No matter what business or what pleasure took me, I once, not long ago,
went to Colfax. Whisper it not to each other that I was seeking a
foreign appointment through the influence of my fellow Hoosier, the late
Vice-President of the United States. O no, I didn't go to the Hon.
Schuyler Colfax at all; but I went to Colfax, simply, which is a little
dingy town, in Clinton County, that was formerly called Midway, because
it is half way between Lafayette and Indianapolis. It was and is a place
of some three hundred inhabitants, eking out an aguish subsistence,
maintaining a swampy, malarious aspect, keeping up a bilious, nay, an
atra-bilious color, the year round, by sucking like an attenuated leech
at the junction, or, rather, the crossing of the I. C. & L., and the L.
C. & S. W. railroads. It lay mouldering, like something lost and
forgotten, slowly rotting in the swamp.
I do not mean to attack the inhabitants of Colfax, for they were good
people, and deserved a better fate than the eternal rattling the ague
took them through from year's end to year's end. Why, they had had the
ague so long that they had no respect for it at all. I've seen a woman
in Colfax shaking with a chill, spanking a baby that had a chill, and
scolding a husband who had a chill, all at once--and I had a dreadful
ague on me at the same time! But, as I have said, they were good people,
and I suppose they are still. They go quietly about the usual business
of dead towns. They have "stores" in which they offer for sale calico,
of the big-figured, orange and red sort, surprisingly cheap. They smoke
those little Cuba sixes at a half cent apiece, and call them cigars;
they hang round the depot, and trade jack-knives and lottery watches on
the afternoons of lazy Sundays; they make harmless sport of the incoming
and outgoing country folk; and, in a word, keep pretty busy at one thing
or another, and above all--they shake.
In Colfax the chief sources of exciting amusement are dog fights and an
occasional row at Sheehan's saloon, a doggery of the regular
old-fashioned, drink, gamble, rob and fight sort--a low place, known to
all the hard bats in the State.
As you pass through the town you will not fail to notice a big sign,
outhanging from the front of the largest building on the principal
street, which reads: "Union Hotel, 1865." From the muddy suburbs of the
place, in every direction, stretch black muck swamps, for the most part
heavily timbered with a variety of oaks, interspersed with sycamores,
ash, and elms. In the damp, shady labyrinths of these boggy woods
millions of lively, wide awake, tuneful mosquitoes are daily
manufactured; and out from decaying logs and piles of fermenting leaves,
from the green pools and sluggish ditch streams, creeps a noxious gas,
known in that region as the "double refined, high pressure, forty hoss
power quintessential of the ager!" So, at least, I was told by the
landlord of the Union Hotel, and his skin had the color of one who knew.
Notwithstanding what I have said, Colfax, in summer, is not wholly
without attractions of a certain kind. It has some yellow dogs and some
brindle ones; it has some cattle and some swine; it has some swallows
and some spotted pigeons; it has cool, fresh smelling winds, and, after
the water has sufficiently dried out, the woods are really glorious
with wild roses, violets, turkey-pea blossoms, and wild pinks. But to
my story.
I was sitting on the long veranda of the Union Hotel, when a rough but
kindly voice said to me:
"Mornin', stranger; gi' me a light, will ye?"
I looked up from the miserable dime novel at which I had been tugging
for the last hour, and saw before me a corpulent man of, perhaps,
forty-five years of age, who stood quite ready to thrust the charred end
of a cigar stump into the bowl of my meerschaum. I gave him a match, and
would fain have returned to Angelina St. Fortescue, the heroine of the
novel, whom I had left standing on the extreme giddy verge of a sheer
Alpine precipice, known, by actual triangulation, to be just seven
thousand feet high, swearing she would leap off if Donald Gougerizeout,
the robber, persisted further in his rough addresses; but my new friend,
the corpulent smoker, seemed bent on a little bit of conversation.
"Thankee, sir. Fine mornin', sir, a'n't it?"
"Beautiful," I replied, raising my head, elevating my arms, and, by a
kind of yawn, taking in a deep draught of the fresh spring weather,
absorbing it, assimilating it, till, like a wave of retarded
electricity, it set my nerves in tune for enjoying the bird songs, and
filled my blood with the ecstasy of vigorous health and youth. I, no
doubt, just then felt the burden of life much less than did the big
yellow dog at my feet, who snapped lazily at the flies.
"Yes, yes, this 'ere's a fine mornin'--julicious, sir, julicious,
indeed; but le' me tell ye, sir, this 'ere wind's mighty deceitful--for
a fact it is, sir, jist as full of ager as a acorn is of meat. It's
blowin' right off'n ponds, and is loaded chock down with the miasm--for
a fact it is, sir."
While delivering this speech, the fat man sat down on the bench beside
me there in the veranda. By this time I had my thumbs in the arm holes
of my vest, and my chest expanded to its utmost--my lungs going like a
steam bellows, which is a way I have in fine weather.
"Monstrous set o' respiratory organs, them o' your'n," he said, eyeing
my manoeuvres. Just then I discovered that he was a physician of the
steam doctor sort, for, glancing down at my feet, I espied his well worn
leather medicine bags. I immediately grew polite. Possibly I might ere
long need some quinine, or mandrake, or a hot steam bath--anything for
the ague!
"Yes, I've got lungs like a porpoise," I replied, "but still the ague
may get me. Much sickness about here, Doctor----a----a----what do they
call your name?"
"Benjamin Hurd--Doctor Hurd, they call me. I'm the only thorer bred
botanic that's in these parts. I do poorty much all the practice about
here. Yes, there's considerable of ager and phthisic and bilious fever.
Keeps me busy most of my time. These nasty swamps, you know."
After a time our conversation flagged, and the doctor having lit a fresh
cigar, we smoked in silence. The wind was driving the dust along the
street in heavy waves, and I sat watching a couple of lean, spotted
calves making their way against the tide. They held their heads low and
shut their eyes, now and then bawling vigorously. Some one up stairs was
playing "Days of Absence" on a wretched wheezing accordeon.
"There's a case of asthma, doctor," I said, intending to be witty. But
my remark was not noticed. The doctor was in a brown study, from which
my words had not startled him. Presently he said, as if talking to
himself, and without taking the cigar from his mouth:
"'Twas just a year ago to-night, the 28th day of May, 'at they took 'er
away. And he'll die afore day to a dead certainty. Beats all the denied
queer things I ever seed or heerd of."
He was poking with the toe of his boot in the dust on the veranda floor,
as he spoke, and stealing a glance at his face, I saw that it wore an
abstracted, dreamy, perplexed look.
"What was your remark, doctor?" I asked, more to arouse him than from
any hope of being interested.
"Hum!--ah, yes," he said, starting, and beginning a vigorous puffing.
"Ah, yes, I was cogitatin' over this matter o' Berry Young's. Never have
been able to 'count for that, no how. Think about it more an' more every
day. What's your theory of it?"
"Can't say, never having heard anything of it," I replied.
"Well, I do say! Thought everybody had hearn of that, any how! It's a
rale romance, a reg'lar mystery, sir. It's been talked about, and writ
about in the papers so much 'at I s'posed 'at it was knowed of far and
wide."
"I've been in California for several years past," I replied, by way of
excuse for my ignorance of even the vaguest outline of the affair,
whatever it might be.
"Well, you see, a leetle more'n a year ago a gal an' her father come
here and stopped at this 'ere very hotel. The man must 'a' been som'res
near sixty years old; but the gal was young, and jist the poortiest
thing I ever seed in all my life. I couldn't describe how she looked at
all; but everybody 'at saw her said she was the beautifulest creatur
they ever laid eyes onto. Where these two folks come from nobody ever
knowed, but they seemed like mighty nice sort of persons, and everybody
liked 'em, 'specially the gal. Somehow, from the very start, a kind of
mystery hung 'round 'em. They seemed always to have gobs o' money, and
onct in awhile some little thing'd turn up to make folks kinder juberous
somehow 'at they wasn't jist what they ginerally seemed to be. But that
gal was fascinatin' as a snake, and as poorty as any picter. Her flesh
looked like tinted wax mixed with moon-shine, and her eyes was as clear
as a lime-stone spring--though they was dark as night. She was that full
of restless animal life 'at she couldn't set still--she roamed round
like a leopard in a cage, and she'd romp equal to a ten-year-old boy.
Well, as mought be expected, sich a gal as that 'ere 'd 'tract attention
in these parts, and I must say 'at the young fellows here did git
'bominable sweet on her. 'Casionally two of 'em 'd git out in the swamps
and have a awful fight on her 'count; but she 'peared to pay precious
little 'tention to any of 'em till finally Berry Young stepped in and
jist went for 'er like mad, and she took to 'm. Berry was r'ally the
nicest and intelligentest young man in all this country. He writ poetry
for the papers, sir--snatchin' good poetry, too--and had got to be
talked of a right smart for his larnin', an' 'complishments. He was good
lookin', too; powerful handsome, for a fact, sir. So they was to be
married, Berry and the gal, an' the time it was sot, an' the day it
come, an' all was ready, an' the young folks was on the floor, and the
'squire was jist a commencin' to say the ceremony, when lo! and
beholden, four big, awful, rough lookin' men rushed in with big pistols
and mighty terrible bowie knives, and big papers and big seals, and said
they was a sheriff and possum from Kaintucky. They jist jumped right
onto the gal an' her father an' han'cuffed 'em, an' took 'em!"
"Handcuffed them and took them!" I repeated, suddenly growing intensely
interested. This was beating my dime novel, for sensation, all hollow.
"Yes, sir, han'cuffed 'em an' took 'em, an' away they went, an' they've
not been hearn of since to this day. But the mysteriousest thing about
the whole business was that when the sheriff grabbed the gal he called
her George, and said she wasn't no gal at all, but jist a terrible onery
boy 'at had been stealin' an' counterfeitin' an' robbin' all round
everywhere. What d'ye think of that?"
"A remarkably strange affair, certainly," I replied; "and do you say
that the father and the girl have not since been heard from?"
"Never a breath. The thing got into all the newspapers and raised a
awful rumpus, and it turned out that it wasn't no sheriff 'at come
there; but some dark, mysterious kidnappin' transaction 'at nobody could
account for. Detectives was put on their track an' follered 'em to Injun
territory an' there lost 'em. Some big robberies was connected with the
affair, but folks could never git head nor tail of the partic'lers."
"And it wasn't a real sheriff's arrest, then?" said I.
"No, sir, 'twas jist a mystery. Some kind of a dodge of a band of
desperadoes to avoid the law some way. The papers tried to explain it,
but I never could see any sense to it. 'Twas a clean, dead mystery. But
I was goin' on to tell ye 'at Berry Young took it awful hard 'bout the
gal, an' he's been sort o' sinkin' away ever sence, an' now he's jist
ready to wink out. Yonder's where Berry lives, in that 'ere white
cottage house with the vines round the winder. He's desp'rit sick--a
sort o' consumption. I'm goin' to see 'im now; good mornin' to ye."
Thus abruptly ending our interview, the doctor took up his medicine bag
and went his way. He left me in a really excited state of mind; the
story of itself was so strange, and the narrator had told it so solemnly
and graphically. I suppose, too, that I must have been in just the
proper state of mind for that rough outline, that cartoon of a most
startling and mysterious affair, to become deeply impressed in my mind,
perhaps, in the most fascinating and fantastic light possible. A thirst
to know more of the story took strong hold on my mind, as if I had been
reading a tantalizing romance and had found the leaves torn out just
where the mystery was to be explained. I half closed my eyes to better
keep in the lines and shades of the strange picture. Its influence lay
upon me like a spell. I enjoyed it. It was a luxury.
The wings of the morning wind fanned the heat into broken waves, rising
and sinking, and flowing on, with murmur and flash and glimmer, to the
cool green ways of the woods, and, like the wind, my fancy went out
among golden fleece clouds and into shady places, following the thread
of this new romance. I cannot give a sufficient reason why the story
took so fast a hold on me. But it did grip my mind and master it. It
appeared to me the most intensely strange affair I had ever heard of.
While I sat there, lost in reflection, with my eyes bent on a very
unpromising pig, that wallowed in the damp earth by the town pump, the
landlord of the hotel came out and took a seat beside me. I gave him a
pipe of my tobacco and forthwith began plying him with questions
touching the affair of which the doctor had spoken. He confirmed the
story, and added to its mystery by going minutely into its details. He
gave the names of the father and daughter as Charles Afton and Ollie
Afton.
Ollie Afton! Certainly no name sounds sweeter! How is it that these
gifted, mysteriously beautiful persons always have musical names!
"Ah," said the landlord, "you'd ort to have seen that boy!"
"Boy!" I echoed.
"Well, gal or boy, one or t'other, the wonderfulest human bein' I ever
see in all the days o' my life! Lips as red as ripe cur'n's, and for
ever smilin'. Such smiles--oonkoo! they hurt a feller all over, they was
so sweet. She was tall an' dark, an' had black hair that curled short
all 'round her head. Her skin was wonderful clear and so was her eyes.
But it was the way she looked at you that got you. Ah, sir, she had a
power in them eyes, to be sure!"
The pig got up from his muddy place by the pump, grunted, as if
satisfied, and slowly strolled off; a country lad drove past, riding
astride the hounds of a wagon; a pigeon lit on the comb of the roof of
Sheehan's saloon, which was just across the street, and began pluming
itself. Just then the landlord's little sharp-nosed, weasel-eyed boy
came out and said, in a very subdued tone of voice:
"Pap, mam says 'at if you don't kill 'er that 'ere chicken for dinner
you kin go widout any fing to eat all she cares."
The landlord's spouse was a red-headed woman, so he got up very suddenly
and took himself into the house. But before he got out of hearing the
little boy remarked:
"Pap, I speaks for the gizzard of that 'ere chicken, d'ye hear, now?"
I sat there till the dinner hour, watching the soft pink and white
vapors that rolled round the verge of the horizon. I was thoroughly
saturated with romance. Strange, that here, in this dingy little
out-of-the-way village, should have transpired one of the most wonderful
mysteries history may ever hold!
At dinner the landlord talked volubly of the Afton affair, giving it as
his opinion that the Aftons were persons tinged with negro blood, and
had been kidnapped into slavery.
"They was jist as white, an' whiter, too, than I am," he went on, "but
them Southerners'd jist as soon sell one person as 'nother, anyhow."
I noticed particularly that the little boy got his choice bit of the
fowl. He turned his head one side and ate like a cat.
When the meal was over I was again joined by Doctor Hurd on the
verandah. He reported Berry Young still alive, but not able to live till
midnight. I noticed that the doctor was nervous and kept his eyes fixed
on Sheehan's saloon.
"Stranger," said he, leaning over close to me, and speaking in a low,
guarded way, "things is workin' dasted curious 'bout now--sure's gun's
iron they jist is!"
"Where--how--in what way, doctor?" I stammered, taken aback by his
behavior.
"Sumpum's up, as sure as Ned!" he replied, wagging his head.
"Doctor," I said, petulantly, "if you would be a trifle more explicit I
could probably guess, with some show of certainty, at what you mean!"
"Can't ye hear? Are ye deaf? Did ye ever, in all yer born days, hear a
voice like that ere 'un? Listen!"
Sure enough, a voice of thrilling power, a rich, heavy, quavering alto,
accompanied by some one thrumming on a guitar, trickled and gurgled, and
poured through the open window of Sheehan's saloon. The song was a wild,
drinking carol, full of rough, reckless wit, but I listened, entranced,
till it was done.
"There now, say, what d'ye think o' that? Ain't things a workin' round
awful curious, as I said?"
Delivering himself thus, the doctor got up and walked off.
When I again had an opportunity to speak to the landlord, I asked him if
Doctor Hurd was not thought to be slightly demented.
"What! crazy, do you mean? No, sir; bright as a pin!"
"Well," said I, "he's a very queer fellow any how. By the way, who was
that singing just now over in the saloon there?"
"Don't know, didn't hear 'em. Some of the boys, I s'pose. They have some
lively swells over there sometimes. Awful hole."
I resumed my dime novel, and nothing further transpired to aggravate or
satisfy my curiosity concerning the strange story I had heard, till
night came down and the bats began to wheel through the moonless
blackness above the dingy town. At the coming on of dusk I flung away
the book and took to my pipe. Some one touched me on the shoulder,
rousing me from a deep reverie, if not a doze.
"Ha, stranger, this you, eh? Berry Young's a dyin'; go over there wi'
me, will ye?"
It was the voice of Doctor Hurd.
"What need for me have you?" I replied, rather stiffly, not much
relishing this too obtrusive familiarity.
"Well--I--I jist kinder wanted ye to go over. The poor boy's 'bout
passin' away, an' things is a workin' so tarnation curious! Come 'long
wi' me, friend, will ye?"
Something in the fellow's voice touched me, and without another word I
arose and followed him to the cottage. The night was intensely black. I
think it was clear, but a heavy fog from the swamps had settled over
everything, and through this dismal veil the voices of owls from far and
near struck with hollow, sepulchral effect.
"A heart is the trump!" sang out that alto voice from within the saloon
as we passed.
Doctor Hurd clutched my arm and muttered:
"That's that voice ag'in! Strange--strange! Poor Berry Young!"
We entered the cottage and found ourselves in a cosy little room, where,
on a low bed, a pale, intelligent looking young man lay, evidently
dying. He was very much emaciated, his eyes, wonderfully large and
luminous, were sunken, and his breathing quick and difficult. A haggard,
watching-worn woman sat by his bed. From her resemblance to him I took
her to be his sister. She was evidently very unwell herself. We sat in
silence by his bedside, watching his life flow into eternity, till the
little clock on the mantel struck, sharp and clear, the hour of ten.
The sound of the bell startled the sick man, and after some incoherent
mumbling he said, quite distinctly:
"Sister, if you ever again see Ollie Afton, tell him--tell her--tell,
say I forgive him--say to her--him--I loved her all my life--tell
him--ah! what was I saying? Don't cry, sis, please. What a sweet,
faithful sister! Ah! it's almost over, dear----Ah, me!"
For some minutes the sister's sobbing echoed strangely through the
house. The dying man drew his head far down in the soft pillow. A breath
of damp air stole through the room.
All at once, right under the window by which the bed sat, arose a
touching guitar prelude--a tangled mesh of melody--gusty, throbbing,
wandering through the room and straying off into the night, tossing back
its trembling echoes fainter and fainter, till, as it began to die, that
same splendid alto voice caught the key and flooded the darkness with
song. The sick man raised himself on his elbow, and his face flashed out
the terrible smile of death. He listened eagerly. It was the song "Come
Where my Love lies Dreaming," but who has heard it rendered as it was
that night? Every chord of the voice was as sweet and witching as a wind
harp's, and the low, humming undertone of the accompaniment was
perfection. Tenderly but awfully sweet, the music at length faded into
utter silence, and Berry Young sank limp and pallid upon his pillows.
"It is Ollie," he hoarsely whispered. "Tell her--tell him--O say to her
for me--ah! water, sis, it's all over!"
The woman hastened, but before she could get the water to his lips he
was dead. His last word was Ollie.
The sister cast herself upon the dead man's bosom and sobbed wildly,
piteously. Soon after this some neighbors came in, which gave me an
opportunity to quietly take my leave.
The night was so foggy and dark that, but for a bright stream of light
from a window of Sheehan's saloon, it would have been hard for me to
find my way back to the hotel. I did find it, however, and sat down upon
the verandah. I had nearly fallen asleep, thinking over the strange
occurrences of the past few hours, when the rumble of an approaching
train of cars on the I. C. & L. from the east aroused me, and, at the
same moment, a great noise began over in the saloon. High words, a few
bitter oaths, a struggle as of persons fighting, a loud, sonorous crash
like the crushing of a musical instrument, and then I saw the burly bar
tender hurl some one out through the doorway just as the express train
stopped close by.
"All aboard!" cried the conductor, waving his lantern. At the same
time, as the bar-tender stood in the light of his doorway, a brickbat,
whizzing from the darkness, struck him full in the face, knocking him
precipitately back at full length on to the floor of the saloon.
"All aboard!" repeated the conductor.
"All aboard!" jeeringly echoed a delicious alto voice; and I saw a
slender man step up on the rear platform of the smoking car. A flash
from the conductor's lantern lit up for a moment this fellow's face, and
it was the most beautiful visage I have ever seen. Extremely youthful,
dark, resplendent, glorious, set round with waves and ringlets of black
hair--it was such a countenance as I have imagined a young Chaldean
might have had who was destined to the high calling of astrology. It was
a face to charm, to electrify the beholder with its indescribable,
almost unearthly loveliness of features and expression.
The engine whistled, the bell rang, and as the train moved on, that
slender, almost fragile form and wonderful face disappeared in the
darkness.
As the roar and clash of the receding cars began to grow faint in the
distance, a gurgling, grunting sound over in the saloon reminded me that
the bar-tender might need some attention, so I stepped across the
street and went in. He was just taking himself up from the floor, with
his nose badly smashed, spurting blood over him pretty freely. He was in
an ecstasy of fury and swore fearfully. I rendered him all the aid I
could, getting the blood stopped, at length, and a plaster over the
wound.
"Who struck you?" I asked.
"Who struck me? Who hit me with that 'ere brick, d'ye say? Who but that
little baby-faced, hawk-eyed cuss 'at got off here yesterday! He's a
thief and a dog!--he's chowzed me out'n my last cent! Where is he?--I'll
kill 'im yet! where is he?"
"Gone off on the train," I replied, "but who is he? what's his name?"
"Blamed if I know. Gone, you say? Got every derned red o' my money!
Every derned red!"
"Don't you know anything at all about him?" I asked.
"Yes."
"What?"
"I know 'at he's the derndest, alfiredest, snatchin'est, best
poker-player 'at ever dealt a card!"
"Is that all?"
"That's enough, I'd say. If you'd been beat out'n two hundred an' odd
dollars you'd think you know'd a right smart, wouldn't ye?"
"Perhaps," said I. The question had a world of philosophy and logic in
it.
The shattered wreck of a magnificent guitar lay in the middle of the
floor. I picked it up, and, engraved on a heavy silver plate set in the
ebony neck, I read the name, Georgina Olive Afton.