the back and the two
separated. A sudden cessation in the band music showed that the
refreshments had arrived in the hall, and the old men yawned about
Brickett’s stove and one by one went home.
One or two persons saw Hiram Look drive out of the yard of the old place
the next forenoon and take the road toward Square Harbour, his tall hat
projecting just above the high back of his sleigh, and fat ear-muffs
cosily snuggling his ears.
These one or two asked “Figger-Four” Avery about the showman’s
departure, when he came to the store during the day, after a “fig” of
tobacco.
“Here’s what he said to me,” stated Avery: “Says he, ‘I’m goin’ to
Europe, I-rope and A-rope after wild animiles, and I’ll be back when I
git damation good and ready. If you miss feedin’ Imogene on the dot
or let the fire git low in the stove, I’ll warp t’other leg for you.’
There! That’s what he said, and if you can git any more out of it than
what I have, you’re welcome to. I guess you’d better give me another fig
o’ terbacker, Ase, for I’m goin’ to stay pretty clus to that barn till
he gits back.”
“I s’pose you know all about el’phunts now, don’t you, Avery?” inquired
one of the men who lounged about the stove, toasting their shins.
“Wal, I know this much,” said “Figger-Four,” putting away his weed and
buttoning his coat before facing the cold; “I know that an el’phunt
wants meals reg’lar--a lot of it, can’t understand a joke and don’t like
music on the flute. There may be other things about ’em to know, but
they ain’t things that I need in my bus’ness.”