THE DEVIL OF SILENCE.
Ralph had reason to fear Small, who was a native of the same village of
Lewisburg, and some five years the elder. Some facts in the doctor's
life had come into Ralph's possession in such a way as to confirm
life-long suspicion without giving him power to expose Small, who was
firmly intrenched in the good graces of the people of the county-seat
village of Lewisburg, where he had grown up, and of the little
cross-roads village of Clifty, where his "shingle" now hung.
Small was no ordinary villain. He was a genius. Your ordinary hypocrite
talks cant. Small talked nothing. He was the coolest, the steadiest, the
most silent, the most promising boy ever born in Lewisburg. He made no
pretensions. He set up no claims. He uttered no professions. He went
right on and lived a life above reproach. Your vulgar hypocrite makes
long prayers in prayer-meeting. Small did nothing of the sort. He sat
still in prayer-meeting, and listened to the elders as a modest young
man should. Your commonplace hypocrite boasts. Small never alluded to
himself, and thus a consummate egotist got credit for modesty. It is but
an indifferent trick for a hypocrite to make temperance speeches. Dr.
Small did not even belong to a temperance society. But he could never be
persuaded to drink even so much as a cup of tea. There was something
sublime in the quiet voice with which he would say, "Cold water, if you
please," to a lady tempting him with smoking coffee on a cold morning.
There was no exultation, no sense of merit in the act. Everything was
done in a modest and matter-of-course way beautiful to behold. And his
face was a neutral tint. Neither face nor voice expressed anything. Only
a keen reader of character might have asked whether all there was in
that eye could live contented with this cool, austere, self-contained
life; whether there would not be somewhere a volcanic eruption. But if
there was any sea of molten lava beneath, the world did not discover it.
Wild boys were sick of having Small held up to them as the most
immaculate of men[18].
Ralph had failed to get two schools for which he had applied, and had
attributed both failures to certain shrugs of Dr. Small. And now, when
he found Small at the house of Granny Sanders, the center of
intelligence as well as of ignorance for the neighborhood, he trembled.
Not that Small would say anything. He never said anything. He damned
people by a silence worse than words.
Granny Sanders was not a little flattered by the visit.
"Why, doctor, howdy, howdy! Come in, take a cheer. I am glad to see you.
I 'lowed you'd come. Old Dr. Flounder used to say he larnt lots o'
things of me. But most of the doctors sence hez been kinder stuck up,
you know. But I know'd you fer a man of intelligence."
Meantime, Small, by his grave silence and attention, had almost
smothered the old hag with flattery. "Many's the case I've cured with
yarbs and things. Nigh upon twenty year ago they was a man lived over on
Wild Cat Run as had a breakin'-out on his side. 'Twas the left side, jes
below the waist. Doctor couldn't do nothin'. 'Twas Doctor Peacham. He
never would have nothin' to do with 'ole woman's cures.' Well, the man
was goin' to die. Everybody seed that. And they come a-drivin' away over
here all the way from the Wild Cat. Think of that air! I never was so
flustered. But as soon as I laid eyes on that air man, I says, says
I, that air man, says I, has got the shingles, says I. I know'd the
minute I seed it. And if they'd gone clean around, nothing could a saved
him. I says, says I, git me a black cat. So I jist killed a black cat,
and let the blood run all over the swellin'. I tell you, doctor, they's
nothin' like it. That man was well in a month."
[Illustration: MRS. MEANS]
"Did you use the blood warm?" asked Small, with a solemnity most
edifying.
These were almost the only words he had uttered since he entered the
cabin.
"Laws, yes; I jest let it run right out of the cat's tail onto the
breakin'-out. And fer airesipelus, I don't know nothin' so good as the
blood of a black hen."
"How old?" asked the doctor.
"There you showed yer science, doctor! They's no power in a pullet. The
older the black hen the better. And you know the cure fer rheumatiz?"
And here the old woman got down a bottle of grease. "That's ile from a
black dog. Ef it's rendered right, it'll knock the hind sights off of
any rheumatiz you ever see. But it must be rendered in the dark of the
moon. Else a black dog's ile a'n't worth no more nor a white one's."
And all this time Small was smelling of the uncorked bottle, taking a
little on his finger and feeling of it, and thus feeling his way to the
heart--drier than her herbs--of the old witch. And then he went round
the cabin gravely, lifting each separate bunch of dried yarbs from its
nail, smelling of it, and then, by making an interrogation-point of his
silent face, he managed to get a lecture from her on each article in her
_materia medica_> with the most marvelous stories illustrative of their
virtues. When the Granny had got her fill of his silent flattery, he was
ready to carry forward his main purpose.
There was something weird about this silent man's ability to turn the
conversation as he chose to have it go. Sitting by the Granny's
tea-table, nibbling corn-bread while he drank his glass of water, having
declined even her sassafras, he ceased to stimulate her medical talk and
opened the vein of gossip. Once started, Granny Sanders was sure to
allude to the robbery. And once on the robbery the doctor's course was
clear.
"I 'low somebody not fur away is in this 'ere business!"
Not by a word, nor even by a nod, but by some motion of the eyelids,
perhaps, Small indicated that he agreed with her.
"Who d'ye s'pose 'tis?"
But Dr. Small was not in the habit of supposing. He moved his head in a
quiet way, just the least perceptible bit, but so that the old creature
understood that he could give light if he wanted to.
"I dunno anybody that's been 'bout here long as could be suspected."
Another motion of the eyelids indicated Small's agreement with this
remark.
"They a'n't nobody come in here lately 'ceppin' the master."
Small looked vacantly at the wall.
"But I low he's allers bore a tip-top character."
The doctor was too busy looking at his corn-bread to answer this remark
even by a look.
"But I think these oversmart young men'll bear looking arter, _I_ do."
Dr. Small raised his eyes and let them _shine_ an assent. That was all.
"Shouldn't wonder ef our master was overly fond of gals."
Doctor looks down at his plate.
"Had plenty of sweethearts afore he walked home with Hanner Thomson
t'other night, I'll bet."
Did Dr. Small shrug his shoulder? Granny thought she detected a faint
motion of the sort, but she could not be sure.
"And I think as how that a feller what trifles with gals' hearts and
then runs off ten miles, maybe a'n't no better'n he had orter be. That's
what I says, says I."
To this general remark Dr. Small assented in his invisible--shall I say
_intangible_?--way.
"I allers think, maybe, that some folks has found it best to leave home
and go away. You can't never tell. But when people is a-bein' robbed
it's well to lookout. Hey?"
"I think so," said Small quietly, and, having taken his hat and bowed a
solemn and respectful adieu, he departed.
He had not spoken twenty words, but he had satisfied the news-monger of
Flat Creek that Ralph was a bad character at home and worthy of
suspicion of burglary.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 18: The original from which this character was drawn is here
described accurately. The author now knows that such people are not to
be put into books. They are not realistic enough.]