state of nervous apprehension. Somebody had sent her a marked copy of
the _Gentryville Times_, with an account of her uncle's will and the
heir's vain search for his legacy. She had wanted to write immediately
to Maud, and ask if she had remembered, in the confusion that followed
the wedding, to restore the old man's property, but Edward had carried
her away for a day's sight-seeing, and she had had no opportunity.
As she sat idly toying with her dinner, some intuition connected this
man with her Uncle Gideon, and she was in a fever of impatience to get
away, for fear he might obtrude himself on her husband's notice. When
they had first swept into the dining-room, the Arizona cousin had leaned
over the table until his face almost touched the detective's. "They're
stunners! Ain't they?" he whispered. "Wonder if any of my money bought
them pearls and gew-gaws. Well, this show's worth the box-seat prices we
paid to get next to 'em. I wonder if the waiter would have promised to
put us alongside if I'd offered him any less than a five-franc piece."
Then, as Louise's eyes fell before his in embarrassment, he muttered,
"She looks guilty, doesn't she! I'll bet my hat she suspicions what
we're after."
The two men were only beginning their salad course, when Van Harlem
beckoned a waiter and gave an order in French. "What did he say?" asked
Wiggan, suspiciously. "I wish I could make out their beastly lingo."
"He sent to call a carriage, and to tell the maid to bring the lady's
wraps. They're going to the opera."
"You mean they're going to give us the slip again! Come on! We must stop
'em!"
"Now, Gid, you just cool down," advised the detective, calmly. "I'm
working this little game. It's a family affair and there's no use making
a row in public. There's plenty of time." But his client had no ear for
caution. The Van Harlems had risen, and were going slowly down the long
drawing-room. All eyes followed the beautiful American girl and the
aristocratic young fellow who carried himself like a lord. The
mirror-lined walls flashed back the pleasing reflection from every side,
and then replaced it with a most astonishing sight.
In and out between the little tables with their glitter of cut-glass and
silver, dashed a common-looking fellow in a coarse plaid suit. Upsetting
chairs, whisking table-cloths from their places, bumping into solemn
waiters with their laden trays, he seemed oblivious to everything but
the escaping couple. The detective had detained him as long as possible,
and the couple had almost reached the door when he started in frantic
pursuit. He reached them just as they stepped into the corridor. He
tried to curb his trembling voice, but in his excitement it rang out to
the farthest corner of the great apartment, high above the music of the
violins, playing softly in a curtained alcove.
"You want your _what_?" demanded the elegant Van Harlem in a tone that
would have frozen a less desperate man.
"I want that stuffed wild-cat," he roared, "that your wife's uncle left
me in his will, and you made off with. I came all the way from America
for it, and I'll have it now, or you'll go to jail, sure as my name is
Gideon J. Wiggan."
Louise, already unnerved by her fears at dinner, and exhausted by the
tiresome day of sight-seeing, started forward, deathly pale. It seemed
to her that the man had shouted out her name so that all Paris must have
heard. The disgrace had followed her even over seas.
She looked up piteously at her husband, and then fell fainting in his
arms.
"The man's crazy," exclaimed Van Harlem, as he strode with her toward
the elevator. "Here, waiter, call the police and have that lunatic put
out of the house. He's dangerous."
It was only a moment until he had reached their rooms and had laid
Louise gently on a couch, but as he turned to ring for the maid, the two
men confronted him on the threshold. The detective bolted the door, and
the Arizona cousin took out his revolver.
"No, you don't ring that bell," he exclaimed, seeing Van Harlem move in
the direction of the button; "nor you don't get out of here until you
hand over that wild-cat. You've got it and your wife knows it. That's
why she fainted. My friend here is a detective, and we're going through
your things till we find it, for it's full of gold."
Van Harlem moved forward to wrest away the revolver, but the detective
presented his. "No, you can't do that either," he said, quietly. "I'm
going to see that my friend gets his rights."
With the helpless feeling that he was in the hands of two madmen, Van
Harlem stood by while trunk after trunk was overhauled, and the
trousseau scattered all over the room. The one containing the flannels
had not been unlocked since it left Gentryville. It was the last to be
examined.
Louise opened her eyes with a little shriek as a familiar odour
penetrated to her consciousness. They had unearthed the family skeleton.
"_Louise!_" cried her husband as the old moth-eaten animal was dragged
from under her dainty lingerie. "What under _heaven_ does this mean?"
Another fainting spell was her only answer, and the one yellow glass eye
leered up at him, as if defying the whole Van Harlem pedigree.
A minute later a stream of saw-dust oozed out from the beast's body,
covering the piles of be-ribboned lace and linen, scattered all over the
velvet carpet. Then a limp, shapeless skin with its one yellow eye still
glaring, was kicked across the room. The Arizona cousin had no further
use for it. He had come into his inheritance.
He walked across the room and gave the moth-eaten skin another kick.
Then, with an oath, he handed his friend a slip of paper which he had
found inside. Written across it in faded purple ink were three
straggling lines. It was the formula for making the famous "Wiggan's
Wild-cat Liniment."
The Third Traveler
The Clown
Towards his Accolade
THE little man in motley, thrusting his face through the curtains of the
big circus tent, looked out on the gathering crowds and grinned. To him
that assemblage of gaping backwoods pioneers was a greater show than the
one he was travelling with, although the circus itself was a pioneer in
its way. It was the first that had ever travelled through the almost
unbroken forests of southern Indiana, and the fame of its performance at
Vincennes had spread to the Ohio long before the plodding oxen had drawn
the heavy lion cages half that distance. Such wild rumours of it had
found their way across the sparsely settled hills and hollows, that
families who had not been out of sight of their cabin chimneys in five
years or more were drawn irresistibly circusward.
Standing on a barrel, behind a hole in the canvas of the tent, the
little clown amused himself by watching the stream of arrivals. As far
as he could see, down the glaringly sunny road, rising clouds of dust
betokened the approach of a seemingly endless procession. The whole
county appeared to be flocking to the commons just outside of Burnville,
where the annual training in military tactics took place on "muster
days." People were coming by the wagon-load; nearly every horse carried
double, and one old nag ambled up with a row of boys astride her patient
back from neck to tail.
It was a hot afternoon in August, and a rank, almost overpowering odour
of dog-fennel rose from the dusty weeds trampled down around the tent.
The little clown was half stifled by the dust, the heat, and the smell,
and the perspiration trickled down his grotesquely painted face; but an
occasional impatient flapping of his handkerchief to clear away the dust
of a new arrival was all that betrayed his discomfort. He was absorbed
in the conversation of a little group who, seated on a log directly
under his peep-hole in the canvas, were patiently waiting for the
performance to begin.
"My motley can't hold a candle to theirs," he thought, with an amused
chuckle, as he surveyed them critically. "Judging by the cut of that
girl's old silk dress, it was a part of her grandmother's wedding
finery, and she probably spun the stuff for that sunbonnet herself. But
the man--Moses in the bulrushes! People back East wouldn't believe me if
I told them how he is togged out: tow trousers, broadcloth coat with
brass buttons, bare feet, and a coonskin cap, on this the hottest of all
the hot dog-days ever created!"
He wiped his face again after this inventory, and steadied himself on
the barrel. All unconscious of the audience they were entertaining, the
man and girl were retailing the neighbourhood news to a tired-looking
little woman, who sat on the log beside them, with a heavy baby in her
arms. Their broad Western speech was as unfamiliar as it was amusing to
their unseen listener. The barrel shook with his suppressed laughter, as
they repeated the rumours they had heard regarding the circus.
"Thar was six oxen to draw the lion cages," said the girl, fanning
herself with her sunbonnet. "Sam said them beasts roared to beat the
Dutch--two of 'em. And he says thar's a pock-marked Irishman as goes
around between acts with a nine-banded armadillo. Ef ye tech it, ye'll
never have the toothache no more. But thar's suthin better nor him. Sam
says he 'lows we'll jest all die a-laughin' when we see the clown. The
whole end of the State has gone wild over that air clown. Sam says they
make more fuss over him than they would over the President ef he was t'
come to this neck o' woods."
Here the auditor behind the scenes, with his hand on his heart, made
such a low bow that he lost his balance, and nearly upset the barrel.
"I reckon the elyfunt will be the biggest sight," drawled the man.
"That's what drawed me here. I ain't never seen even the picter of an
elyfunt, and they say this is the real live article from t'other side of
the world. They say it kin eat a cock of hay six foot high at one meal."
Here the baby stirred and fretted in the woman's arms, and she wearily
lifted it to an easier position against her shoulder.
"I wish Jim would hurry up," she sighed, wiping her hot face on a corner
of her homespun apron.
"He's over yander helpin' ole Mis' Potter put up her ginger-bread
stand," answered the girl, pointing to a large oak-tree on the edge of
the common. "I seen 'em when she first come a-drivin' up on that big
ox-sled, with a barrel of cider behind her. Law, I reckon she hain't
never missed bein' on hand to sell her cakes and cider here on
muster-days nary a time in ten years."
"'Tain't Mis' Potter," answered the older woman. "She's ben laid up with
rheumatiz nearly all summer. It's Boone Ratcliffe's mother and his
little William."
"You don't mean it!" exclaimed the girl, with eager interest, standing
up to get a better view. "Not ole 'Madam Ratcliffe,' as pap calls her!
I've ben honin' for a sight of her ever sence last spring, when I heerd
she'd come out from Maryland. I used to hear about her afore Boone
married M'randy. It was M'randy as told me about her. She said the ole
lady was so rich and so stuck up that she never even tied her own shoes.
They had slaves and land and money and everything that heart could wish,
and they didn't think that M'randy was good enough for their only son.
The letters they writ to Boone trying to head him off made M'randy so
mad that I didn't suppose she'd ever git over it."
"She didn't," answered the little woman, "and it was scant welcome they
got when they come. The letter they sent a month aforehand never got
here, so of course nobody knowed they was a-comin', and they wa'n't
nobody down to the Ohio River landin' to meet 'em. My Jim he happened to
be thar when they got off'n the flatboat. They was dreadful put out when
they didn't find Boone watchin' out for 'em, after comin' all the way
from Maryland. Goodness knows what 'ud become of 'em ef Jim hadn't
happened acrost 'em. The boat had gone on down the river and left 'em
settin' thar on shore amongst the bales and boxes, as helpless as two
kittens. Jim he seen 'em a-settin' thar, and bein' a soft-hearted chap
and knowin' suthin' was wrong, he up and spoke.
"They was so bewildered like, 'count of not finding Boone and everything
bein' so dif'runt from what they lotted on, that they was well-nigh
daft. The ole man had ben sick ever sence they left Pittsburg, and they
was both plum tuckered out with that long flatboat trip. Jim he jest
h'isted 'em into the wagon, big chest and all, and brought 'em on to
Burnville.
"He said 'twas plain to be seen they hadn't never been used to roughin'
it in any way. The ole gentleman was so sick he had to lean his head on
her shoulder all the way, and she kep' a-strokin' his white hair with
her fine soft fingers, and talkin' to him as if he'd ben a child. She
tried to chirk him up by tellin' him they'd soon be to Boone's home, and
talkin' 'bout when Boone was a little feller, tell Jim couldn't hardly
stand it, he's that soft-hearted.
"He knew all the time what a disapp'intment was in store when they
should set eyes on M'randy and the cabin, and find Boone growed to be so
rough and common. It was dark when they got thar. Boone hadn't got home
yit, and thar wa'n't a sign of a light about the place. So Jim lef' the
ole folks setting in the wagon, and went in to break the news to
M'randy, knowin' what a high-tempered piece she is at times. He said she
was settin' on the doorstep in her bare feet and dirty ole
linsey-woolsey dress, jawin' little William. She'd ben a-makin' soap all
day, and was dead tired.
"When Jim tole her what 'twas, the surprise seemed to strike her all of
a heap. She never made a move to git up, and as soon as she could git
her breath she begun to splutter like blue blazes. She said some folks
had more burdens laid onto their shoulders than by rights was their
share, and she couldn't see what made them ole people come trackin' out
where they was neither wanted nor expected. She hadn't no airthly use
for that stuck-up ole Mis' Ratcliffe, if she was Boone's mother. Oh, she
jest talked up scan'lous.
"Jim he was afraid they would hear her clear out in the road, so he kep'
tryin' to smooth her down, and then he went out and tried to smooth
things over to the ole people. By the time they'd climbed out'n the
wagon and walked up the path, William had lit a candle, and she was
holdin' it over her head in the doorway. The way Jim tole it I could
jest see how they stood lookin' at each other, like as they was takin'
their measures. Jim said they both seemed to see the difference, M'randy
so frowsy and common-lookin', for all her prettiness, and the ole lady
so fine and aristocratic in her elegant dress and bunnit. He said he'd
never fergit how white and tired-lookin' their old faces showed up in
the candle-light, and sort of disapp'inted, too, over the welcome they'd
ben expectin' and didn't git.
"M'randy didn't even offer to shake hands. After she'd stared a minute
she said, sorter stiff-like, 'Well, I s'pose you may as well come on
in.' Jim says there was tears in the ole lady's eyes when she follered
M'randy into the cabin, but she wiped 'em away real quick, and spoke up
cheerful to ole Mr. Ratcliffe.
"The room was in such a muss there wa'n't an empty chair to set on tell
M'randy jerked the things off two of'm and kicked the stuff out of sight
under the bed. Then she dusted 'em with her apron, and said in a
long-sufferin' sort of tone that she reckoned 'twas about as cheap
settin' as standin'.
"Ole Mis' Ratcliffe tried to apologize fer comin'. She said that their
daughter back in Maryland tried to keep 'em from it, but that Boone
couldn't come to them, and it had been ten years since he had left home,
and they felt they must see him once more before they died. Jim said it
was so pitiful the way she talked that he got all worked up."
"Why didn't they turn right around and go home the next day?" cried the
girl, with flashing eyes. "That's M'randy all over again when she once
gits her temper up, but people as rich as them don't have to put up with
nobody's high and mighty ways."
"They are not rich any more," was the answer. "A few years ago they lost
all they had, slaves, land, and everything, and their married daughter
in Baltimore is takin' care of 'em. She was sure they wouldn't find it
agreeable out here, so she provided the money for 'em to come back on;
but the ole man lost his wallet comin' down on that flatboat, and they
don't feel as they could write back and ask her for more. She's good to
'em as can be, but she hasn't got any more than she needs, and they hate
to ask for it. That's why the ole lady is here to-day, takin' Mis'
Potter's place. Boone persuaded her to come, and tole her if she could
make as much as Mis' Potter always does, it will be enough to pay their
way back to Maryland. He helped her get ready. I don't know what he said
to M'randy to make her stand aside and not interfere, but she made up
the ginger-bread as meek as Moses, and let Jim roll the barrel of cider
out of the smoke-house without a word."
"Why don't Boone scratch around and raise the money somehow?" put in the
man, who had chewed in interested silence as he listened to the story.
Now he stopped to bite another mouthful from a big twist of tobacco he
took from his broadcloth coat pocket.
"'Pears like their only son is the one that ought to do fer 'em, and at
least he could make M'randy shut up and treat his parents civil."
"Boone!" sniffed the woman. "Why, he's under M'randy's thumb so tight
that he dassent sneeze if she don't take snuff. Besides, he's ben on the
flat of his back off and on all summer, with dumb ague. It's run into a
slow fever now, and it takes every picayune they can scrape together to
git his medicines. Then, too, M'randy sprained her ankle a month or so
back, and things have been awful sence then. The ole man he don't
realize he is in the way, he's so childish and broken down. He jest
sorter droops around, pinin' for the comforts he's always ben used to,
in a way that almost breaks his ole wife's heart. She feels it keen
enough for both of 'em, because she can't bear to see him lackin'
anything he needs, and she'd rather die than be a burden to anybody.
"I tell Jim I'm sorry for the whole set, and I can see it isn't the
pleasantest thing for M'randy to give up a room to them when thar's only
two in the cabin, and her ways ain't their ways, and their bein' thar
puts everything out of joint; but Jim he sides with the ole people. He's
mighty sorry for 'em, and would have put his hand in his own pocket and
paid their expenses long ago back to Maryland, ef he'd a-ben able. He's
ben a great comfort to the ole lady, he's jest that soft-hearted. I hope
she'll sell out as fast as Mis' Potter always done."
Before the girl could echo her wish, there was a discordant scraping
inside the tent, a sound of the band beginning to tune their
instruments. Instantly there was a rush toward the tent, and all three
of the little group sprang to their feet. The little woman looked wildly
around for Jim, with such an anxious expression that the clown lingered
a moment, regardless of the stream of people pouring into the entrance
so near him that the curtain which screened him from public view was
nearly torn down. He waited until he saw a burly, good-natured man push
his way through the crowds and transfer the heavy baby from the woman's
tired arms to his broad shoulder. Then he turned away with a queer
little smile on his painted face.
"He's jest that soft-hearted," he repeated, half under his breath. The
woman's story had stirred him strangely. "It's a pity there's not more
like him," he continued. "I guess that too few Jims and too many
M'randys is what is the matter with this dizzy old planet."
"What's that ye're grumbling about, Humpty Dumpty?" asked the
pock-marked Irishman as he came up with his nine-banded armadillo, all
ready for the performance. Then in his most professional tones: "If it
is the toothache yez have now, I'll be afther curing it entoirely wid
wan touch of this baste from----"
"Oh, get out!" exclaimed the clown, putting his hand on the tall
Irishman's shoulder and springing lightly down from the barrel. "I'm
dead sick of all this monkey business. If it wasn't a matter of
bread-and-butter I wouldn't laugh again in a year."
"Ye couldn't make anybody out there in that big aujence belave it,"
laughed the Irishman. "They think yer life is wan perpetooal joke; that
ye're a joke yerself for that matther, a two-legged wan, done up in cap
and bells."
"You're right," said the clown bitterly, looking askance at his striped
legs. "But 'a man's a man for a' that and a' that,' and he gets tired
sometimes of always being taken for a jesting fool. Curse this livery!"
The Irishman looked at him shrewdly. "Ye should have gone in for a
'varsity cap and gown, and Oi've been thinking that maybe ye did start
out that way."
A dull red glowed under the paint on the clown's face, and he ran into
the ring in response to the signal without a reply. A thundering round
of applause greeted him, which broke out again as he glanced all around
with a purposely silly leer. Then he caught sight of Jim's honest face,
smiling expectantly on him from one of the front benches. It struck him
like a pain that this man could not look through his disguise of tawdry
circus trappings, and see that a man's heart was beating under the
clown's motley. There came a sudden fierce longing to tear off his
outward character of mountebank, for a moment, and show Jim the stifled
nature underneath, noble enough to recognize the tender chivalry hidden
in the rough exterior of the awkward backwoodsman, and to be claimed by
him as a kindred spirit.
As he laughed and danced and sang, no one dreamed that his thoughts kept
reverting to scenes that the woman's story had called up, or that a plan
was slowly shaping in his mind whereby he might serve the homesick old
soul waiting out under the oak-tree for the performance to be done.
No wonder that people accustomed to seeing old Mrs. Potter in that
place, gowned in homespun, and knitting a coarse yarn sock, had stopped
to stare at the newcomer. Such a type of high-born, perfect ladyhood had
never appeared in their midst before. The dress that she wore was a
relic of the old Maryland days; so was the lace cap that rested like a
bit of rare frost-work on her silvery hair. Mrs. Potter knew everybody
for miles around, and was ready to laugh and joke with any one who
stopped at her stand. Mrs. Ratcliffe sat in dignified silence, a faint
colour deepening in her cheeks like the blush of a winter rose. It was
so much worse than she had anticipated to have these rude strangers
staring at her, as if she were a part of the show. She breathed a sigh
of relief when the music began, for it drew the crowds into the tent as
if by magic. She and little William were left entirely alone.
With the strident boom of the bass viol came the rank smell of the
dog-fennel that hurrying feet had left bruised and wilting in the sun.
All the rest of her life, that warm, weedy odour always brought back
that humiliating experience like a keen pain. The horses in the
surrounding grove stamped restlessly and whinnied as they switched off
the flies. The long ride and the unaccustomed labour of the morning had
exhausted her. She began to nod in her chair, giving herself up to a
sense of drowsiness, for as long as the people were in the tent she
would have no occupation.
Her white head dropped lower and lower, until presently she was
oblivious to all surroundings. Little William, sitting on the old
wood-sled with his back against the cider barrel, was forgotten. M'randy
and the ill-kept cabin vanished entirely from her memory. She was back
in the old Maryland days on her father's plantation, hedged about with
loving forethought, as tenderly sheltered as some delicate white flower.
Every path had been made smooth for her, every wish anticipated all her
life long, until that day when they had set their faces westward to find
Boone. It was coming down the Ohio on that long journey by flatboat that
she suddenly woke to the knowledge that her husband's illness had left
him a broken-down old man, as weak and irresponsible as a child.