much,” answered Ralph; but even as they spoke there gathered in their
questioning brains, in their eager eyes, a conviction which burst forth
from their lips: “It is Gobbo!”
Now they were Yankee boys, slow but shrewd, and they knew every feather
of the wings, every fold of the comb and wattle of their pet; but each
paid his dime and entered the museum to be sure. Past the voluble
showman, the wax figures, the stuffed animals, they silently strolled
to the window. No one else stood near within doors. “Dance, Gobbo,
dance for the ladies!” cried Bill, excitedly, striking the floor
with his cane, and his heart beat high. Oh! how the crowd outside on
the street laughed as Gobbo spread his tail and danced “most high and
disposedly,” as the French ambassador said of Queen Elizabeth in the
gavotte.
A great printed card hung over Gobbo’s pen; he was to be raffled that
very night. Made suspicious by fraud, the boys scarcely dared leave
the hall even for food, but with the instinctive good sense of many of
country birth, Bill interviewed a friendly policeman on the beat, and
another policeman appeared at the raffling at eight o’clock and sat
near the Prime boys on the front row of seats in the hall.
At the appointed hour a noisy but not disorderly crowd had gathered.
The master of ceremonies removed the wire netting from around Gobbo,
who was still feeding and still fattening. The showman entreated
silence, and in a reasonable stillness began: “Gentlemen, this
magnificent turkey, the biggest ever known in the civilized world, the
feathered monarch of the ornithological world, will--” when a shrill
whistle pierced the air, and “Dance, Gobbo, dance for the ladies!” was
roared out. The turkey reared his long neck and head like a snake, and
with a piercing gobble literally flew from the platform to his friend
Bill, with a force that almost stunned the boy. The showman advanced:
“What does this mean?” he shouted. “Don’t you touch him,” screamed
Bill, and “Don’t you touch him,” confirmed with emphasis the policeman,
while Ralph explained to the inquisitive and sympathizing ’longshoremen
and sailors who crowded around him, how the turkey had been lost and
found; not without some bitter aspersions on the character of the
antique-man.
An adjourned meeting was held at the police-station the following
morning, when the Prime boys testified and Gobbo danced, and a gay
session it was in those dingy rooms; and the showman with a sham
good-humor resigned his claims to what had proved to him a very
lucrative drawing-card.
There ought to be a romantic ending to this tale of a lost love; but
every turkey has his day, and this was Gobbo’s. He was too big to keep
in a city yard, and too big to take home in the cars; thus did his
greatness, as did Cardinal Wolsey’s, prove his destruction. Even his
accomplishments were a snare; for when it was known he could dance,
his talent could not be hidden under a bushel in obscure country-life.
He had ever been destined for a city market, and soon again he graced
a window, this time of a great city poulterer; and on the eve of
Thanksgiving he was again raffled--the second time, alas! with hanging
wings, and plucked sides, and drooping head.
CUDDYMONK’S GHOST
Black Cuddymonk and his wife Rosann were holding an animated discussion
as they sat before the fire in their cheerful kitchen in old
Narragansett. That is, Cuddymonk was talking loudly and effusively,
while Rosann said little, but said it firmly; and in the end succeeded
in having her own way, as such stubborn, talk-less persons usually do,
whether they be black or white. Cuddy had had an offer of employment
for a month, and he was unwilling to accept the position and do the
work; but Rosann calmly overruled him and he had to yield. It was not
that the work was hard, or that the pay was poor, but simply that Cuddy
was afraid, he was too superstitious to dare to face the terrors that
the performance of his duties might bring forth. And yet it seemed
simple enough! Old Dr. Greene had the rheumatism and could not hold the
reins to drive, and he wanted to hire Cuddy to drive in his chaise
with him when he went on his daily round of visits, and to care for
the horse when he returned home. Cuddy would have loved to feed and
rub down the horse, and drive through the sunny lanes and green woods,
and sit in the sun while the Doctor visited and dosed and bled within
doors. It would be like making a round of visits himself, for he was
then “Black Gov’nor,” and at every house in village or on farm he would
find some friend or constituent to chat and gossip with. But alas! all
the Doctor’s visits were not made in the daytime, and Cuddy shrank from
the thought of driving all over Narragansett in the night. He thus
complained to Rosann: “I wouldn’t care if it warn’t for dem darminted
graveyards. Dere’s a graveyard on ebery farm all ober dis country. I
nebber see sech fools es folks is in Narragansett. Dey warnts ter hab
ghosts ebberywhere. Why don’t dey keep ’em all in de ole church-yard
ober ter Fender Zeke’s corner, den yer can go de road dat leads round
de udder way, an’ not meet ’em. Down Boston way dey buries folks in
church-yards an’ keeps der ghosts where dey belongs.”
Cuddymonk had travelled, and knew how things should be; he had ridden
to Boston thirty years previously with Judge Potter; and the strange
sights he had seen, and the new ways he had learned at that metropolis,
had been his chief stock-in-trade ever since, and, indeed, had formed
one of his great qualifications for election as Black Governor.
Rosann answered him calmly and coldly: “I’s sick er ghosts, Cuddymonk.
I’se been mar’d forty year, and you’s a-talkin’ about ghosts all de
whole during time an’ a-speerin’ for ghosts all dem years, an’ yer
ain’t nebber seed one yit. You’s jess got ter go ter de Doctor’s
termorrer an’ dribe for him.”
“Rosann, when yer sees me brung home a ragin’ luniac wid misery ob
de head, yer’ll wish yer hadn’ drove yer ole man erway from yer bed
’n’ b’ord ter go foolin’ all ober de country in de night-time, seein’
ghosts and sperits an’ witches. P’raps I sha’n’t nebber come home
alibe, anyway.”
“You’s got ter go, Cuddy, an’ dar ain’t no use er talkin’ ’bout it. I
guess de ole Doctor kin charm off any ghost you’ll eber see. ’Sides,
he won’t be out much nights when he got de rheumatiz ser bad. ’Tain’t
ebry day yer kin git yer keep an’ ten dollars a month, an’ yer ought
ter dribe fer him anyway, ter ’comerdate him, when he sabed yer troo de
bronchiters.”
So Cuddy went to the Doctor, and for a week all was well with him. He
drove to all points from Wickford to Biscuit Town, and received such
greeting and honor from all of his race as was due a governor. But an
end came to all this content, for late on a misty, miserable September
afternoon young Joe Champlin came riding up to the doctor’s door in
great speed, and in a few moments the Doctor shouted out to Cuddy to
harness up Peggy. Cuddy was wretched. He knew well where the Champlin
farm lay--far up on Boston Neck--and he thought with keen terror of the
lonely road, of the many little enclosed graveyards that lay between
him and the Champlin homestead. Fear made him bold, and he managed to
stammer out to the Doctor the request that he would have Joe Champlin
hitch his saddle-horse behind the chaise and drive the Doctor to the
farm, where horse and chaise and doctor could remain all night; then he
(Cuddy) would walk up early in the morning to drive back. The Doctor
scoffed at the ridiculous proposition, and barely gave Cuddy time ere
they started to put on his coat and waistcoat wrong side out--a sure
safeguard against ghosts. As they drove up Boston Neck in the misty
twilight Cuddy suffered keen thrills of terror whenever he got down
from the chaise to let down bars or open gates; for the only roads at
that time in that region of Narragansett were drift-ways through the
fields--well-travelled, to be sure--but still kept closed by gates.
Cuddy clambered in and out of the chaise, and opened and closed the
gates with an agility that amazed the Doctor, who had previously had
frequent occasions in the daytime to revile him for his laziness in
like duties. He also glanced with apprehension and dread at the family
burying-grounds they passed, counting to himself the whole dreary
number that would have to be repassed on the way home.
These sad little resting-places are dotted all over Narragansett. In
olden times each family was buried in some corner on the family-farm.
Sometimes the burying-place was enclosed in a high stone wall; often
they were overgrown with great pine or hemlock trees, or half-shaded
with airy locust-trees. Ugly little gravestones were clustered in
these family resting-places--slate head-stones carved with winged
cherub heads and quaint old names, and lists of the virtues of the
lost ones; and all the simple but tender stone-script of the country
stone-cutter’s lore--hackneyed but loving verses--repeated on stone
after stone. Beautifully ideal is the thought and reality of these
old Narragansett planters and their wives and children resting in the
ground they loved so dearly, and so faithfully worked for. But there
was nothing beautiful in the thought to Cuddy; he groaned as he passed
them, and thought of his midnight return; and he tried to learn from
the Doctor how long he would probably be detained at the Champlin farm.
But Dr. Greene, accustomed to ride alone for hours through the country,
was taciturn and gruff, and kept Cuddy in ignorance of both the name
and ailment of the patient.
When they reached the Champlin farm Cuddy ventured to say, with a
cheerful assumption of interest: “’S’pose you’ll stay here all night,
Doctor, it’s so cole an’ damp an’ so bad fer yer rheumatiz. I’ll sleep
in de hay in de barn an’ won’t bodder nobody.”
“No, indeed,” answered the Doctor, sharply, “we’ll start back in half
an hour.” Cuddymonk gloomily hitched and blanketed the horse, and
walked into the great kitchen, where, nodding and dozing, sat old Ruth
Champlin, the negro cook. When Ruth saw his reversed clothing, she did
not dream of smiling at his absurd appearance, but at once sympathized
with him in his gloomy forebodings; and while she filled him with
metheglin--a fermented mead made of water, honey, and locust-beans--she
also filled him with fresh stories of witches and ghosts until the time
came to start on the homeward drive, when the poor “Black Gov’nor’s”
nerves were completely unstrung.
I will not give a list of the terrors that assailed Cuddy from the
first moment of his ride home. A rustling leaf, a cracking branch, a
sighing wind, were magnified into groans and wails. Every stone, every
bush, seemed an uncanny form; every cluster of blackberry bushes, every
hay-rick, a looming monster. And when Dr. Greene decided to return by
Pender Zeke’s corner, and thus pass the old church foundation of the
Narragansett Church and its cluster of deserted gravestones, Cuddy’s
terror found words.
“Don’ do it, Doctor; don’ go by dat darminted ole church foundashum.
It’s a dreffle lonely road, an’ ebberybody knows dere’s ghosts in dat
ole church-yard ebbery night. Ole Mum Amey seed one a-dancin’ on ole
Brenton’s table-stone. Fer de lub ob praise, Doctor, don’ less go
dere to-night. Ole Tuggie Bannocks an’ all dem dashted ole witches
gadders in de ole noon-house dat stan’s in de church-yard an’ brews
dere witch-broth; an’ ef anyone sees ’em a-brewin’ dey can nebber eat
nothin’ else, an’ pines away wid misery ob de stummick an’ dies.”
The Doctor only answered, gruffly, “Go by the corners, Cuddy; I’ll
drive off the ghost.”
As they approached the haunted church-yard Cuddy was fairly speechless
with apprehension. His teeth chattered, and he held the whip in one
trembling hand to ward off any ghostly or witchly attack. Words would
fail in attempting to express the horror, the agony, which seized him,
which overwhelmed him when he saw as he passed the old noon-house an
unearthly, an appalling, object, which he could not bear to look at,
nor could he force his staring eyes to look away from. The Doctor saw
it, too--a tall slender column, about seven feet in height, of faintly
shimmering light vaguely outlining a robed figure, not of a human
being, but plainly of a ghost. It appeared to be about a hundred feet
from the road, though it could be clearly seen through the mist, and
it seemed palpitating with a faint, uncanny radiance. “Stop, Cuddy,”
eagerly roared the Doctor, “I want to see what that is!” And as Cuddy
showed no sign of stopping the horse’s progress, he seized the reins
from the negro’s shaking hands. Cuddy, frightened out of all sense of
respect or deference, shouted out, “G’lang, git up,” and attempted to
whip the steed.
“Cuddy, you black imp! if you dare to do that again, I’ll whip you
within an inch of your life. I’m going to get out and see what that is.
It is a very interesting physical phenomenon.”
“Oh, Doctor dear, you’s bewitched a’ready. Dere ain’t no physic about
dat, it’s a moonack. Fer de lub of God, don’t go near it--you’ll nebber
walk out alibe”--and with that the unhappy black man fairly burst into
tears and threw his restraining arms around the Doctor’s neck.
The unheeding Doctor jumped from the side of the chaise with a force
that nearly dragged Cuddymonk with him. The weeping negro’s affection
and interest would carry him no farther, and as the Doctor walked
sturdily across the church-green, Cuddy, moaning and groaning in
despair, gathered up the reins, ready, at any motion or sound of the
ghost, to start the horse down the road and wholly desert the Doctor.
The brave ghost-investigator walked up the four narrow stone steps that
once led to the church door--but now, alas! lead sadly nowhere--then
turned into the graveyard. As he stumbled eagerly along through the
high grass and tangled blackberry-bushes, and as he passed under the
shading branches of a wild-cherry tree, a most terrifying catastrophe
took place--he plunged and slid into an open grave containing about
a foot of water. Cuddy heard the splash, and it indicated to him the
Doctor’s utter annihilation. He gathered the reins up with a groan of
despair and prepared to drive off with speed, lest the moonack chase
and overwhelm him also, when he heard the Doctor’s voice. The instinct
of obedience was strong in him--for he had been born a slave--and
he delayed a moment to listen. “Come here, Cuddy,” shouted the
Doctor, “I’ve fallen into the grave they’ve dug for old Tom Hazard.”
Cuddy groaned, but did not move, either to drive, or to fly to the
Doctor’s rescue. “Come here, I say, and help me out; I shall die of
the rheumatism if I stay here.” Another groan, but still no motion to
render assistance. “Cuddy, if you don’t come, I’ll conjure you with
that big skeleton in my closet.” Still no answer, and at last, the
Doctor, by dint of struggling and breaking away the earth, managed
to drag himself out of the shallow grave. Undaunted by a mishap that
would have both mentally unnerved and physically exhausted anyone but
a country doctor, unchilled in spirit though shivering in body, the
determined investigator walked up to the ghost.
He took one glance and at once turned, and, avoiding the open grave,
ran down the steps and across the green. “Come here, Cuddy; if I die
of rheumatism I’ll take you up and show you that ghost. I’ll conjure
you with every charm in the witch-book if you don’t come.” Cuddy was
weak with terror, and the Doctor seized him by the collar, pulled him
out of the chaise and up the steps. With chattering teeth and closed
eyes he stumbled along by the Doctor’s side, clutching his leader’s arm
and muttering words of Voodoo charms. When they reached the faintly
shining ghost, the Doctor shouted, “Open your eyes, Cuddy,” and his
power fairly forced Cuddy to comply. The Doctor raised his whip and
brought it down on the shining ghost; a great swarm of fire-flies rose
in the air, leaving disclosed a juniper-tree, which had chanced to
grow somewhat in the form of a human figure. This strange phenomenon I
cannot explain, but it is not the only time that a juniper-tree on a
misty night in fall has attracted a swarm of fire-flies to light upon
it.
Cuddy nearly fainted in revulsion of feeling. Both returned to the road
and clambered into the chaise. The Doctor was now thoroughly chilled.
He took from the medicine-chest that he always carried (“the Doctor’s
bag o’ tools,” Cuddy called it) a flask that may have contained
medicine, but which smelled more like “kill-devil,” and bade Cuddy
drive with speed to Zeke Gardiner’s; for when the heat of the chase was
over, the valiant old Doctor began to feel the twinges of an enemy that
he dreaded more than any ghost--his rheumatism--and he dare not ride
home dripping with icy grave-water, even if he were full of Jamaica rum.
No lights were seen at Zeke’s, but a vigorous knocking at the door
roused the entire amazed and sympathetic family; and while one blew up
a roaring fire in the chimney, another heated a warming-pan, another
took off the Doctor’s muddy clothes, and Mistress Gardiner concocted a
terrible mixture--a compound tea of boneset, snakeroot, and chamomile,
which, in spite of the Doctor’s fierce remonstrances and entreaties for
a mug of flip instead, she poured down his throat, thus cancelling in
one fell dose many a debt of nauseous bolus, pill, or draught that she
owed to him.
The perspiring Doctor, as he was being smothered in the great
feather-bed, and singed with the warming-pan, and filled to the teeth
with scalding herb-tea, gave his parting order to Cuddy--to drive home
and tell Mrs. Greene that he had been detained at the Gardiners’ all
night “on account of an overdose of spirits,” and then to come for him
in the morning. Cuddy listened respectfully and answered obediently,
went quietly around behind the Gardiners’ house, calmly placed the
horse in the Gardiners’ stable and the chaise in the Gardiners’ barn,
slept the sleep of the brave, the obedient, the unhaunted, in the hay
in the upper hay-mow, and appeared, as ordered, with horse and chaise
at the front door the following morning.
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