“Did he?” says she, “the poor simp!”
“If you go about breaking hearts like that,” said I, “you’ll get in jail
next. I understand that the sheriff has been instructed to jug all the
flappers.” This made her giggle some more.
She stood by the side of the pit while I threw the sand into the truck.
After I had been digging a bit my shovel struck something that felt like
rubber. It was round like a rubber ball as I uncovered it and larger
than a canteloupe. I tried to throw it out, but it seemed to be fastened
to something at one side. I went on digging and was getting interested
when I heard some one shouting, and there was the farmer coming as fast
as he could, waving his arms and shouting with all the breath he had
left. When he reached the pit he was puffing and blowing so he could
hardly speak, but he made it plain that he was cross because I had dug
without permission, said I had no business to do it, it was trespass,
and he had a great mind to have me arrested.
I said that his daughter had allowed me to dig but this did not seem to
satisfy him. Euphemia told him I wasn’t hurting anything and he needn’t
make a goose of himself, so he quieted down. Asked what the round ball
was? I told him I didn’t know and he got a shovel and dug too. After
awhile the girl said:
“Why it looks like a man!”
It did, too. We went on digging and uncovered his legs and then his
feet. They _were_ feet all right, but he was the queerest looking thing
you ever saw. After he was uncovered we turned him over and I declare he
had a nose, mouth and ears; it was a man! But the oddest looking man you
ever saw. His body was nearly transparent; like cloudy glass. You could
see all his bones through this. He looked like stiff jelly with pieces
of cotton in it. We looked at him and then at one another.
“Well, I vum,” said Papa.
“Did you ever,” said Phemy.
“Geewhitakers,” said Sim.
The farmer brought out a wide board and we rolled him on it. Then I
nailed narrow boards on the side, so that he was in a kind of a trough.
There he lay, glistening in the sunlight. When I looked up I saw that
Euphemia was giggling again.
“Why the laugh?” said I.
“Don’t you think he looks funny? I never expected to see a man’s bones
like that.”
It hadn’t struck me that way before but it was funny, and I had to laugh
too. Just then the man sneezed. Euphemia gathered up her skirts, for she
had on a long dress, not one of the bathing suits the flappers wear on
the streets nowadays, and made a bee line for the house. I felt kind of
scary myself. It isn’t every day, I can tell you, that you dig up a
jelly corpse and have him sneeze just as life-like! Pop Norman by this
time was as white as a sheet. But what the corpse did next certainly
made me stare. He opened one eye, and after looking around a bit,
confused-like, he looked at me, and _winked_. I certainly was
flabbergasted. Then he opened the other eye and sat up. Then the farmer
scooted. The corpse began to talk to himself in some kind of outlandish
jabber. I thought it sounded like Spanish but it came out like lightning
and I couldn’t get it. I had studied Spanish at college but I was not
very well acquainted with it. After saying the same thing over three or
four times he turned to me and said it again—slowly, and quite
imperiously. He was asking where his clothes were. I said I didn’t know
but would enquire. I went to the house and found Euphemia very badly
scared and the old man drinking blackberry brandy. He called it a
cordial. I insisted that he get some clothes for the stranger and we
picked out an old suit I thought might fit. I took these out to the
Spaniard but he was much displeased with them and said he was not
accustomed to such garb. I told him it was that or nothing and the girl
was coming so finally he put them on. He seemed to be about as spry as
ordinary people, and his manner was very polite.
Euphemia got over her fright after awhile and came downstairs but she
seemed quite shook up. After awhile the Spaniard tried to talk to her
but of course she couldn’t understand until I translated for her. After
awhile she seemed to like to hear what he said. His talk was quite
high-flown, and after every few words he would put his hand on his chest
and make a low bow. This seemed to suit Euphemia.
It was getting on towards evening and I was obliged to leave but I asked
Euphemia to take care of him and I promised to bring a Spanish book so
she could make out what he said, and I told him to stay here until I got
back. He promised to do so and I went away.
When I told the professor about my glass man he smiled and smiled. He
said the Spaniard must be a silica gel pseudomorph, and he was surprised
and delighted he or it could talk Spanish, and when he said this he
grinned like a Cheshire cat. I got a Spanish dictionary and phrase book
at the college bookstore and went back next day. I found he was trying
to explain the difference between _ser_ and _estar_. It struck me that
was a funny thing to do, but he seemed rather touchy, so I gave her the
books and went back to college. I was very busy the rest of the term and
couldn’t get away, but as soon as possible I went back. They were out
riding the old man said, and he seemed rather put out.
When they came back I tried to tell her about the green sand, but she
didn’t seem to be interested and he yawned; so, after talking to the old
man for awhile I came away. She didn’t ask me to come again. He was
polite but quite formal.
I saw no more of the Normans nor of my Spanish friend for a month. I was
in Trenton one afternoon and was walking on the street when who should I
run into but the Normans. They were staying with an aunt of hers and I
went with them. We sat up pretty late that night while Euphemia told me
about the Spaniard. She said she wondered I hadn’t heard about it; part
of it, it seemed, had got into the newspapers.
She told me she soon got so she could talk Spanish pretty well. It was
not difficult except that miserable _ser_ and _estar_. They both meant
the same thing and you were pretty sure to use the wrong one. I told her
it was like the old lady who knew the difference between soldier and
shoulder but never could tell which was which. She said the Spaniard
talked all the time. He was so polite that at first she liked him pretty
well, but he never seemed to like her father and didn’t treat him very
well. He claimed to be a hidalgo, which appeared to be some kind of a
nobleman. He was terribly stuck on himself. He was a ferocious eater and
kept her cooking most of the time. He was always asking for _dos huevos
fritas_ or _carne de vaca_. “He kept me fryin eggs or Dad runnin to town
for meat all the time. I believe he could eat a gallon of soup, and it
took so much butter to fry the _papa fritas_ that we had none left for
anything else. He was fond of fish, too, and was always askin for them.
This got so bad that Dad and I concluded we had better take him down to
the shore where fish don’t cost so much. By this time something got the
matter with him. It had been rather cool and moist up to this time but
by the time we were ready to start there was a hot dry spell. Before
this you could see everything inside his head except where the bones
were in the way. But now white patches like snow began to grow on his
face, and pretty soon he began to look like a snow man. His face was
perfectly white without a trace of color. It was frightful. I kinda
liked his looks before that. You needn’t laugh; you like the good lookin
women best, and I don’t see any reason why we shouldn’t like the good
lookin men.”
“If he didn’t get what he wanted at once he flew into an awful rage, and
it was pretty fierce, I can tell you, to have Snow White rampagin
around. So we took him to the shore, or at least we started for the
shore. He had a sword that the blacksmith had made for him out of an old
scythe of Dad’s and belt around him to hold it. I said we might be
arrested for carrying such things around, but Dad said you could not
carry concealed weapons, but nothing was said about other kinds, and
there was nothing concealed about that sword. So we started off in the
wagon, and he sat in the front seat with Dad. Pretty soon I noticed that
little white scales was driftin down from him on the floor. It was hot
that day but he didn’t seem to feel it in any other way, but all the
time those little white scales kept siftin down ’till the floor was all
white. I didn’t like to say anything for fear of hurtin his feelings but
I got mighty nervous.
“We had been on the way about an hour when he spied some oranges in a
store we was passin, and he got out, went in and took them. Didn’t stop
to pay, just took them and came out. The store keeper came out and said,
politely, that he had forgotten to pay, but Snow White flew into a rage
and began to swear frightful. He pulled out his sword and chased the
store keeper into his store. Then we drove on, but by this time Dad and
I were scared stiff. About an hour later we passed through Swedesboro
when a little fellow with a star on his coat came up and told us we were
his prisoners. The Spaniard jumped out and ran at him with the sword.
The constable was plucky; he pulled out a pistol and fired at the
Spaniard, but he didn’t hit him, and the Spaniard chased him a ways down
the road. We drove on then but more scared than before. I asked the
Spaniard if he wasn’t afraid of being put in jail but he said no, they
wouldn’t dare touch a hidalgo.
“Pretty soon we came to a cross road and somebody yelled at us from a
clump of bushes ‘Surrender in the name of the law.’ But that didn’t
frighten him. He just jumped out and charged that clump and drove the
two men in it down the road. By this time we were almost to Pennsgrove.
I was so scared that I got off and ran down a side street and Dad after
me. We didn’t see any more of him but we was told he drove in as large
as life and met the Sheriff, with two deputies. He chased them and cut
one of them pretty bad. Then he ran to the wharf, jumped on a fishing
boat, cut the cable and started down the river. The revenue cutter got
after him and they fired a shot at the boat. This made her fill and she
went down but they managed to pull him out. Of course he got very wet.
They took him to the jail, gave him some dry clothes and put him in a
cell. They captured Dad and me too, but after they had asked us a lot of
questions they concluded we wasn’t to blame and let us go. I went to see
the Spaniard next day and, say, he was a sight! All the white scales was
gone but they had been thicker in some places than in others, and where
they had been thickest there was a kind of a pit on his face like a man
who had small pox. He looked fierce, but the water had made him look
like glass again. There was no snow white stuff on him at all.
“They took him before a J. P. that day and he told them he was a Spanish
nobleman who was willing to die for Spain. He said he had sunk many
English ships and killed many English and that he was going to do it
some more.”
“Now, I don’t know what you think,” Euphemia said to me, “but I think
that fellow had been thrown overboard from some ship and was petrified
on the bottom of the sea and covered with sand. When you dug him up he
just came to life again. He must have been a bird when he was alive, and
so he just went on being a bird when he came back to life.”
“Well, the Justice of the Peace thought he must be crazy so he sent him
to the asylum. But he didn’t stay there long. He broke loose one night,
made for the shore, killed two men who was sleepin in a small vessel,
pulled up the anchor and put to sea and hasn’t been heard of since.”
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