The Strange Public Benefactor
In the dusty shop of Dan, the second-hand man, there was no sound
except the whirr of a rickety sewing machine in the back room. Dan
bought old clothes which he mended and pressed and sold again to people
who could not afford new ones. Usually he spent every evening in his
dim little Boston shop, but to-night Dan's niece was to be married, and
the old clothes man was hurriedly stitching up a rent in a dress suit
he had bought that very morning from a dusky gentleman in Grant street.
It was worn and shabby, but surveying himself in the cracked mirror a
few moments later Danny felt he would look quite as fine as the groom.
Well pleased with his appearance he nodded to his reflection and taking
down a second-hand high hat from his shelf let himself out into the
night.
It was a warm starry evening in May and, coming to the end of the
narrow street in which he lived, Dan struck out across a small park,
whistling softly to himself. He would have preferred his pipe, but
in honor of the grand occasion had purchased a handful of five cent
cigars. Placing one between his teeth, he fumbled in his pocket for the
box of matches he had surely placed there before starting. His fingers
closed instead on a small leather book.
"What's this?" exclaimed Danny in surprise and, stepping under a park
lamp, he began fluttering over the pages. It was filled with closely
written paragraphs in a strangely cramped hand. The words were no words
Danny had ever heard or seen. To prove it he settled his specs more
firmly and read a whole paragraph aloud, moistening his lips between
the long hard sentences, and keeping his cigar in place in his mouth
with great difficulty.
"Well, did anyone ever hear the like of that?" chuckled Danny, winking
up at the statue of a Public Benefactor who stood facing him in a small
plot of grass. "What do you think of it yourself, old felly?"
"I hardly know," murmured the Public Benefactor, letting the arm which
had been stiffly extended fall heavily at his side. "I hardly know. You
see, I've never thought before, and--"
"Merciful mackerel!" The cigar fell from Danny's lips, the high hat
from his head and hurling the leather book into a clump of bushes,
he turned and fled for his life, bumping into trees and benches and
running in the opposite direction from the wedding. In fact, I am not
sure he ever did get to the wedding at all. The Public Benefactor
watched him go with round unwinking eyes, then stepping down from his
pedestal, picked up the high hat, fortunately an extremely large one,
and placed it gravely upon his head.
"Now for an umbrella," murmured the stone gentleman determinedly. "I
must have an umbrella. What I've suffered all these years, rain and
snow. Ah--hh." Catching sight of an old lady hurrying down one of the
cinder paths, he called loudly. "Stop! Stop! Give me that umbrella!"
For some seconds the old lady who was quite deaf paid no attention,
but when, looking over her shoulder, she saw a gray stone gentleman
in a frock coat pounding after her, waving both arms, she picked up
her skirts, jumped over a little hedge and fell face down among the
pansies. Without feeling at all sorry, or stopping to help her to her
feet, the Public Benefactor took the umbrella from her hand. Opening it
with a little grunt of satisfaction and holding it over his head as he
had seen other people do, he stepped carelessly over the old lady and
continued down the cinder path. "I've always wanted to be like other
people," mused the statue, striding along contentedly, "and now, I am.
But I wonder why I never did this before?"
Why indeed? Simply because he had never been alive before. The words
in the little black book must have held some strange and mysterious
force; the owner of Danny's dress suit must have been a powerful
magician to bring this cold statue to life. And as he strode across the
little Boston park, with Danny's hat upon his head and the old lady's
umbrella clasped tightly in his hand, little boys who had come for a
quiet game of marbles before bed time, men and women on their way home
to tea, stared in perfect astonishment and then took to their heels,
screaming hoarsely as they ran.
"I'm acting just the way they are acting, and yet they run away,"
grumbled the Public Benefactor crossly. "What's the matter with them
anyway?" He sank down on a park bench to puzzle it all out, but the
bench, which had been built to hold only ordinary folk, crumpled like
a match under his great weight. A tramp who had been asleep on the
other end, wakened by the terrible tumble, took one glance at the stone
man, then rolled into a clump of shrubbery where he lay trembling so
violently leaves fell in showers to the walk. By the time the Public
Benefactor had struggled to his feet a great crowd had gathered. At
a safe distance they peered at him, waving their arms, shaking their
heads and looking so frightened the Public Benefactor began to feel
frightened himself.
Turning his back upon them, he walked out of the park and straight into
the middle of a busy crossing. Here he stopped to gaze at a winking
electric sign when a dreadful thump almost knocked the umbrella from
his hand, and a series of shouts almost raised the hat from his
head. A motor truck going at a fast clip had run right into him! But
instead of upsetting the stone man, the truck splintered to bits and
lay scattered about the street like a broken toy! Surely a pleasant
change from breaking up poor pedestrians. But the truck driver did not
seem to think so. Separating himself from the wreckage, he advanced
threateningly upon the Public Benefactor. But one good look at that
calm stone figure seemed to be enough. A mounted policeman leaning down
seized the high hatted gentleman by the arm, then feeling the hard
stone beneath his fingers he reined back his horse and blew a shrill
blast on his whistle.
In less than a minute the street was a seething mass of men, women,
little girls and boys, all striving for a glimpse of the man who had
stopped a truck. Next someone turned in a fire alarm and the fire
engines came clanging on the scene. The firemen not knowing what else
to do turned their hose full upon the offending statue.
Alarmed and disgusted, and protecting himself as well as he could with
the old lady's umbrella, the Public Benefactor decided to return to
his pedestal. But in the excitement he took a wrong turning. Then he
began to run and the crowd to run after him--faster and faster and
faster. His stone feet, thudding upon the asphalt, shook the houses on
both sides and, dodging as best he could the sticks, stones and other
missiles of his pursuers, the poor bewildered statue ran on. Being very
large and perfectly tireless, he soon out-distanced them and, looking
over his shoulder to make sure, failed to notice the steep embankment
ahead, till it was too late. The workmen themselves had not intended to
blow such a terrific hole in the earth; a thin crust of earth at the
bottom hid the yawning cavity from view. But the stone man, tumbling
head over heels down the steep sides, crashed through this crust as if
it had been paper and plunged into a damp darkness.
"What now?" groaned the statue dismally, clutching his umbrella. "Am
I a bird? Why, Oh why did I ever leave my pedestal?" But wishing made
no difference at all and down he dropped to the very bottom of no
where. Then all at once he crashed through a crust of blue sky out into
the blazing sunlight and thumped down in the middle of a broad green
field. Luckily he landed upon his feet, but so hard and so heavily that
he went down to his knees in soft earth. For a few moments he stood
perfectly still. Then, closing his umbrella, he pulled one leg and
then the other out of the mud and took a few steps to shake the stuff
from his stone shins.
"It was night and now it is day. I was there and now I am here. What
next?" he muttered uneasily. The country into which he had fallen so
suddenly seemed safe enough. Green fields, dotted with feathery trees,
stretched to the right and left. But after the dusty Boston park it
seemed large and lonely. As he gazed about uncertainly, he noticed a
blue figure, walking briskly along a yellow highway that ran through
the center of the fields. He had never in his whole carved career
seen a fellow like this and as the figure drew nearer he grasped his
umbrella firmly and made ready to fight or run.
It was a Scarecrow, a live, jolly, sure enough straw stuffed Scarecrow.
As he came opposite he took off his hat.
"Good after-night," said the Scarecrow politely. The Public Benefactor
made an unsuccessful effort to remove his own hat, but he had jammed it
down too hard.
"I suppose you mean good morning," he remarked stiffly, returning the
Scarecrow's bow.
"Have it your own way," smiled the Scarecrow, with a care free wave,
"and speaking of ways, where are you going?"
"I'm not going, I'm coming," announced the Public Benefactor sulkily.
The experiences of the past few hours had made him suspicious of every
place and everybody. The Scarecrow considered his answer for a few
seconds in silence, then stepping closer inquired earnestly, "Tell me,
are you a person?"
"Are you?" At this quick and unexpected turning of his question, the
Scarecrow threw back his head and laughed heartily.
"I don't know," he admitted merrily, "whether I'm a person or not,
but I do know that I'm alive and it's great fun to be alive!"
"Is it?" The Public Benefactor looked dubiously into the Scarecrow's
cheerful cotton countenance. "I'm not sure I like it," he sighed,
shaking his head ponderously.
"Oh, you'll get used to it." Clapping on his hat, the straw man
regarded his companion attentively. "You're the only live statue I've
ever seen," he observed at last. "How do you happen to be alive?" There
was something so jolly about this queer fellow, the poor statue began
to feel a little happier.
"First," he began slowly, "I was quarried, then I was hacked and hewn
into my present shape. For many years I stood on a pedestal in a little
park in the city of Boston. While I could neither move nor talk I could
see and hear all that went on about me. And what I saw and heard was
interesting enough. I watched the children sail their boats in the
small pond, listened to the band on warm summer evenings and observed
the strange habits of the men and women who walked about under the
trees. If I had just had a hat or umbrella to protect me from the rain
and snow, I could have been perfectly happy."
"You must be perfectly happy now," put in the Scarecrow slyly, "for I
see you have both." The Public Benefactor shook his head impatiently at
the interruption.
"Once a year," he continued pompously, "a crowd of citizens came and
hung wreaths around my neck, and in long tedious speeches which I could
not understand referred to me as a great public benefactor. Do you know
what a Public Benefactor is?" he inquired curiously.
"Well," answered the Scarecrow cautiously, "you probably founded a
school or a library or gave large sums of money to the poor. What was
your name anyway?"
"I never knew," replied the gray stone gentleman sadly. "It was carved
on the base of my pedestal and as I was unable to bend over I could
never discover this interesting information."
"Then I shall call you Benny," decided the Scarecrow cheerfully, "short
for public benefactor, you know. Do you look like the person you're
supposed to be?"
The statue shook his head. "I don't know that either," he admitted
gloomily.
"Oh, never mind that," said the Scarecrow, sitting down on a nearby
tree stump. "You are a speaking likeness of somebody, but how did you
come to life?"
"I was coming to that," exclaimed Benny quickly, and in short excited
sentences he told how an old Irishman in evening clothes had stopped
under the park lamp and read some strange words from a little black
book and how he immediately felt a desire to step down from his
pedestal. "So I did," he went on mournfully, and proceeded to relate
his terrifying experiences and his final fall into this strange land.
"It is very queer," he finished in a depressed voice. "When I was
uninteresting and unalive, people treated me with respect and hung
wreaths around my neck, yet when I came to life they turned a hose on
me and even hit me with bricks."
The Scarecrow shook his head. "There's no accounting for mortals," he
explained solemnly, "but now that you are in the fairy Kingdom of Oz,
things will be different. Anybody can be alive here, and no questions
asked. They even let me live!" he concluded gaily.
"Is it a republic?" asked Benny, eyeing the Scarecrow with new interest.
"Indeed not!" exclaimed the straw man loftily. "We are a magic monarchy
under the beneficent rule of a little fairy and there--," he waved
proudly to the left, "lies the capital. If you wish, I will take you to
the Emerald City at once and present you to the Queen. What would you
like to be now that you are alive?" he asked curiously.
"Well," said Benny after a moment's thought, "I should like to be a
real person. Do you think I could ever be a real person, Scarecrow?"
The Scarecrow took off his hat and pulled several wisps of straw from
his head.
"I don't see why not," he decided brightly. "The way to be a real
person is to act like a real person. Just begin acting like a real
person, Benny, my boy, and first thing you know you'll be one!"
"Is that what you did?" Benny looked doubtfully at this strange citizen
of Oz. The Scarecrow nodded modestly and, taking the stone man's elbow,
started down the yellow brick highway. "Look alive now," he chuckled
merrily, "for you are to meet a Queen."
"It's hard for a stone man to look alive but I'll do the best I can,"
sighed the Public Benefactor in a resigned voice. "How do you happen to
be alive yourself?" he inquired heavily.
"That!" said the Scarecrow airily, "that is a long story, you see--"
"I see a great ugly bird," interrupted the Public Benefactor, waving
his umbrella wildly. "Let's run; I never did like birds. They perch on
my head."
"Pray do not concern yourself," begged his companion earnestly, "and
try to act like a real person, can't you?" Withdrawing his arm from
Benny's the Scarecrow took off his hat and blinked upward.
"Well," queried Benny nervously, "what would a real person do now?"
"He would run," choked the Scarecrow in a hoarse whisper. "Run you son
of a boulder, run!"