We had lived for two months at Waydean, and, although as far as
agricultural operations were concerned we might as well have been in the
city, I had begun to appreciate the delights of a country life without
the usual drudgery, worry and expense. I was not raising grain at two
dollars a bushel to sell for fifty cents, or making butter at a cost of
a dollar a pound to sell for a quarter of a dollar, but I had time
during the hot weather to enjoy the sight of Peter Waydean's waving
fields as I swung in a hammock under the trees, while that old sinner
frizzled in the glaring sunlight over his work. Occasionally I refreshed
myself by sauntering to the field where he happened to be working, to
have a little friendly conversation with him, and I never failed to let
him know that new beauties were revealed to me day by day in the
agreement to pay him an extra hundred dollars for working his own land.
At first he had showed signs of looking upon me with the contemptuous
irritation of an angler who has accidentally landed a mud-pout, but when
I artlessly hinted that I would have been willing to pay a higher rent
for the place rather than make a slave of myself as he did, I could see
that his previous delight in his own cleverness was completely
overshadowed by the bitter regret that he had not made more of his
opportunity.
We had no cattle of our own, but Peter's were in plain view in the lower
field. We had no sheep, but Peter's little flock picturesquely dotted
the landscape. We didn't own a horse, but, after all, Marion had a
terror of being run away with, and I had made an inflexible rule never
to go within range of a horse's hind legs. And in the matter of
confining my farm expenditure to the price of a spade, a rake and a hoe,
I had been most loyal and consistent; I had stuck not only to the letter
of our agreement, but also to the spirit. Indeed, I was not merely
resigned, but cheerful, knowing that the more closely I appeared to
cling to Marion's plan the sooner would she begin to waver.
But a chance remark that I overheard Abner Davis make one morning as I
boarded the train changed my mental attitude in an instant. "He ain't no
reg'lar farmer--oh, Jiminy, no!--ha, ha!--he's jest"--How he finally
labelled me to his fellow-rustic I never heard, for the train slowed up
at the platform, and his voice was drowned in the noise. I just had time
to turn, before I stepped on board, to cast a withering glance
backwards--a glance that was wasted, however, for Abner was poking the
other man in the side with his thumb and they were both doubled over
with merriment. Of course, he hadn't intended me to hear, and I was
quite aware that I was not a farmer, either regular or irregular, but it
was this fact that made the remark so galling. There are two things I
cannot bear: one is what Marion calls the truth, for that always turns
out to be something odious and objectionable; the other is ridicule.
That morning my mind was filled with bitterness, for Abner Davis had
managed to combine in one brief remark the essence of much that I
disliked to hear. The rhythmic beat of the car-wheels clanked out the
derisive refrain, "He ain't--no reg--'lar far--mer!" By the time I
reached the city I had decided it was due to my self-respect to put
things on a different basis. Certainly, I was not a farmer. I had
neither a horse, nor a cow, nor a sheep--no, not even a guinea-pig! I
had no agricultural implements, except,--oh, hateful thought!--a spade,
a rake and a hoe.
I was in this mood when Harold Jones unloaded Griggs upon me in the
restaurant where I was taking lunch. I knew from the twinkle in Harold's
eye when he introduced us that he meant mischief. "Griggs," he explained
to me, "has got farm-on-the-brain. Carton," he explained to Griggs, "had
such a severe attack that his mind is unhinged. He imagines--ha,
ha!--that he's a farmer! Now you two sit down and exchange symptoms. I
have to get back to the office."
I treated Griggs with distant civility, not because he was thrust upon
me, but because it usually takes me a year or more to get beyond
formalities with an acquaintance. But Griggs was impervious to hauteur;
he was unconstrained and hearty enough for two. I could see that Harold
had spoken the truth in his case, for his farming mania was at its
height, and he was overjoyed at finding a man who had done what he
merely dreamed of doing. He was a produce commission merchant, he told
me, and he was convinced that he could double his income and prolong his
life by running a farm in connection with his business. It was a simple
proposition, he stated, that a child could grasp. A farmer makes a
profit by farming, a commission merchant by commissioning; therefore, if
the merchant were also a farmer would he not absorb both profits?
Griggs tilted his chair, hooked his thumbs into his waistcoat, and
challenged me to point out a flaw in his theory. I declined, for the
simple reason, I said, that it was flawless; then I rose to make my
escape. Griggs adjured me to sit down for a minute; he had a few
questions to ask, and I was the man of all men to give him the
information he sought.
Now a stitch in time, it is said, saves nine; a lie, a little one, a
mere clerical plea of a pressing engagement, would have saved ninety or
more. Had I not instinctively refrained from loosening one stitch in my
garment of righteousness it would not have been torn to tatters.
I hesitated; I sat down; I was lost. Griggs grew friendly, more
friendly, affectionate; he addressed me by my surname, and I realized
that I was in the clutches of the objectionable type of person who claps
you on the back at the second meeting, and demands with a boisterous
laugh, "How goes it, old man?"
Beginning with generalities pertaining to agriculture, he questioned me
searchingly upon my private affairs. I can parry, and occasionally
thrust--but not against a battering-ram. Grigg's questions were not to
be evaded. I could have declined point-blank to answer, thus intimating
that he was a boor, but that would have been unpleasant to me--perhaps
not to Griggs. I could have followed my natural inclination by telling
the truth, but I recoiled from laying bare to a stranger the peculiar
economies of our rural life; besides, I shrink from intrusion with the
same shyness that causes me to slink guiltily into a shop if I see a man
approaching who is indebted to me. There was but one other alternative;
I took it. I smiled my most frankly ingenuous smile; I beamed upon him
with warm-hearted encouraging candor and--lied! Yes, lied with beggarly
duplicity, and I kept on with Spartan fortitude; and so smooth is the
grade on the broad and downward road that presently I was enjoying my
own depravity. My imaginings no longer appeared as ugly bloated
caterpillars, but spun themselves swiftly into chrysalides and instantly
emerged as gorgeous butterflies, dazzling to their creator. And yet my
mind remained alert and clear. Every statement that I made was notched
deeply into my own brain, so that I could afterwards recall the
slightest detail; into Griggs's also, for he snapped at, swallowed and
assimilated every fragment of information with the avidity of a starved
dog. We began in this way:--
"How many acres in your farm?"......"Fifty." (It really was my farm, for
I was paying more than the rent of the whole place to Peter.)
"How many horses?"......"Five--two working teams and a fast driver."
(Fortunately, I knew Peter's stable.)
"Cows? .. Calves?"......"Three cows--seven calves." (I was pretty sure
of the cows, but I had to guess the calves.)
"Jupiter! You never raised seven calves from three cows?"......"Oh, yes.
Three pair of twins--the odd one is last year's."
"Last year's! Thought you had only been farming two months?"......"Yes,
but I bought one calf with her mother."
"Three pair of twins first season! Great Caesar--what luck! What did you
pay for the farm?"......"Six thousand, two hundred and fifty."
"Cash?"......"Cash."
"The devil! You must be well fixed?"......"Oh,--so, so."
"How'd you make it?"......"Emperor stock."
"Emperor! You must have been in on the ground floor?"......"Ground
floor."
"Oh Lord! How many men do you keep?"......"Just one."
"What do you have to pay him?"......"Three hundred a year."
"Must be a nice place for children. How many have you?"......"Five."
(This was theoretically correct. Paul had invented two sisters and two
brothers, all invisible, to play with. A man's family should be screened
from publicity, and this reply seemed to make Paul strictly impersonal.
He did not ask me how many wives I had.)
Now I looked upon this person as a man whom I would never meet again,
never having met him before, and I parted from him with joy after having
answered every question that he asked to his satisfaction, also to my
own. I did not dream of entering a maze that would exhaust my ingenuity
to find my way out of without ignominiously crying for help. But before
I was done with Griggs I recalled many things of which I had never seen
the full significance before. One was a tract I had read in my youth
entitled, "The First False Step." Another was a remark that Marion had
once made in anger: that I would say anything, without regard to
veracity or the immediate future, to avoid unpleasantness. I had got her
to retract the assertion to a certain extent by professing to be deeply
wounded, as indeed I was, but I saw now that she knew me better than I
knew myself.
Two days later, on my next trip to the city, I found Griggs awaiting me
in my office. "Hello, old man!" he exclaimed enthusiastically. "I
haven't been able to sleep since I saw you--can't think of anything but
getting out to see your farm. Why, Carton, what's--what the dev"----
"Stand back," I cried warningly, with averted face and outstretched
arm--"keep well away! I'm--I'm in trouble. My boy--my boy--" I sank into
my chair and covered my face with my hands.
Griggs staggered back. "Which one?" he gasped.
"_Which_--oh,--ah--Andrew," I answered despairingly. "He broke out last
night--I'm afraid it's--" I bowed my head.
"It's _what_?" demanded Griggs, moving rapidly away.
"Scarlet fever," I groaned.
Griggs vanished. "Say, Carton," he called out, from the other side of
the door, "awfully sorry. Other kids all safe?"
I laughed--a hard metallic laugh--I knew it sounded like that, for I
seemed to stand off and listen. Griggs didn't wait to hear more. "Hell!"
he ejaculated, and his heavy footsteps pounded the stairs.
I thought that was the last of Griggs. It was--for nearly two months. By
that time my point of view had changed, as the danger of complications
receded, so that I sometimes found myself chuckling over the clever way
in which I had managed to rid myself of an insufferable bore. I did not
mention the matter to Marion, for I well knew that in some things she
was incapable of judicial consideration, without regard to qualifying
circumstances; then, reasoning and argument availed not. An act, she
insists, is either right or wrong, therefore it is useless to juggle
with words in trying to make out that it is mostly right and only a
little wrong. Had Marion developed artistic ability, I am sure it would
have been in the line of black and white, while my talent would as
surely have run to color. It is the moral in a fable that appeals most
strongly to her; it is the fable itself that delights my imagination. A
moral is all very well in its place--like a capstone to a tower,--but
there it should stay. To detach it for the purpose of concrete personal
application, I have explained to Marion, is an outrage on the properties
of family life. To choose the moment when a man is smarting under the
consciousness of error for the purpose of pointing out the folly of his
foolishness is positively inhuman. What, I ask, would have been the
moral effect upon the prodigal had his father prepared a feast of
proverbs instead of a fatted calf? This question she has never answered
except by a baffling tight-lipped smile--a smile that convinces me of
the utter folly of hoping that a woman will listen to reason. Yes, I had
good cause to believe that mentioning the Griggs episode would lead to
useless discussion.
It was a warm day in midsummer when I found a note from Griggs in my
morning mail. He had learned at the office that I was spending my
vacation at home, and he concluded that all danger of infection was
over.
" ... Now, old chap," he wrote, "I can't wait any longer; I've got to
have a look at your place. My wife has been dead against my buying a
farm, but she has given in this much: that if I can find a city man who
gets more out of his farm than he puts into it, she'll let me go ahead.
So you're my man, Carton. I want you to give me the tip in regard to
facts and figures, and if you have to dress them up a bit, like the
Annual Report of a Loan and Investment Company, you may do so, with my
blessing. I'm no good in that line myself, but I'm strong on a
second-hand affidavit. I'll drive out on Thursday afternoon to have a
look around your farm, then you can post me on details."
It was nine o'clock when I received this epistle. Griggs, I calculated,
could not arrive before the middle of the afternoon, and he would
probably not stay more than an hour or two, so as to leave time to drive
back to the city by daylight. The problem that confronted me was whether
it would be worse for me to tell the truth to Griggs, or to Marion, or
to both, or to risk the probability of Marion learning it from Griggs,
or of the latter from my wife. I shrank from each solution in turn, and
yet, worst of all, was the thought of being burdened any longer by the
secret of my own guilt. I could have made up my mind to confess to
Marion had I not been sure that she would insist upon Griggs being told
the instant he arrived. That thought hardened my heart. I had gone too
far to retreat; Griggs should be deceived to the bitter end.
It was at this stage of my mental conflict that the thought of confiding
in Andy Taylor came to me as a sudden inspiration. That dear old soul,
I felt sure, would take a positive delight in helping me out of this
difficulty; indeed, I thought of borrowing his farm for the afternoon,
until a better plan presented itself. I couldn't see the humorous side
of the matter very clearly just then, but I knew Andy would. He did. I
found him hoeing his corn, but he willingly left his work and sat down
in a shady spot with me to listen to my tale. I did not attempt to
excuse myself; in fact, I was rather more severe in my self-condemnation
than I thought the circumstances warranted. I wanted sympathy and
encouragement; I wanted to be assured that I wasn't as miserable a
sinner as I declared myself to be; and I knew that, in dealing with
Marion, the way to get what I yearned for was to assume the most abject
repentance. But my serious air failed to impress Andy, for he was so
delighted with the humor of the situation that, at first, he gave
himself up to unrestrained merriment. I had to paint my despair still
more vividly before he subsided into helpful contemplation.
"To tell you the _truth_, Mr. Carton"--I winced at the word, and at the
wink that accompanied it--"I think it's a darn good joke." He stopped to
laugh once more, and I permitted a sorrowful smile to steal over my
face. "And as for my opinion of your conduct," he went on, "I believe
you're jest a nateral-born play-actor." I started in surprise, for this
was not the kind of consolation I had expected. "That bein' the case,"
he concluded, "you ain't no ways blamable."
"Why, how do you make that out?" I asked, trying to conceal my elation.
"You done it," he answered, chewing a piece of June grass meditatively,
with his eyes half-closed, "as innocent as that little boy of yourn when
he makes believe he has all them brothers and sisters. You ain't got all
the live-stock that you described, but you want 'em so bad that your
imagination sort of got a cinch on your judgment."
I grasped his hand in speechless gratitude,--not only for the charitable
view he took of my conduct, but also that he had pointed out the way to
disarm Marion's criticism when the time came for me to confess my
misdeeds. I looked at my watch. In three or four hours Griggs would
appear; there was no time to lose.
"Mr. Taylor," I said, hesitatingly, not knowing just how to broach my
plan, "having gone so far, I--I don't quite see my way clear, except--by
going a little farther."
Andy nodded in perfect comprehension. "See that strip of tamarac swamp
over there?" he asked. "Well, it ain't no more'n half a mile wide, and
it'd come nateral to me to cut through there in a bee line, but if you
was to try, the chances is that every bit of it would look like every
other bit, and you'd be glad to git out even on the side you started in
on."
"I would," I admitted. "If I could only start afresh!"
Andy chuckled again. "Well," he said, with hearty encouragement, "I'm
prepared to holler round the edge, or go in to look you up, or anything
you say. Now, what's your scheme?"
"It struck me," I replied, casting aside my embarrassment, "that perhaps
you wouldn't mind lending me some stage furniture for the afternoon." I
enumerated the required number of horses, cattle, hogs, and sheep.
Andy laughed in glee, then he shook his head in assumed solemnity. "No,
Mr. Carton," he said, "I couldn't do that, but I'll give 'em to you
outright; then, if you like, you can give 'em back to me in the
evenin'."
I was touched by his evident desire to save me from any unnecessary
perversion of the truth, but I assured him that Griggs would not think
of asking me if the animals he saw on my place were my own; besides, I
would feel overwhelmed by the munificence of this temporary gift. But
Andy was obdurate, so I let him have his way. There was just one other
difficulty--that of getting my wife away from Waydean for the afternoon,
but that was easily arranged. I remembered that she was in the first
stage of the rag-carpet fever, and had announced her intention of
getting Mrs. Taylor to instruct her in the art, so when Andy brought me
into the house to have a drink of fresh buttermilk, I had only to hint
at Marion's desire to learn in order to secure a pressing invitation
from Mrs. Taylor to bring her over in the afternoon.
Andy accompanied me to the gate. "Mr. Carton, keep up your spirits," he
said encouragingly, in parting, "and everything will go all right. You
needn't feel nervous about your wife gittin' back too soon, for when two
women gits started rag-carpetin' they don't remember they've got
husbands until on about supper-time. When they settle down we'll drive
the stock over and arrange them to look nateral. I was goin' to wash my
buggy this afternoon, and I was thinkin' I might as well do it over
there. I ain't had no experience of play-actin', but you need someone to
look like a hired man, and I guess I could do that."
I had thought of the hired man problem, and the same idea had occurred
to me, but I knew it wasn't my place to make the suggestion. "No, Mr.
Taylor," I replied; "I couldn't think of letting you take such a menial
part. I'd rather give up the performance--" I wilted suddenly at his
look of sceptical amusement--"unless," I added, "you would really like
to do it."
"I really would," he responded, with a broad smile.
Griggs came. To my amazement, he asked no questions, at first. He had a
business-like, preoccupied air, as if he were a bailiff preparing an
inventory for a bill-of-sale, and he looked at me, I fancied, as if he
suspected I had hastily hidden some of the effects that might legally be
attached. He scarcely noticed Peter's growing crops, but he studied the
domestic animals intently, jotting down memoranda in his note-book. The
inspection evidently satisfied him that they were not stuffed, although
in their unfamiliar surroundings the cattle wore a strained and
unnatural expression, as if they thought he was an amateur photographer,
and feared they might not be taken full face. His manner exasperated me,
but I managed to treat him politely, even when he remarked that my hired
man was a rum-looking old coon and that the horses needed grooming.
Suddenly he shut his note-book with a snap. "Carton," he burst forth,
"I've been taken in!"
"Taken--in?" I ejaculated. He had an equine cast of countenance, and his
eyes rolled in such a vicious way that I instinctively moved directly in
front, looking at him fixedly. My surprise was not assumed.
"Duped--bamboozled--hoodwinked!" he snorted.
I grew pale with rage. I knew I did, though I could not see myself. My
eyes flashed; I could feel them flashing. I would have given five
dollars to see their scintillations in a mirror. I drew myself up to
more than my full height--thank Heaven, I could at least see myself
elongate! Andy Taylor, standing beside his buggy with a sopping sponge
in one hand, his mouth hanging open and his reddish side-whiskers
floating in the breeze, suddenly turned his back and hugged himself, his
shoulders heaving in silent spasmodic convulsions.
"Mr. Griggs," I said icily, my tone, I was pleased to hear, as pale and
frosty as a shaft of the aurora borealis, "what do you mean?"
"What do I mean?" he shouted. "I mean that I'll pay Harold Jones back
for this--I'll teach him not to run a rig on me!"
"Harold--Jones?" I queried vacantly.
Griggs burst into a laugh that sounded like a horse's neigh. "Brace up,
old man," he adjured me, slapping me on the back. "You don't seem to get
on to my meaning, but you don't need to look like an idiot. I'll tell
you the whole business."
Briefly, it seemed, he had happened to meet my friend Harold that day,
and had mentioned his proposed visit to my farm; incidentally, a warm
discussion had arisen. Harold had been convulsed with merriment at
Griggs's conception of the extensive scope of my farming operations.
When Griggs adduced his conversation with me as evidence Harold had
laughed still more uproariously, declaring it was the best joke he ever
heard--further, that my live-stock consisted of five old hens and some
chickens. Griggs knew Harold to be fond of joking, but had,
reluctantly, believed him. He had not expected, he admitted, to see such
a well-stocked farm.
"In other words," I said, with some heat, "you expected to find that
I"----
"Hold up!" interrupted Griggs hastily. "You see, Carton, I was mad at
the thought of having been made a fool of. I can understand a fellow
lying on a business deal, when it's to his interest, but to sit down and
lie cold-bloodedly, just for recreation, like"----
"Like whom?" I demanded wrathfully, as he paused.
"Like that brute Jones," answered Griggs, with a vicious jerk of his
head. "I'll get back on him, you bet!"
I began to see daylight. "Come away up to the house and we'll have a
little refreshment," I said, with hospitable zeal.
Griggs brightened. It was a warm day, so I brought him around to the
south veranda, but I would have entertained him anywhere else had I
remembered that Paul was there. He was curled up in a chair, absorbed in
a book. I knew he was oblivious of what had been going on, but there is
never any certainty of what Paul may, or may not, say, and I felt a
qualm of misgiving. Griggs proceeded to attract his attention by
snapping his fingers, as if the boy were a puppy or an infant,
remarking, to me, that he was wondering where I kept the kids. Now Paul
is not shy, but we never could induce him to notice a stranger's
advances without being formally introduced, consequently, if his mind is
suddenly withdrawn from his imaginary world, he looks shy; worse, he
looks as if he were unseeing, deaf, and an idiot. My mind was
preoccupied, or I would have avoided difficulties by introducing Griggs,
but I unfortunately neglected that formality. Paul's stolid and
incurious gaze rested on my visitor; I looked on spellbound, knowing
that his mind was working with intensity, and that something was coming;
Griggs shuffled uneasily.
"Well, sonny," said Griggs, at last, "what do you think of me?"
I have watched a toad sit motionless waiting for a fly to come within
reach with exactly Paul's expression. I noticed that his eyelids didn't
even blink. Griggs glanced at me; I felt, rather than saw, the
patronizing condolence of his look. It is the look of the proud father
who raises children guaranteed to fit ready-made clothing.
"Paul," I prompted, with pregnant meaning, "why don't you answer? What
do you think of this gentleman?"
"I think, father," he answered, in his dreamy, deliberate tone,
addressing me pointedly, but still looking at Griggs, "that he looks
like a horse."
I felt as if I were falling from a dizzy height, but the sensation was
not altogether painful. Griggs bore up better than I could have hoped,
and declared with an attempt at jocularity that he would rather look
like a horse than a cow. I had no more presence of mind than to reprove
Paul on the spot for his rudeness, a course which could only result in
one of two things: a howl or an argument. This time it was an argument;
but I could better have stood a howl, for he pointed out that his mother
had taught him to always tell the truth, and----
"That will do, Paul," I interrupted, hurriedly. "Stand up, and I'll
introduce you to Mr. Griggs."
I left them to entertain each other, while I escaped into the house for
the refreshments. Had I not done so, nothing could have warded off an
indignant dissertation from Paul on the difference he was careful to
observe between stating actual facts that came under his observation and
his habit of making up fictitious persons and events. The latter
propensity we never checked, believing that nothing should be said to
prevent the fullest development of his wonderful imagination. My own
excursions in the realm of undiluted fiction were trifling in comparison
to Paul's; before him, doubtless, lay a future with his pen beside which
even mine must pale to insignificance.
The room I was in opened upon the veranda. Paul was sitting beside the
window, and I could hear his voice distinctly, but only the alternate
interrogatory rumble of his companion's. Evidently Griggs was making the
most of his opportunity to learn more of my domestic concerns.
"Oh, he's all right," I heard Paul announce. "He was only playing sick
to get out of working. Father said it wasn't worth while to send for the
doctor, and we shut him up in the barn so that the others wouldn't take
it. We didn't let him out till he said he was quite well thank-you."
"They're all half-brothers and half-sisters. Not of any consequence, you
know--just to amuse me."
"Father said he guessed he'd send them to the Orphan's Home; he couldn't
afford to feed such a large family. Then he said he'd let me keep them
if I made them work hard for their board. I can tell you I keep them
going."
"Father says he cares more for me than for the whole crowd, and that he
shouldn't be expected to bring up step-children."
"Yes, I let them play for an hour on Saturdays."
"They're all out picking potato bugs except Tom. He's in jail."
"Up in the attic. He stole a candy out of my box, and I locked him up
for a week. He gets bread and water only once a day."
"They each have to bring a full pail of bugs, or else they don't get
any tea."
"Father says he'll have Tom put in the Reformatory if I say the word."
What further information Griggs gleaned I had no means of knowing, for
Paul was doing so well that I thought it better not to interrupt the
conversation, and I took the opportunity of having a brief talk with
Andy Taylor before returning to the veranda. Griggs was obviously
distraught and had little to say except that he was in a hurry to get
back to the city, but he looked at me as if he were mentally formulating
charges to lay before the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children. He was so engrossed in his thoughts that he neglected to thank
me for holding the gate open as he drove through, then I had difficulty
in impressing upon his mind what he should say to Harold Jones.
"Tell him," I concluded, holding the horse's head, "that I consider it
an impertinence for a mere acquaintance to pry into my private affairs.
Is it anyone's business but my own, Mr. Griggs, whether I keep only a
few fowls or a large assortment of domestic animals? Tell him that I
would never dream of asking you how many firkins of butter and crates of
eggs you handled in a year, or if your profits exceed the commission
you----"
"G'lang there!" shouted Griggs.
V