|A FEW days later Hoag was walking home from his cotton-gin. It was near
noon. It had been cool and cloudy all the morning, and the humid air was
laden with a hovering mist which at every moment seemed about to resolve
itself into rain. Suddenly, in a thicket at the side of the road, he saw
a man with his back toward him. The gaunt form resembled Sid Trawley's,
yet the queer antics of the hatless figure belied such an association,
for it was bending down and rising up with inexplicable regularity.
Hoag paused and watched in growing wonder. It was plain that the man's
contortions were not due to the lifting of any tool, for every few
seconds a pair of bare, splaying hands would rise above the head, clutch
at the air, and slowly descend.
“What the hell ails 'im?” Hoag asked himself, and turning into the
thicket he approached the animated automaton. It was Trawley. On seeing
Hoag he flushed deeply, dropped his gaze awkwardly to the ground, and
stood silent, though smiling in a sheepish way.
“Look here, are you gone plumb distracted?” Hoag demanded, as he stood
eying his old associate from head to foot.
“I reckon you might call it that,” Trawley answered, raising his arms
above his head and inhaling a deep breath. “A heap o' things look plumb
foolish if you ain't onto the scientific explanation.”
“Well,” Hoag tittered, “I can't see no sense in a big strappin' feller
like you actin' like a jumpin'-jack pullin' it's own string away out
here in the woods all by yourself.”
Trawley threw back his broad shoulders, took a shorter breath, and
answered: “I railly didn't intend to be seen, Jim, much less by you, who
never would believe nothin' outside o' your own hide. I've been doin'
this thing for a month or more.”
“You say you have!” Hoag exhibited one of his rare tendencies toward a
smile. “I see whar you've pawed up the grass considerable. It looks like
the ground round the hitchin'-post of a prize stallion.”
“I reckon I _have_ come here as much as anywhar else.” The liveryman
comically surveyed the spot in question. “I git the walk out, an' I like
to operate in the same spot. I can time myself, you see. I give a' hour
to it twice a day--momin' an evenin'.”
“You say you do!” Hoag's smile broke broadly. “Workin' for yourself or
hired out?”
“I knowed you'd joke,” Trawley said, half abashed, “but no joke o'
your'n, Jim Hoag, will turn me from a thing as good as this is. I've
been led by your sort long enough. Thar are things in heaven an' earth,
Jimmy, that you never even saw the tail-end of, much less the head an'
shoulders. I know, for I'm just beginnin' to catch onto a powerful big
thing.”
“The last time I saw you,” Hoag said, with a smile, “you swore you was
goin' to lie flat down an' die.”
“Yes, that's it; I did say it, an' I was as sure of it as I am that you
are a-standin' thar pokin' fun right now. Jim, I was on the actual edge
o' hell. I could see the smoke, smell the fumes, an' hear the smashin'
o' teeth, mentioned in Scripture. You used to see me at work in the
stable, but you never seed me after the sun went down an' the night
piled thick and heavy around me. I was crazy. I expected to die right
off, an' the trouble was that I wasn't ready. Then what do you reckon
happened?”
“I was just wonderin'.” Hoag really was interested, and he stood staring
seriously, all traces of humor submerged in curiosity.
“Well, I was at my lowest ebb one day. The doctor had examined me ag'in
an' said I had no stomach that would hold a bite I ate, an' no relish
for a thing, even soft _baby_ truck. I was losin' weight as fast as a
dump-cart o' manure with a plank gone from the bottom, an' I went to the
stable an' set down to try to reconcile myself to the fate that all men
has to meet sooner or later, but I couldn't. The more I thought about it
the worse I got. Jim, in that little hour thar in my office, humped over
my desk, I attended over ag'in every funeral I ever went to, an', more'n
that, I seed every pore cuss our gang ever lynched a-hangin' from the
rafters above the backs o' my hosses an' mules. I'd 'a' killed myself,
but I knowed I'd just be hurried to judgment all the quicker, an' thar I
was actually wallowin' in my despair. Then a miracle happened.”
“Oh, it _did?_ I thought that might be a-comin',” Hoag sneered, “for you
wasn't wallowin' in anything like that when I catched you a minute ago.”
“You'll say I'm a big fool,” Trawley went on, with the glow of a mild
fanatic in his eyes; “but I don't give a damn. The proof of the puddin'
is chawin' the rag, I've always heard. Right at my worst minute, who
should walk in an' set down for a chat except Paul Rundel? I always
liked that boy, an' when he come home to give 'imself up like he did I
was one that believed he meant what he said. I'm convinced of it now,
because he's livin' up to his doctrine. Well, one thing fetched on
another as me'n him talked, till somehow I got to tellin' him how low
I was an' what the doctor said. I thought he'd be sorry for me, but he
shuck his head an' actually laughed. He tuck my wrist, he did, an' felt
my pulse, an' then he peeled my eyes back an' looked at the balls, an'
made me show him my tongue; then he slapped me on the knee--careless
like--an' laughed free an' hearty.
“'Thar ain't nothin' much the matter with you, Sid,' he said. I know,
because I've run across lots an' lots o' cases like your'n.' Then he
plunged into the sensiblest talk--well, Cap--Jim, I mean--'scuse me,
I never heard anything to equal it in all my born days. It was like a
rousin' sermon preached by a jolly base-ball player, or a feller that
just got the meat out of religion an' throwed the gristle to the dogs.
Why, he told me that what ailed me couldn't be reached by any dose o'
medicine that ever slid down a throat. He said he'd bet his hat that
I had some'n on my mind that ought to be unloaded. I sort o' shied off
thar, but he went into all his own trouble over that shootin'-scrape in
such a free an' open way that I--”
“You didn't--you didn't violate your oath to--” Hoag started, and his
shaggy brows met suspiciously.
“No, an' I didn't have to. He said--Paul said--totin' sin that was
behind you an' ought to be forgot was as rank a poison to some systems
as any virus that ever crawled through the blood, an' I admitted that I
was bothered by some things I'd done that I didn't want to talk about.
But, oh my! how good that boy made me feel! He said if I would just quit
thinkin' about my stomach an' what went into it, an' keep my mind
full o' pure thoughts, determine to act right in the future, an' take
exercise in the open air, that I'd git as sound as a dollar right off.”
“Oh, I see.” Hoag smiled more easily. “An' you took his advice. Well, he
ain't so far wrong. Believin' you are done for is powerful weakenin'. I
seed a bedrid old hag once jump out o' bed when somebody yelled that a
mad dog was headed toward her cabin. She broke out with nothin' on but
a shift an' one stockin' an' run half a mile, waded through a creek, an'
climbed a ten-rail fence to git to a neighbor's house, an' after that
she was hale an' hearty.”
“It's a sight deeper science than that when you work it accordin' to
up-to-date rules an' regulations,” Trawley blandly explained. “The
furder you advance in it the more you seem to lay hold of. You seed
me bendin' up an' down just now. Exercise like that, 'long with deep
breathin', an' the idea that you are, so to speak, pullin' good thoughts
an' intentions into you along with the wind, will do more than ten
wholesale drug-stores. I know, for I am actually a new man, from toe
to scalp. I don't eat nothin' now but ham. Look at my muscles.” Trawley
exhibited an arm tightly contracted and smiled proudly. “Why, I was
ready for my windin'-sheet an' the coolin'-board. If I had to give up my
stable, an' every hoss an' rig I have, or let go of this idea, I'd do it
an' work like a nigger in a ditch for bare bread an' water. Paul calls
it 'the Science of Life,' an' he's right. In our talk that day he said
that it would be well to try, as far as I could, to undo any wrong I'd
ever done, an' soon after that I saw Pete Watson's widow passin' the
stable. I'll swear she did look pitiful in her old raggety shoes with
the toes out, totterin' along with her kinky head down. Well, I called
'er in an' had a talk--”
“An' give us all dead away!” Hoag flashed in renewed fear.
“No, I didn't. She was in a powerful bad fix, an' I let 'er have a few
dollars an' told 'er to look me up any time she was rail bad off. Lordy!
the sight o' that old thing's face did me good for a week. I'm goin' to
hire one o' her sons to work in the stable. I reckon I'd be a freer man
if I wasn't sorter obligated to you boys; but I tell you now, Jim, I'm
goin' to drag my skirts away from you all as much as possible. All that
secret-order business an' followin' your lead got me down. Paul says,
in all the places he's been at, he never has seed as bad a condition
of affairs as we got right here. He says--an' I don't know whether he
suspicioned that I was implicated or not--but he says that all that
night-prowlin', an' scarin' half-witted niggers an' stringin' 'em up
to limbs, won't settle our trouble. He says that we've got to be gentle
with the blacks an' train 'em. He says the old slaveholders was kind
to 'em, an' that's why no outrages was ever heard of before slavery was
abolished, an' he says treatin' the niggers decent now will--”
“He's a fool!” Hoag growled, angrily. “He's gone off an' lived among
a lot o' Yankees who think niggers are a grade better'n us white folks
down here. They don't know nigger-nature, an' _he_ don't, neither, but
I'll tell you one thing: he'd better keep his mouth shet, an' you--you
can quit us if you want to, but you'd better not make too many brags
about it.”
“I'm not braggin' _now_,” Trawley retorted. “A feller can't well brag
about what he is ashamed of, an' Jim, I'm heartily ashamed of all that
business. Lord, Lord! you called me 'Lieutenant', an' I remember how
proud I was of the title the night you give it to me an' the boys all
cheered. 'Lieutenant!' I say, '_Lieutenant!_' I hope to git to Heaven
some day or other, an' wouldn't I love to hear 'em call me that up thar
among the Blest, an' ax how I had got my promotion?”
“I see through you, Sid.” Hoag was nettled, and yet trying to speak in a
tone of unconcern, which in part was natural. “Thar's more'n one way o'
showin' the white feather. You was all right as long as you felt well
an' strong, but the minute you begun to think about dyin' you went all
to pieces. That's how every little jack-leg preacher makes his salary,
by scarin' your sort out o' their socks.”
“You are away off your base.” Trawley stretched himself, raised his
arms, after the manner of his health exercise, lowered them to his
sides, and smiled confidently. “Paul Rundel ain't no jack-leg preacher,
presidin' elder, or bishop. He's movin' along mixin' business with joy
as smooth as deep water headed for the ocean. He don't charge a cent; in
fact, when he talks it looks like he does it because he can't hold in.
He says religion don't mean givin' up the good things of the flesh or
the spirit; he says it just means knowin' how to live, an'--_livin'_.
Why, look at your son Henry.”
“What's he done now?” Hoag's eyes flickered ominously, as they bent upon
Trawley's impassioned countenance.
“Why, nothin', except he's workin' like a wheel-hoss an' Paul started
'im by a few straight talks on the right line an' havin' faith in 'im.
Jim Hoag, I've set in to live right, an' I'm goin' to keep it up.”
“Lemme tell you some'n, Sid,” Hoag returned, dryly. “I've noticed that
whenever a man is plumb played out--cayn't hold his own among men,
loses his little pile, is hopelessly disgraced, or somebody dies that he
thinks he has to keep--why, he goes daft about the wings he's goin' to
wear an' the harp he's to play in a land flowin' with milk an' honey.
Since the world begun to roll, not a word has come back from the
spider-web place they all talk about, an' the feller that believes in
it is simply dyin' of the dry-rot. All that a human bein' will ever git
he'll git here on this globe. I've made what I've got by hard licks,
common sense, an' paddlin' my own boat. A feller that sees a lot o'
jimjam visions ahead never will buck down to real life here, an' he'll
never lay up a dollar or own a foot of land. Wise men knowed all this
long before Jesus Christ come teachin' that the only way to accumulate
was to give away all you git, make a two-sided foot-mat o' your face,
an' associate with fishermen that want to learn how to walk on the
water.”
“Say, say, Jim, that's purty tough!” Trawley protested. But with a smile
of conscious victory Hoag was starting away.
“Take some more deep breaths,” he chuckled over his shoulder, “an' while
you are drawin' in truth suck down what I've just said. I kin _prove_
what I'm talkin' about, but you can't prove that any sane man ever
_dreamt_ the stuff you are tryin' to believe.”
Trawley stood still on the spot he had rendered grassless by his modern
devotions, and stared after the receding form. “I'll bet it will take me
a week to git away from that durn fellow's influence,” he muttered. “He
believes what he says, an' lives up--or _down_, rather--to his doctrine,
but he's kept me crooked long enough. He was my god once, with all his
power an' money, but he ain't no longer. I said a week--shucks! I'm free
already. That sky up thar's mine, or will be if I keep on, an' it's
got no fence around it nuther.” Trawley inhaled a deep breath, bent
downward, slowly raised himself, and with a light step started home.
“I've got a sight better thing than he has,” he continued to think of
Hoag, “but it wouldn't be right to gloat over 'im. The idea is to wish
well to _all_--his sort along with the rest.”