Hadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated--astonished--happy--vain.
Vain beyond imagination. Its nineteen principal citizens and their
wives went about shaking hands with each other, and beaming, and
smiling, and congratulating, and saying _this_ thing adds a new word to
the dictionary--_Hadleyburg_, synonym for _incorruptible_--destined to
live in dictionaries for ever! And the minor and unimportant citizens
and their wives went around acting in much the same way. Everybody
ran to the bank to see the gold-sack; and before noon grieved and
envious crowds began to flock in from Brixton and all neighbouring
towns; and that afternoon and next day reporters began to arrive from
everywhere to verify the sack and its history and write the whole
thing up anew, and make dashing free-hand pictures of the sack, and
of Richards’s house, and the bank, and the Presbyterian church, and
the Baptist church, and the public square, and the town-hall where the
test would be applied and the money delivered; and damnable portraits
of the Richardses, and Pinkerton the banker, and Cox, and the foreman,
and Reverend Burgess, and the postmaster--and even of Jack Halliday,
who was the loafing, good-natured, no-account, irreverent fisherman,
hunter, boys’ friend, stray-dogs’ friend, typical “Sam Lawson” of the
town. The little mean, smirking, oily Pinkerton showed the sack to all
comers, and rubbed his sleek palms together pleasantly, and enlarged
upon the town’s fine old reputation for honesty and upon this wonderful
endorsement of it, and hoped and believed that the example would now
spread far and wide over the American world, and be epoch-making in the
matter of moral regeneration. And so on, and so on.
By the end of a week things had quieted down again; the wild
intoxication of pride and joy had sobered to a soft, sweet, silent
delight--a sort of deep, nameless, unutterable content. All faces bore
a look of peaceful, holy happiness.
Then a change came. It was a gradual change; so gradual that its
beginnings were hardly noticed; maybe were not noticed at all, except
by Jack Halliday, who always noticed everything; and always made fun of
it, too, no matter what it was. He began to throw out chaffing remarks
about people not looking quite so happy as they did a day or two ago;
and next he claimed that the new aspect was deepening to positive
sadness; next, that it was taking on a sick look; and finally he said
that everybody was become so moody, thoughtful, and absent-minded that
he could rob the meanest man in town of a cent out of the bottom of his
breeches pocket and not disturb his reverie.
At this stage--or at about this stage--a saying like this was dropped
at bedtime--with a sigh, usually--by the head of each of the nineteen
principal households:
“Ah, what _could_ have been the remark that Goodson made?”
And straightway--with a shudder--came this, from the man’s wife:
“Oh, _don’t_! What horrible thing are you mulling in your mind? Put it
away from you, for God’s sake!”
But that question was wrung from those men again the next night--and
got the same retort. But weaker.
And the third night the men uttered the question yet again--with
anguish, and absently. This time--and the following night--the wives
fidgeted feebly, and tried to say something. But didn’t.
And the night after that they found their tongues and
responded--longingly:
“Oh, if we _could_ only guess!”
Halliday’s comments grew daily more and more sparklingly disagreeable
and disparaging. He went diligently about, laughing at the town,
individually and in mass. But his laugh was the only one left in the
village: it fell upon a hollow and mournful vacancy and emptiness. Not
even a smile was findable anywhere. Halliday carried a cigar-box around
on a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers and
aimed the thing and said “Ready!--now look pleasant, please,” but
not even this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces into any
softening.
So three weeks passed--one week was left. It was Saturday evening
after supper. Instead of the aforetime Saturday-evening flutter and
bustle and shopping and larking, the streets were empty and desolate.
Richards and his old wife sat apart in their little parlour--miserable
and thinking. This was become their evening habit now: the life-long
habit which had preceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented
chat, or receiving or paying neighbourly calls, was dead and gone and
forgotten, ages ago--two or three weeks ago; nobody talked now, nobody
read, nobody visited--the whole village sat at home, sighing, worrying,
silent. Trying to guess out that remark.
The postman left a letter. Richards glanced listlessly at the
superscription and the post-mark--unfamiliar, both--and tossed
the letter on the table and resumed his might-have-beens and his
hopeless dull miseries where he had left them off. Two or three hours
later his wife got wearily up and was going away to bed without a
good-night--custom now--but she stopped near the letter and eyed it
awhile with a dead interest, then broke it open, and began to skim it
over. Richards, sitting there with his chair tilted back against the
wall and his chin between his knees, heard something fall. It was his
wife. He sprang to her side, but she cried out:
“Leave me alone, I am too happy. Read the letter--read it!”
He did. He devoured it, his brain reeling. The letter was from a
distant State, and it said:
“I am a stranger to you, but no matter: I have something to tell. I
have just arrived home from Mexico, and learned about that episode. Of
course you do not know who made that remark, but I know, and I am the
only person living who does know. It was GOODSON. I knew him well,
many years ago. I passed through your village that very night, and
was his guest till the midnight train came along. I overheard him
make that remark to the stranger in the dark--it was in Hale Alley. He
and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while smoking in his
house. He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his
talk--most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three
favourably: among these latter yourself. I say ‘favourably’--nothing
stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually LIKE any person
in the town--not one; but that you--I THINK he said you--am almost
sure--had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing
the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave
it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the
citizens. Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you are
his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I know that I
can trust to your honour and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg
these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and so I am going to
reveal to you the remark, well satisfied that if you are not the right
man you will seek and find the right one and see that poor Goodson’s
debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid. This is the
remark ‘YOU ARE FAR FROM BEING A BAD MAN: GO, AND REFORM.’
“HOWARD L. STEPHENSON.”
“Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, _oh_, so
grateful,--kiss me, dear, it’s for ever since we kissed--and we needed
it so--the money--and now you are free of Pinkerton and his bank, and
nobody’s slave any more; it seems to me I could fly for joy.”
It was a happy half-hour that the couple spent there on the settee
caressing each other; it was the old days come again--days that had
begun with their courtship and lasted without a break till the stranger
brought the deadly money. By-and-by the wife said:
“Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poor
Goodson! I never liked him, but I love him now. And it was fine and
beautiful of you never to mention it or brag about it.” Then, with a
touch of reproach, “But you ought to have told _me_, Edward, you ought
to have told your wife, you know.”
“Well, I--er--well, Mary, you see--”
“Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me about it, Edward. I always
loved you, and now I’m proud of you. Everybody believes there was only
one good generous soul in this village, and now it turns out that
you--Edward, why don’t you tell me?”
“Well--er--er--Why, Mary, I can’t!”
“You _can’t_? _Why_ can’t you?”
“You see, he--well, he--he made me promise I wouldn’t.”
The wife looked him over, and said, very slowly:
“Made--you--promise? Edward, what do you tell me that for?”
“Mary, do you think I would lie?”
She was troubled and silent for a moment, then she laid her hand within
his and said:
“No ... no. We have wandered far enough from our bearings--God spare us
that! In all your life you have never uttered a lie. But now--now that
the foundations of things seem to be crumbling from under us, we--we--”
She lost her voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, “Lead us not into
temptation... I think you made the promise, Edward. Let it rest so.
Let us keep away from that ground. Now--that is all gone by; let us he
happy again; it is no time for clouds.”
Edward found it something of an effort to comply, for his mind kept
wandering--trying to remember what the service was that he had done
Goodson.
The couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary happy and busy,
Edward busy, but not so happy. Mary was planning what she would do
with the money. Edward was trying to recall that service. At first his
conscience was sore on account of the lie he had told Mary--if it was a
lie. After much reflection--suppose it _was_ a lie? What then? Was it
such a great matter? Aren’t we always _acting_ lies? Then why not tell
them? Look at Mary--look what she had done. While he was hurrying off
on his honest errand, what was she doing? Lamenting because the papers
hadn’t been destroyed and the money kept. Is theft better than lying?
_That_ point lost its sting--the lie dropped into the background
and left comfort behind it. The next point came to the front: _had_
he rendered that service? Well, here was Goodson’s own evidence as
reported in Stephenson’s letter; there could be no better evidence
than that--it was even _proof_ that he had rendered it. Of course. So
that point was settled... No, not quite. He recalled with a wince that
this unknown Mr. Stephenson was just a trifle unsure as to whether the
performer of it was Richards or some other--and, oh dear, he had put
Richards on his honour! He must himself decide whither that money must
go--and Mr. Stephenson was not doubting that if he was the wrong man he
would go honourably and find the right one. Oh, it was odious to put a
man in such a situation--ah, why couldn’t Stephenson have left out that
doubt? What did he want to intrude that for?
Further reflection. How did it happen that _Richards’s_ name remained
in Stephenson’s mind as indicating the right man, and not some other
man’s name? That looked good. Yes, that looked very good. In fact it
went on looking better and better, straight along--until by-and-by
it grew into positive _proof_. And then Richards put the matter at
once out of his mind, for he had a private instinct that a proof once
established is better left so.
He was feeling reasonably comfortable now, but there was still one
other detail that kept pushing itself on his notice: of course he had
done that service--that was settled; but what _was_ that service?
He must recall it--he would not go to sleep till he had recalled
it; it would make his peace of mind perfect. And so he thought and
thought. He thought of a dozen things--possible services, even
probable services--but none of them seemed adequate, none of them
seemed large enough, none of them seemed worth the money--worth the
fortune Goodson had wished he could leave in his will. And besides, he
couldn’t remember having done them, anyway. Now, then--now, then--what
_kind_ of a service would it be that would make a man so inordinately
grateful? Ah--the saving of his soul! That must be it. Yes, he could
remember, now, how he once set himself the task of converting Goodson,
and laboured at it as much as--he was going to say three months; but
upon closer examination it shrunk to a month, then to a week, then to
a day, then to nothing. Yes, he remembered now, and with unwelcome
vividness, that Goodson had told him to go to thunder and mind his own
business--_he_ wasn’t hankering to follow Hadleyburg to heaven!
So that solution was a failure--he hadn’t saved Goodson’s soul.
Richards was discouraged. Then after a little came another idea: had
he saved Goodson’s property? No, that wouldn’t do--he hadn’t any. His
life? That is it! Of course. Why, he might have thought of it before.
This time he was on the right track, sure. His imagination-mill was
hard at work in a minute, now.
Thereafter, during a stretch of two exhausting hours, he was busy
saving Goodson’s life. He saved it in all kinds of difficult and
perilous ways. In every case he got it saved satisfactorily up to a
certain point; then, just as he was beginning to get well persuaded
that it had really happened, a troublesome detail would turn up which
made the whole thing impossible. As in the matter of drowning, for
instance. In that case he had swum out and tugged Goodson ashore in an
unconscious state with a great crowd looking on and applauding, but
when he had got it all thought out and was just beginning to remember
all about it, a whole swarm of disqualifying details arrived on the
ground: the town would have known of the circumstance, Mary would have
known of it, it would glare like a limelight in his own memory instead
of being an inconspicuous service which he had possibly rendered
“without knowing its full value.” And at this point he remembered that
he couldn’t swim anyway.
Ah--_there_ was a point which he had been overlooking from the start:
it had to be a service which he had rendered “possibly without knowing
the full value of it.” Why, really, that ought to be an easy hunt--much
easier than those others. And sure enough, by-and-by he found it.
Goodson, years and years ago, came near marrying a very sweet and
pretty girl, named Nancy Hewitt, but in some way or other the match
had been broken off; the girl died, Goodson remained a bachelor,
and by-and-by became a soured one and a frank despiser of the human
species. Soon after the girl’s death the village found out, or thought
it had found out, that she carried a spoonful of negro blood in her
veins. Richards worked at these details a good while, and in the end
he thought he remembered things concerning them which must have gotten
mislaid in his memory through long neglect. He seemed to dimly remember
that it was _he_ that found out about the negro blood; that it was he
that told the village; that the village told Goodson where they got it;
that he thus saved Goodson from marrying the tainted girl; that he had
done him this great service “without knowing the full value of it,” in
fact without knowing that he _was_ doing it; but that Goodson knew the
value of it, and what a narrow escape he had had, and so went to his
grave grateful to his benefactor and wishing he had a fortune to leave
him. It was all clear and simple, now, and the more he went over it
the more luminous and certain it grew; and at last, when he nestled to
sleep, satisfied and happy, he remembered the whole thing just as if it
had been yesterday. In fact, he dimly remembered Goodson’s _telling_
him his gratitude once. Meantime Mary had spent six thousand dollars on
a new house for herself and a pair of slippers for her pastor, and then
had fallen peacefully to rest.
That same Saturday evening the postman had delivered a letter to each
of the other principal citizens--nineteen letters in all. No two of
the envelopes were alike, and no two of the superscriptions were in
the same hand, but the letters inside were just like each other in
every detail but one. They were exact copies of the letter received by
Richards--handwriting and all--and were all signed by Stephenson, but
in place of Richards’s name each receiver’s own name appeared.
All night long eighteen principal citizens did what their caste-brother
Richards was doing at the same time--they put in their energies trying
to remember what notable service it was that they had unconsciously
done Barclay Goodson. In no case was it a holiday job; still they
succeeded.
And while they were at this work, which was difficult, their wives put
in the night spending the money, which was easy. During that one night
the nineteen wives spent an average of seven thousand dollars each out
of the forty thousand in the sack--a hundred and thirty-three thousand
altogether.
Next day there was a surprise for Jack Halliday. He noticed that
the faces of the nineteen chief citizens and their wives bore that
expression of peaceful and holy happiness again. He could not
understand it, neither was he able to invent any remarks about it
that could damage it or disturb it. And so it was his turn to be
dissatisfied with life. His private guesses at the reasons for the
happiness failed in all instances, upon examination. When he met
Mrs. Wilcox and noticed the placid ecstasy in her face, he said to
himself, “Her cat has had kittens”--and went and asked the cook; it
was not so, the cook had detected the happiness, but did not know
the cause. When Halliday found the duplicate ecstasy in the face of
“Shadbelly” Billson (village nickname), he was sure some neighbour of
Billson’s had broken his leg, but inquiry showed that this had not
happened. The subdued ecstasy in Gregory Yates’s face could mean but
one thing--he was a mother-in-law short; it was another mistake. “And
Pinkerton--Pinkerton--he has collected ten cents that he thought he
was going to lose.” And so on, and so on. In some cases the guesses
had to remain in doubt, in the others they proved distinct errors. In
the end Halliday said to himself, “Anyway it roots up that there’s
nineteen Hadleyburg families temporarily in heaven: I don’t know how it
happened; I only know Providence is off duty to-day.”
An architect and builder from the next State had lately ventured to set
up a small business in this unpromising village, and his sign had now
been hanging out a week. Not a customer yet; he was a discouraged man,
and sorry he had come. But his weather changed suddenly now. First one
and then another chief citizen’s wife said to him privately:
“Come to my house Monday week--but say nothing about it for the
present. We think of building.”
He got eleven invitations that day. That night he wrote his daughter
and broke off her match with her student. He said she could marry a
mile higher than that.
Pinkerton the banker and two or three other well-to-do men planned
country-seats--but waited. That kind don’t count their chickens until
they are hatched.
The Wilsons devised a grand new thing--a fancy-dress ball. They made
no actual promises, but told all their acquaintanceship in confidence
that they were thinking the matter over and thought they should give
it--“and if we do, you will be invited, of course.” People were
surprised, and said, one to another, “Why, they are crazy, those
poor Wilsons, they can’t afford it.” Several among the nineteen said
privately to their husbands, “It is a good idea, we will keep still
till their cheap thing is over, then _we_ will give one that will make
it sick.”
The days drifted along, and the bill of future squanderings rose higher
and higher, wilder and wilder, more and more foolish and reckless. It
began to look as if every member of the nineteen would not only spend
his whole forty thousand dollars before receiving-day, but be actually
in debt by the time he got the money. In some cases light-headed people
did not stop with planning to spend, they really spent--on credit.
They bought land, mortgages, farms, speculative stocks, fine clothes,
horses, and various other things, paid down the bonus, and made
themselves liable for the rest--at ten days. Presently the sober second
thought came, and Halliday noticed that a ghastly anxiety was beginning
to show up in a good many faces. Again he was puzzled, and didn’t know
what to make of it. “The Wilcox kittens aren’t dead, for they weren’t
born; nobody’s broken a leg; there’s no shrinkage in mother-in-laws;
_nothing_ has happened--it is an insolvable mystery.”
There was another puzzled man, too--the Rev. Mr. Burgess. For days,
wherever he went, people seemed to follow him or to be watching out for
him; and if he ever found himself in a retired spot, a member of the
nineteen would be sure to appear, thrust an envelope privately into
his hand, whisper “To be opened at the town-hall Friday evening,” then
vanish away like a guilty thing. He was expecting that there might be
one claimant for the sack--doubtful, however, Goodson being dead--but
it never occurred to him that all this crowd might be claimants. When
the great Friday came at last, he found that he had nineteen envelopes.