seemed to promise another. But Nicholas Oldfield's house was really
closed; the windows shone blankly at men and women who passed,
interrogating it. Young Nick and his Hattie had nothing to say, after
Hattie's one unguarded admission that she didn't know what possessed
father. The village felt that it had been arraigned before some high
tribunal, only to be found lacking. It had an irritated conviction that,
meaning no harm, it should not have been dealt with so harshly; and was
even moved to declare that, if Nicholas Oldfield knew so much about what
was past and gone, he needn't have waited till the trump o' doom to say
so. But, somehow, the affair of clock and bell could not be at once
revived, and a vague letter was dispatched to the prospective donor
stating that, in regard to his generous offer, no decision could at the
moment be reached; the town was too busy in preparing for its
celebration, which would take place in something over two weeks; after
that the question would be considered. The truth was that, at the bottom
of each heart, still lurked the natural cupidity of the loyal citizen
who will not see his town denied; but side by side with that desire for
the march of progress, walked the spectre of Nicholas Oldfield's wrath.
The trembling consciousness prevailed that he might at any moment
descend again, wrapped in that inexplicable atmosphere of loftier
meanings.
Still, Tiverton was glad to put the question by, for she had enough to
do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only Brad
Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod or
gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For he
had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for that
great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public conclave
assembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make an elephant, to
lead the van. Tiverton roared, and then, finding him gravely silent,
remained, with gaping mouth, to hear his story. It seemed, then, that
Brad had always cherished one dear ambition. He would fain fashion an
elephant; and having never heard of Frankenstein, he lacked anticipation
of the dramatic finale likely to attend a meddling with the creative
powers. He did not confess, save once to his own wife, how many nights
he had lain awake, in their little dark bedroom, planning the anatomy of
the eastern lord; he simply said that he "wanted to make the critter,"
and he thought he could do it. Immediately the town gave him to
understand that he had full power to draw upon the public treasury, to
the extent of one elephant; and the youth, who always flocked adoringly
about him, intimated that they were with him, heart and soul. Thereupon,
in Eli Pike's barn, selected as of goodly size, creation reveled, the
while a couple of men, chosen for their true eye and practiced hand,
went into the woods, and chopped down two beautiful slender trees for
tusks. For many a day now, the atmosphere of sacred art had hung about
that barn. Brad was a maker, and everybody felt it. Fired by no
tradition of the horse that went to the undoing of Troy, and with no
plan before him, he set his framework together, nailing with unerring
hand. Did he need a design, he who had brooded over his bliss these many
months when Tiverton thought he was "jest lazin' round?" Nay, it was to
be "all wrought out of the carver's brain," and the brain was ready.
Often have I wished some worthy chronicler had been at hand when
Tiverton sat by at the making of the elephant; and then again I have
realized that, though the atmosphere was highly charged, it may have
been void of homely talk. For this was a serious moment, and even when
Brad gave sandpaper and glass into the hands of Lothrop Wilson, the
cooper, bidding him smooth and polish the tusks, there was no jealousy:
only a solemn sense that Mr. Wilson had been greatly favored. Brad's
wife sewed together a dark slate-colored cambric, for the elephant's
hide, and wet and wrinkled it, as her husband bade her, for the
shambling shoulders and flanks. It was she who made the ears, from a
pattern cunningly conceived; and she stuffed the legs with fine shavings
brought from the planing-mill at Sudleigh. Then there came an
intoxicating day when the trunk took shape, the glass-bottle eyes were
inserted, and Brad sprung upon a breathless world his one surprise.
Between the creature's fore-legs, he disclosed an opening, saying
meantime to the smallest Crane boy,--
"You crawl up there!"
The Crane boy was not valiant, but he reasoned that it was better to
seek an unguessed fate within the elephant than to refuse immortal
glory. Trembling, he crept into the hole, and was eclipsed.
"Now put your hand up an' grip that rope that's hangin' there,"
commanded Brad. Perhaps he, too, trembled a little. The heart beats fast
when we approach a great fruition.
"Pull it! Easy, now! easy!"
The boy pulled, and the elephant moved his trunk. He stretched it out,
he drew it in. Never was such a miracle before. And Tiverton, drunk with
glory, clapped and shouted until the women-folk clutched their
sunbonnets and ran to see. No situation since the war had ever excited
such ferment. Brad was the hero of his town. But now arose a natural
rivalry, the reaction from great, impersonal joy in noble work. What
lad, on that final day, should ride within the elephant, and move his
trunk? The Crane boy contended passionately that he held the right of
possession. Had he not been selected first? Others wept at home and
argued the case abroad, until it became a common thing to see two young
scions of Tiverton grappling in dusty roadways, or stoning each other
from afar. The public accommodated itself to such spectacles, and
grown-up relatives, when they came upon little sons rolling over and
over, or sitting triumphantly, the one upon another's chest, would only
remark, as they gripped two shirt collars, and dragged the combatants
apart:--
"Now, what do you want to act so for? Brad'll pick out the one he thinks
best. He's got the say."
In vain did mothers argue, at twilight time, when the little dusty legs
in overalls were still, and stubbed toes did their last wriggling for
the day, that the boy who moved the trunk could not possibly see the
rest of the procession. The candidates, to a boy, rejected that specious
plea.
"What do I want to see anything for, if I can jest set inside that
elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail
was repeated in many keys.
Meantime, the log cabin had been going steadily up, and a week before
the great day, it was completed. This was a typical scene-setting,--the
cabin of a first settler,--and through one wild leap of fancy it became
suddenly and dramatically dignified.
"For the land's sake!" said aunt Lucindy, when she went by and saw it
standing, in modest worth, "ain't they goin' to _do_ anythin' with it?
Jest let it set there? Why under the sun don't they have a party of
Injuns tackle it?"
The woman who heard repeated the remark as a sample of aunt Lucindy's
desire to have everything "all of a whew;" but when it came to the ears
of a certain young man who had sat brooding, in silent emulation, over
the birth of the elephant, he rose, with fire in his eye, and went to
seek his mates. Indians there should be, and he, by right of first
desire, should become their leader. Thereupon, turkey feathers came into
great demand, and wattled fowl, once glorious, went drooping dejectedly
about, while maidens sat in doorways sewing wampum and leggings for
their favored swains. The first rehearsal of this aboriginal drama was
not an entire success, because the leader, being unimaginative though
faithful, decreed that faces should be blackened with burnt cork; and
the result was a tribe of the African race, greatly astonished at their
own appearance in the family mirror. Then the doctor suggested walnut
juice, and all went conformably again. But each man wanted to be an
Indian, and no one professed himself willing to suffer the attack.
"I'll stay in the cabin, if I can shoot, an' drop a redskin every time,"
said Dana Marden stubbornly; but no redskin would consent to be dropped,
and naturally no settler could yield. It would ill befit that glorious
day to see the log cabin taken; but, on the other hand, what loyal
citizen could allow himself to be defeated, even as a skulking redman,
at the very hour of Tiverton's triumph? For a time a peaceful solution
was promised by the doctor, who proposed that a party of settlers on
horseback should come to the rescue, just when a settler's wife, within
the cabin, was in danger of immolation. That seemed logical and right,
and for days thereafter young men on astonished farm horses went
sweeping down Tiverton Street, alternately pursuing and pursued, while
Isabel North, as Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, trembled realistically
at the cabin door. Just why she was to be Priscilla, a daughter of
Massachusetts, Isabel never knew; the name had struck the popular fancy,
and she made her costume accordingly. But one day, when young Tiverton
was galloping about the town, to the sound of ecstatic yells, a farmer
drew up his horse to inquire:--
"Now see here! there's one thing that's got to be settled. When the day
comes, who's goin' to beat?"
An Indian, his face scarlet with much sound, and his later state not yet
apparent, in that his wampum, blanket, and horsehair wig lay at home, on
the best-room bed, made answer hoarsely, "We be!"
"Not by a long chalk!" returned the other, and the settlers growled in
unison. They had all a patriot's pride in upholding white blood against
red.
"Well, by gum! then you can look out for your own Injuns!" returned
their chief. "_My_ last gun's fired."
Settlers and Indians turned sulkily about; they rode home in two
separate factions, and the streets were stilled. Isabel North went
faithfully on, making her Priscilla dress, but it seemed, in those days,
as if she might remain in her log cabin, unattacked and undefended.
Tiverton was to be deprived of its one dramatic spectacle. Young men met
one another in the streets, remarked gloomily, "How are ye?" and passed
by. There were no more curdling yells at which even the oxen lifted
their dull ears; and one youth went so far as to pack his Indian suit
sadly away in the garret, as a jilted girl might lay aside her wedding
gown. It was a sullen and all but universal feud.
Now in all this time two prominent citizens had let public opinion riot
as it would,--the minister and the doctor. The minister, a grave-faced,
brown-bearded young man, had seen fit to get run down, and have an
attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor
had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of
mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so,
being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in
village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on
Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him there, knocking at
the front door.
"Mary! Mary!" cried she, "if there ain't the young pa'son over to your
grandpa's. I dunno when anybody's called there, he's away so much. Like
as not he's heard how father carried on that night, an' now he's got
out, he's come right over, first thing, to tell him what folks think."
Mary looked up from the serpentine braid she was crocheting.
"Well, I guess he'd better not," she threatened. And her mother,
absorbed by curiosity, contented herself with the reproof implied in a
shaken head and pursed-up lips.
A sad and curious change had befallen Mary. She looked older. One week
had dimmed her brightness, and little puckers between her eyes were
telling a story of anxious care. For gran'ther had been home without her
seeing him. Mary felt as if he had repudiated the town. She knew well
that he had not abandoned her with it, but she could guess what the loss
of larger issues meant to him. Young Nick, if he had been in the habit
of expressing himself, would have said that father's mad was still up.
Mary knew he was grieved, and she grieved also. She had not expected him
until the end of the week. Then watching wistfully, she saw the
darkness come, and knew next day would bring him; but the next day it
was the same. One placid afternoon, a quick thought assailed her, and
stained her cheek with crimson. She laid down the sheet which was her
"stent" of over-edge, and ran with flying feet to the little house.
Hanging by her hands upon the sill of the window nearest the clock, she
laid her ear to the glass. The clock was ticking serenely, as of old.
Gran'ther had been home to wind it. So he had come in the night, and
slipped away again in silence!
* * * * *
"There! he's gi'n it up!" cried Hattie, still watching the minister.
"He's turnin' down the path. My land! he's headed this way. He's comin'
here. You beat up that cushion, an' throw open the best-room door. My
soul! if your grandpa's goin' to set the whole town by the ears, I wisht
he'd come home an' fight his own battles!"
Hattie did not look at her young daughter; but if she had looked, she
might have been amazed. Mary stood firm as iron; she was more than ever
a chip o' the old block.
When the young minister had somewhat weakly climbed the two front steps,
he elected not to sit in the best room, for he was a little chilly, and
would like the sun. Presently he was installed in the new cane-backed
rocker, and Mrs. Oldfield had offered him some currant wine.
"Though I dunno's you would," said she, anxiously flaunting a principle
righteous as his own. "I s'pose you're teetotal."
The minister would not have wine, and he could not stay.
"I've really come on business," said he. "Do you know anything about Mr.
Oldfield?"
So strong was the family conviction that Nicholas had involved them in
disgrace, that Mary glanced up fiercely, and her mother gave an
apologetic cough.
"Well," said Young Nick's Hattie, "I dunno's I know anything particular
about father."
"Where is he, I mean," asked the minister. "I want to see him. I've got
to."
"Gran'ther's gone away," announced Mary, looking up at him with hot and
loyal eyes. "We don't know where." Her fingers trembled, and she lost
her stitch. She was furious with herself for not being calmer. It seemed
as if gran'ther had a right to demand it of her. The minister bent his
brows impatiently.
"Why, I depended on seeing Mr. Oldfield," said he, with the
fractiousness of a man recently ill. "This sickness of mine has put me
back tremendously. I've got to make the address, and I don't know what
to say. I meant to read town records and hunt up old stories; and then
when I was sick I thought, 'Never mind! Mr. Oldfield will have it all at
his tongue's end.' And now he isn't here, and I'm all at sea without
him."
This was perhaps the first time that Young Nick's Hattie had ever looked
upon her father's pursuits with anything but a pitying eye. A frown of
perplexity grew between her brows. Her brain ached in expanding. Mary
leaned forward, her face irradiated with pure delight.
"Why, yes," said she, at once accepting the minister for a friend,
"gran'ther could tell you, if he was here. He knows everything."
"You see," continued the minister, now addressing her, "there are facts
enough that are common talk about the town, but we only half know them.
The first settlers came from Devon. Well, where did they enter the town?
From which point? Sudleigh side, or along by the river? I incline to the
river. The doctor says it would be a fine symbolic thing to take the
procession up to the church by the very way the first settlers came in.
But where was it? I don't know, and nobody does, unless it's Nicholas
Oldfield."
Mary folded her hands, in proud composure.
"Yes, sir," said she, "gran'ther knows. He could tell you, if he was
here."
"I should like to inquire what makes you so certain, Mary Oldfield,"
asked her mother, with the natural irritation of the unprepared. "I
should like to know how father's got hold of things pa'son and doctor
ain't neither of 'em heard of?"
"Why," said the minister, rising, "he's simply crammed with town
legends. He can repeat them by the yard. He's a local historian. But
then, I needn't tell you that; you know what an untiring student he has
been." And he went away thoughtful and discouraged, omitting, as Hattie
realized with awe, to offer prayer.
Mary stepped joyously about, getting supper and singing "Hearken, Ye
Sprightly!" in an exultant voice; but her mother brooded. It was not
until dusk, when the three sat before the clock-room fire, "blazed"
rather for company than warmth, that Young Nick's Hattie opened her
mouth and spoke.
"Mary," said she, "how'd you find out your grandpa was such great
shakes?"
Mary was in some things much older than her mother. She answered
demurely, "I don't know as I can say."
"Nick," continued Hattie, turning to her spouse, "did you ever hear your
father was smarter'n the minister an' doctor put together, so 't they
had to run round beseechin' him to tell 'em how to act?"
Nicholas knocked his pipe against the andiron, and rose, to lay it
carefully on the shelf. "I can't say's I did," he returned. Then he set
forth for Eli Pike's barn, where it was customary now to stand about the
elephant and prophesy what Tiverton might become. As for Hattie,
realizing how little light she was likely to borrow from those who were
nearest and dearest her, she remarked that she should like to shake them
both.
The next day began a new and exciting era. It was bruited abroad that
the presence of Nicholas Oldfield was necessary for the success of the
celebration; and now young men but lately engaged in unprofitable
warfare rode madly over the county in search of him. They inquired for
him at taverns; they sought him in farmhouses where he had been wont to
lodge. He gained almost the terrible notoriety of an absconding cashier;
and the current issue of the Sudleigh "Star" wore a flaming headline,
"No Trace of Mr. Oldfield Yet!"
Mary at first waxed merry over the pursuit. She knew very well why
gran'ther was staying away; and her pride grew insolent at seeing him
sought in vain. But when his loss flared out at her in sacred print, she
stared for a moment, and then, after that wide-eyed, piteous glance at
the possibilities of things, walked with a firm tread to her little
room. There she knelt down, and buried her face in the bed, being
careful, meanwhile, not to rumple the valance. At last she knew the
truth; he was dead, and village gossip seemed a small thing in
comparison.
It would have been difficult, as time went on, to convince the rest of
the township that Mr. Oldfield was not in a better world.
"They'd ha' found him, if he's above ground," said the fathers, full of
faith in the detective instinct of their coursing sons. It seemed
incredible that sons should ride so fast and far, and come to nothing.
"Never was known to go out o' the county, an' they've rid over it from
one eend to t' other. Must ha' made way with himself. He wa'n't quite
right, that time he tolled the bell."
They found ominous parallels of peddlers who had been murdered in
byways, or stuck in swamps, and even cited a Tivertonian, of low degree,
who was once caught beneath the chin by a clothes-line, and remained
there, under the impression that he was being hanged, until the family
came out in the morning, and tilted him the other way.
"But then," they added, "he was a drinkin' man, an' Mr. Oldfield never
was known to touch a drop, even when he had a tight cold."
Dark as the occasion waxed, what with feuds and presentiments of ill,
there was some casual comfort in rolling this new tragedy as a sweet
morsel under the tongue, and a mournful pleasure in referring to the
night when poor Mr. Oldfield was last seen alive. So time went on to
the very eve of the celebration, and it was as well that the celebration
had never been. For kindly as Tiverton proved herself, in the main, and
closely welded in union against rival towns, now it seemed as if the
hand of every man were raised against his brother. Settlers and Indians
were still implacable; neither would ride, save each might slay the
other. The Crane boy tossed in bed, swollen to the eyes with an evil
tooth; and his exulting mates so besieged Brad Freeman for preferment,
that even that philosopher's patience gave way, and he said he'd be
hanged if he'd take the elephant out at all, if there was going to be
such a to-do about it. Even the minister sulked, though he wore a
pretense of dignity; for he had concocted a short address with very
little history in it, and that all hearsay, and the doctor had said
lightly, looking it over, "Well, old man, not much of it, is there? But
there's enough of it, such as it is."
It was in vain for the doctor to declare that this was a colloquialism
which might mean much or little, as you chose to take it. The minister,
justly hurt, remarked that, when a man was in a tight place, he needed
the support of his friends, if he had any; and the doctor went whistling
drearily away, conscious that he could have said much worse about the
address, without doing it justice.
The only earthly circumstance which seemed to be fulfilling its duty
toward Tiverton was the weather. That shone seraphically bright. The air
was never so soft, the skies were never so clear and far, and they were
looking down indulgently on all this earthly turmoil when, something
before midnight, on the fateful eve, Nicholas Oldfield went up the path
to his side-door, and stumbled over despairing Mary on the step.
"What under the heavens"--he began; but Mary precipitated herself upon
him, and held him with both hands. The moral tension, which had held her
hopeless and rigid, gave way. She was sobbing wildly.
"O gran'ther!" she moaned, over and over again. "O gran'ther!"
Nicholas managed somehow to get the door open and walk in, hampered as
he was by the clinging arms of his tall girl. Then he sat down in the
big chair, taking Mary there too, and stroked her cheek. Perhaps he
could hardly have done it in the light, but at that moment it seemed
very natural. For a long time neither of them spoke. Mary had no words,
and it may be that Nicholas could not seek for them. At last she began,
catching her breath tremulously:--
"They've hunted everywhere, gran'ther. They've rode all over the county;
and after the celebration, they're going to--dr--drag the pond!"
"Well, I guess I can go out o' the county if I want to," responded
Nicholas calmly. "I come across a sheet in them rec'ids that told about
a pewter communion set over to Rocky Ridge, an' I've found part on 't in
a tavern there. Who put 'em up to all this work? Your father?"
"No," sobbed Mary. "The minister."
"The minister? What's he want?"
"He's got to write an address, and he wants you to tell him what to
say."
Then, in the darkness of the room, a slow smile stole over Nicholas
Oldfield's face, but his voice remained quite grave.
"Does, does he?" he remarked. "Well, he ain't the fust pa'son that's
needed a lift; but he's the fust one ever I knew to ask for it. I've got
nothin' for 'em, Mary. I come home to wind up the clocks; but I ain't
goin' to stand by a town that'll swaller a Memory-o'-Me timekeeper an'
murder the old bell. You can say I was here, an' they needn't go to
muddyin' up the ponds; but as to their doin's, they can carry 'em out as
they may. I've no part nor lot in 'em."
Mary, in the weakness of her kind, was wiser than she knew. She drew her
arms about his neck, and clung to him the closer. All this talk of plots
and counter-plots seemed very trivial now that she had him back; and
being only a child, wearied with care and watching, she went fast
asleep on his shoulder. Nicholas felt tired too; but he thought he had
only dozed a little when he opened his eyes on a gleam of morning, and
saw the doctor come striding into the yard.
"Your door's open!" called the doctor. "You must be at home to callers.
Morning, Mary! Either of you sick?"
Mary, abashed, drew herself away, and slipped into the sitting-room, a
hand upon her tumbled hair; the doctor, wise in his honesty, slashed at
the situation without delay.
"See here, Mr. Oldfield," said he, "whether you've slept or not, you've
got to come right over to parson's with me, and straighten him out. He's
all balled up. You are as bad as the rest of us. You think we don't know
enough to refuse a clock like a comic valentine, and you think we don't
prize that old bell. How are we going to prize things if nobody tells us
anything about them? And here's the town going to pieces over a
celebration it hasn't sense enough to plan, just because you're so
obstinate. Oh, come along! Hear that! The boys are beginning to toot,
and fire off their crackers, and Tiverton's going to the dogs, and
Sudleigh'll be glad of it! Come, Mr. Oldfield, come along!"