Caleb fell asleep and left his mother to die alone. Her death-struggle
covered several hours. She raised herself upon her pillow, so that her
last glance might rest upon Caleb. His loud snoring was music to her
dying ears. She clapped her hands feebly to awaken him, but he snored
the more, and mumbled something about chicken. The end came with a
little choking in the throat and a slight movement of the head to the
left.
As Patsy lay cold in death Caleb had a pleasant dream. He dreamed that
she was well and at the washtub. He thought he held in his hand money
she had drawn in advance for him. When he awoke the next morning and
found it was but a dream he lighted the stump of a cigar; and, between
puffs, mumbled something about starch-eating mothers and dignified sons.
When a neighbor called to see what Patsy would have for breakfast, he
said: "Ask the old woman."
"She is dead," cried the neighbor.
"Then bury her," said he.
The next day Noah, the father of Melviny, the grave-digger for the poor,
said: "Melviny, my child, I go to dig poor Patsy's grave."
"Poor Caleb!" said Melviny, and covered her face with her apron.
Noah's hands fell to his side, leaving the spade dangling about his
neck.
"Melviny!" he shouted fiercely.
"Father?" she answered soberly.
"Why your thought of Caleb?"
"Why your interest in Patsy?"
"She is dead, child."
"So is Caleb, father." Melviny dropped her apron and began to toy with
the spade. "Dear father, you are kind to the neighbors."
"Dear child, you are making your own perdition."
"Where go you, father?"
"I go to bury Patsy in the potter's field."
"I go to bury Caleb in my affections, that he may be resurrected a man."
Noah kissed his daughter three times.
"The first," said he, "is for your mother, who was a wise woman."
"In marrying you, father? I never heard her say so in her curtain
lectures. Why didn't you say she was a brave woman?"
"Don't be frivolous, child."
"Cling to facts, father. Remember, you will soon be on the brink of the
grave."
"The second is for your innocence," said he, kissing her again. "The
third--the third----"
"Is for what, father? Say it's to encourage Caleb in his wooing. Say it,
father."
"'Tis my dying kiss--my curse. Go! When he drags you to want and death,
you will see how foolish you have been."
"When I lift him to honor and life the world will see how wise and
heroic I have been. That extra kiss, father?"
Noah looked puzzled.
"I see it now, father. That's to commend my heroism. You would say so in
words, but you are a bit too human at present. Poor Patsy is to be
buried in a pauper's grave; poor Caleb in my affections. Your task is
noble. No parting word for me? None? I go not alone."
"You go not alone, for the fires of tribulation go with you," said Noah,
and shouldered his spade.
As Noah crossed the bridge leading to the potter's field he met Caleb.
"Hello, old graybeard!" This was Caleb's salutation. "I jilted the
cobbler's Mary for your Melviny. A mess of perdition she is. You have
the honor of burying my mother; I would have the pleasure of marrying
your daughter. 'Tis a fair exchange. Speak the word; the magistrate is
waiting for his fee. You won't? Your beard is a foot long."
"I go to dig your mother's grave."
"I detain you to pleasure my mother's son."
"She must be buried."
"I must be married."
"Oh! Oh! Oh!"
"Speak the word."
"My beard is being wasted."
"Speak the word, or I'll pull out another handful."
"Y-e-e-s," stammered Noah.
Caleb stroked what beard was left, evened it up with his penknife, and
said: "Go! You are adorned for your task."
What Noah felt and thought while digging Patsy's grave would make a
serious, instructive volume. A like record of Caleb and Melviny, as they
stood before the magistrate, would show the brute in man, the folly in
woman. So long as woman is sure she has mastered man, so long is man
sure to degrade woman. 'Tis the equation of the fall. The rib that gave
woman life ever waits to give her temptation and death.
Caleb had been away from Melviny six months when their child was born.
Fancy a man, dirty, ragged, and lousy, sitting beside a post. Notice
the convenience of the post. Look well at the grin that is indicative of
a bite; forget not the smile that means one intruder less. Why those
dice? He shakes them in his hand, throws them out, and says seven. Any
money at stake? No! Any fellow-players? No! See the point? Look closely!
When he grins he shakes the dice. Know you what that means? There is a
bite. When he smiles he throws out the dice and says seven. Understand
that? The post and a movement of his back have done the work, and there
is one intruder less. He is actually gambling with the lice on his back.
A fellow-gambler comes up and says: "Caleb, you have an heir in your
family. Happy dog you should be."
"Let's celebrate it with a game," says Caleb.
He throws down a ten-dollar bill; the other lays down five silver
dollars.
Caleb shakes the dice, grins fiercely, throws them out, smiles a double
smile, and says seven twice. This means a double victory. More lice have
been killed, and five dollars are won.
"Five more! Will you have it?" asks Caleb.
"I'm a gambling man and never flinch," says the other. He lays down five
more silver dollars. Caleb rises and uses the post vigorously. His face
is a solid grin. The dice are shaken and leap from his hand. The broad
grin relaxes into a little smile that spreads so as to almost hide his
nose. His left hand assists the post, while with the right he picks up
the silver dollars.
"A gambling man are you?" twits Caleb.
"Yes," nods the other.
"Then a generous man am I," continues Caleb. "Take the ten-dollar bill
and remember you have met Caleb."
"Caleb," replies the other, "I am a more generous man than you. Take
back the counterfeit bill and keep the silver dollars you have stolen. I
will assist you further by inventing a new way of killing lice."
"Lice, sir?" roared Caleb. "Where are they? Do you mean----?"
"I mean a post is a good louse-killer, but a little oil and a match are
better."
Caleb, as you know by this time, was a coward. He outran fire-and-oil
justice, and was caught in the mesh of circumstances. He leaped over a
beehive and alighted between two lines of barbed-wire fence. After
spending the night with barbed-wire and bees he was very properly
removed to the hospital.
"His legs must be amputated," said the physicians.
"That means what?" asked Caleb, arousing himself as from a dream.
"Death, perchance," said they.
"That means the morgue?" asked he, with a grunt.
"For such as you, yes," replied one.
"My legs, gentlemen, my legs! The morgue! The morgue! I see it. How cold
it is! Gentlemen, are you gentlemen? My legs! My legs!"
The next day he learned that his legs had been taken off. The following
day he roared about the morgue and fought with both hands. He cried out
at intervals:
"Off! Off, you doctors! My legs are here to carry me from the morgue,
but you are waiting to cut them off again. Off, you butchers! Come, my
right leg! Come, my left! On, my right leg! On my left! Yes! Yes!
Welcome, tried friends! Down the steps now! Halfway down are we! Back!
Back, you butchers! You shall not! My right foot--you shall not turn
around. 'Tis done. The toes are where the heel should be. I go a step
forward and fall back a step. Your knives are sharp, you butchers. My
right leg is off and hops upstairs. My left leg is off and hops
downstairs. My body falls and is carried to the morgue. The morgue,
gentlemen, is so cold--so cold!"
After this there were several hours of indistinct raving. The next day
his legless body was upon a marble slab in the morgue.
His fellow-gamblers, hearing of his fate, begged his body that they
might give it a "decent" burial. They removed it to an old out-house and
sat up with it the first night. Why do they gaze upon it so often? Why
do their hands touch his face and hands? Would they learn a lesson from
the cold, deathly touch? The next night, the next, the next, and the
next it is alone.
You searchers of the city's offal, you living buzzards who remove the
dead and rotten of your kind, fling open the doors! Is that Caleb you
find? 'Tis a part of him. His legs are buried somewhere. His ears and
fingers are in the pockets of his fellow-gamblers. Now carry out Caleb
minus Caleb. Stop up your nose--stop up your nose!