covered a noble head; his nose was large and curved in bold lines
indicating strength; his face was closely shaven and rather inclined
to pallor. He had eyes that seemed to pierce the person upon whom
they rested, and when he used his feet to stand upon, instead of
devoting them to purely ornamental purposes, as at present, his figure
appeared tall and slender and comely. Those who did not know the
General imagined, when they saw him in the Capitol, that he was some
distinguished statesman upon whom rested the weight of a nation’s
business. Those who knew him, on the contrary, were aware that he was
a man of no education, no skill in higher politics, and no principles
worth mentioning. He had begun life as a mule-driver on the plains,
but one day he contrived to obtain a contract for supplying a certain
Indian agency with cattle. The Government paid him for fat steers, and
he furnished the oldest and leanest cows he could find west of the
Mississippi, and when they were weighed in pairs, he and his drover
stood on the scale each time so as to bring the aggregate weight up to
a comfortable figure. He made a small fortune at this business, and
then he bought his way into the Legislature, and subsequently into
Congress, his purpose being not so much to give his suffering country
the benefit of his skill as a legislator, as to open for himself
larger opportunities to acquire wealth at his country’s expense. He
had succeeded in several enterprises of the kind which had engaged
his attention since he came to Washington, and now he was devoting
attention to his great scheme for seizing the Pottawatomie Reservation
as a matter of retributive justice to its savage owners. As he sat in
his room, thinking upon the subject, he heard a knock at the door.
“Come in!” said the General.
Achilles Smith entered.
“Hello, Kill!” said the General, still keeping his feet upon the table.
“Take a chair.”
Mr. Smith sat down.
“What’ll you have?” asked the General.
“Cocktail.”
“Mix one.”
Mr. Smith prepared the beverage, placed himself swiftly outside of it,
elevated his feet until they rested close to those of the General, and
said,--
“Well, how does the old thing work?”
“Oh, pretty well! tolerable! The Committee have promised to consider
your case to-morrow, and I want you to be on hand, ready to tell your
story. You’ve got it straight, I reckon?”
“Yes, I know it by heart.”
“Let’s see. Your theory is that you were scalped by a Pottawatomie
Indian in 1862. Now, where is that scalp?”
“In my trunk. Between ourselves, you know, I bought it of an Indian in
Laramie year before last.”
“Very well. Now, what is the name of the Indian who scalped you?”
“Jumping Antelope, a chief.”
“Under what circumstances?”
“I was trying to convert him by reading the Scriptures to him.”
“See here, Kill, isn’t that a little thin? He couldn’t understand the
language, you know. I’m afraid that won’t wash.”
“I translated it as I went along.”
“S’pos’n’ the Committee ask you to prove that you know the language?”
“I’ll get off some gibberish, and you can assure them that you
recognize it as pure Pottawatomie.”
“Very well. Now, what particular part of the--the--Scriptures were you
reading to him?”
“I dunno. Let’s see; what are some of the books?”
“Don’t ask me; I’m not very well posted. We used to have a Bible out
in the Kansas Legislature, to swear members on, but they always kept a
string tied around it, and after it was stolen a rumor got around that
the clerk swore a whole House of Representatives in on Kidderminster’s
Digest of the State Laws.”
“Jonah’s the only book I recall very distinctly now.”
“That’ll do, if you can remember something in it. I connect it
indistinctly with reminiscences of a whale.”
“Yes. Well, I was trying to convert that Indian by reading to him about
Jonah and the whale, when he rose up suddenly and began fumbling about
my hair with a carving-knife.”
“The Committee may go into detail. Now, why did he do this? Is the
narrative calculated in any way to excite the nervous system of an
untutored child of the forest?”
“No-no-no!”
“Nothing in it about depriving persons of their hair? Don’t say Jonah
was scalped, hey?”
“No.”
“Did your assailant accompany the act with any conversation?”
“He merely remarked ‘How!’ and I thought I caught some rather
indistinct reference to the Happy Hunting Grounds; but I’ll only swear
to ‘How.’”
“‘How!’ They always say that. It indicates almost anything, from
ferocious animosity to a desire to borrow plug tobacco. Then he took
your hair, did he?”
“Sawed it right out, and would have murdered me if I had not fled.”
“You dropped the Bible when you ran?”
“Yes, after snatching my scalp from his hand.”
“Well, Kill, I think maybe that yarn’ll pass. It’s not first-rate, but
there are three men in the Committee who want my vote for claims of
theirs, and I have an idea they’ll back us through thick and thin. My
boy, don’t call me a prophet if we don’t snatch that Reservation before
the session’s out. It looks to me like a sure thing.”
“I’d like to be as sure of something else I’m after,” said Smith,
rather sadly.
“What’s that?”
“The M’Duffy girl.”
“You shall have her, Kill, you shall have her. The old lady has
promised me, positively.”
“I thought so myself at first, but there is another man in the way
now.”
“Who is he?”
“Oh, a one-legged army man. She’s taken a fancy to him, her mother
tells me. He has a leg up here in the Medical Museum, and she fell
in love with that first and it spread to the rest of him afterwards,
gradually.”
“That’s original, anyhow.”
“Wants to paint that preserved leg in her picture. Going to dovetail it
on to Washington. If he can get the leg out of the Museum she promises
to marry him.”
“Well, _I’ll_ put a stop to _that_. I’ll introduce a bill forfeiting to
the Government for ever all the odd legs in the Museum. Kill, you mind
what I tell you, and Pandora shall make _you_ her model instead of this
military ruin who is sparking her.”
“I’d like to feel certain of that.”
“You may; depend on me. A man with my war record needn’t fear to offer
himself to any--what is this fellow? Major, hey?--Well, I’ll risk
offending any major in the service.”
“I didn’t know you had any war record.”
“Ain’t I a General?”
“Oh, I know, but you can’t throw a brick in the street without mowing
down a couple of Generals--peace men from principle.”
“But I have seen war, my boy! I was in the army, only as a Captain, I
admit. But I smelt powder. Kill, I was distinguished for one thing:
other officers always lost their men, but I never had a fight that I
didn’t bring out one-third more men than I took in.”
“You ought to have been promoted. Was it your war record that took you
to Congress?”
“No, sir; it was brains--pure intellect--that did that. You know my
district? Not a railroad in it. Not enough business to pay for the
grease on the engines if there was a railroad. Of course, under such
circumstances, the one thing all the people want worse than anything
else is a railroad. People always want what they can’t get.”
“Of course.”
“So as soon as I was nominated I hired four hundred men, divided them
into squads, fitted them out with rods and chains and theodolites and
other surveying apparatus, and started them all over the district,
pretending to run lines. A squad would burst into a man’s potato-patch
and go to work. The owner would rush out and say, ‘What in thunder you
fellows a-doin’ in that potato-patch?’ And they’d say, ‘We’re surveying
the route for old Belcher’s railroad.’ Then the man would fly into
the house and tell his wife that Belcher was going to run a railroad
through his property, and they’d go wild with joy. Kill, I carried
that district by fifteen hundred majority over a man who under other
circumstances would have beaten me out of my boots.”
“That was genius, sir! nothing but pure genius.”
“I think so; genius for statesmanship; not such statesmanship as they
have in the played-out despotisms of Europe, but the kind that is
needed in a new country.”
“I say, Belcher, how would it do for you and me to go around and call
on old Mrs. M’Duffy? I’ve a notion to go.”
“I’m willing. Maybe we can settle the case of that dilapidated Major.”
Mrs. M’Duffy was at home when the General and Mr. Smith called, and she
received them with much cordiality.
The conversation naturally turned at an early moment to the subject of
Smith’s claim.
“By the way, Mr. Smith,” said Mrs. M’Duffy, “your claim rests, I think
you said, upon the fact that you were scalped? Your head has not that
appearance.”
“Oh, no! You see, madam, that in the lapse of years the wound has
healed; a new scalp has gradually formed, so that now I appear to be
merely bald. I have the original scalp at home in my trunk.”
“How very interesting. Were you ever scalped, General?”
“No, ma’am, never. My custom has been to take scalps, not to lose them.”
“The General is an old Indian fighter,” observed Achilles.
“I was not aware of the fact,” said Mrs. M’Duffy. “You are familiar
therefore with the plains. Did you ever visit the Pottawatomie
Reservation--Mr. Smith’s prospective property?”
“Frequently, ma’am. It’s the handsomest tract of ground east of the
Rocky Mountains.”
“You propose to live on it, when you get it, do you not, Mr. Smith?”
“On part of it. Half goes to the General; then I shall reserve 5000
acres for myself and dispose of the remainder to settlers. If I am
successful in my suit with your daughter I shall build a house in the
centre of my 5000 acres, and we will live there. We shall have plenty
of elbow-room. She can paint pictures as big as all out-of-doors, and
bigger.”
“Pandora is _so_ fond of the open country.”
“Yes, madam, she can get half a dozen squaws to do her housework, so
that she can have all her time to herself. I am going to arrange it so
that she can shoot grizzly bears from the parlor window, if she wants
to; and as for wardrobe!--well, I intend to buy all our clothes in New
York, and they’ll be of a kind that’ll cause every woman on the old
Pottawatomie Reservation to turn green with envy.”
“Pandora ought to appreciate your kindness,” said Mrs. M’Duffy; “but
she is a strange girl, and, I fear, thinks more of her art than of the
matters that commonly engage a young girl’s attention.”
“By the way, ma’am, how is the great picture coming on?”
“Slowly. Pandora made the handle of the hatchet more than twice as
thick as the tree, and she had to alter it. A connoisseur, a friend
of hers, also pointed out to her that in fore-shortening Washington’s
right leg she had made his foot appear to be resting upon a mountain
upon the other side of the river. Corrections of this kind require
time.”
“She must hurry up, ma’am; she must hurry up,” said the General; “I
have everything fixed to obtain the consent of Congress to its purchase
by the Government. I am going to press the resolution as soon as I hear
that she has accepted Smith.”
“You are _too_ kind. Do you think it is likely to be favorably
received? Mrs. Easby told me yesterday that Judge Cudderbury said that
if George Washington could have foreseen Pandora’s picture he would
have had incorporated into the Constitution of the United States a
section making it a felony to represent him as within a thousand miles
of a cherry-tree. But then the judge, you know, has a daughter who
professes to be an artist.”
“Jealousy, ma’am! sheer jealousy. The judge knows no more about art,
anyhow, than a Colorado mule knows about the sidereal system. Now, _my_
opinion, Mrs. M’Duffy, is, that old Michael-what’s-his-name, over
there in Rome, couldn’t hold a candle to your daughter in the matter of
covering canvas.”
As the General was speaking, the door opened, and Pandora entered. She
spoke politely, but coldly, to the visitors, and after the passage of a
few remarks about the condition of the weather, the General withdrew,
Mrs. M’Duffy followed him to the hall to bid him adieu, and Mr. Smith
remained with Pandora.
It occurred to Achilles that if Mrs. M’Duffy should happen to fail to
return this would be an uncommonly good opportunity to speak of the
state of his feelings. The thought pleased him, but it gave him some
embarrassment.
“Miss Pandora,” he said, “I am glad to hear that you are succeeding so
nicely with your picture.”
“Thank you; it _is_ making some progress. I have been delayed by a few
trifling alterations.”
“Is the central figure completed yet?”
“Not quite finished. I did not feel sure about the left leg, and I
shall make some studies before I paint it in.”
“If you have any difficulty with that portion of the figure, why not
omit it? Put in a bush, or a stone, or the trunk of a fallen tree, so
as to hide the leg. Congress will accept it all the same.”
“Art scorns such devices. And, besides, it would be rather too
ridiculous to represent Washington standing astride of a log while he
is cutting down a cherry-tree.”
“True! true! That did not occur to me. What you really want is a good
model. I think I could recommend one.”
“I have one already, thank you.”
“Indeed! A plaster of Paris one?”
“No; a real one.”
“A real one?”
“The property of a friend of mine; a gentleman.”
“On or off?”
“Off.”
“Humph! That seems to me--a--a--rather a queer offering to a lady.”
“Do you think so?”
“I am a plain man, not used to flattering women, but if I wished to
express my regard for a lady I would offer her my heart instead of my
leg.”
“It would be dreadful if the lady happened not to want any portion of
you, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes; but suppose I should offer her the Pottawatomie Reservation
besides, do you think she would refuse?”
“You had better undertake the investigation yourself. How can I know?”
“I _will_ undertake it now. I offer my heart to _you_! I offer the
Reservation also. I love you, Pandora. Oh, how I love you! Will you be
my wife?”
“Mr. Smith, it is impossible.”
“No, not impossible, Pandora. Not impossible. Do not say that; it
will kill me. Listen! Have you ever dreamed of a home upon the wide
and boundless prairie? A sweet little home, two stories and an attic,
painted white with green shutters, where you can see eighteen miles
in a straight line, where two hundred acres in potatoes lie beneath
your very window, and where you can hunt the bounding buffalo and the
prairie-hen without going off the estate; and where copper-colored
servant girls can be had for two dollars a month and found? Have you
ever dreamed of such a home?”
“Never.”
“It is to it I would bear you as my bride. Come with me! Be mine! I
cannot offer you the enervating luxuries of the depraved and decaying
East, but together we can feast upon jerked beef and buffalo tongues;
together we can drink draughts from the Artesian well in the cellar;
together we will sit beneath the tree by the front door, the only
one within twenty-seven miles, and together we can watch the dog
chasing the jackass-rabbits across the sage brush. Be mine, and I will
stock the pantry with rations from the nearest Indian agency, where
I have a friend; I will buy you a suave and gentle mule for you to
exercise yourself on, and you may have canvas enough to paint General
Washingtons and Lord Cornwallises as high as church steeples, and I
will guarantee that Congress shall bid them in as fast as you turn them
out. Will you, Pandora? Do you like the promise? Oh, say that you love
me!”
“Mr. Smith, I cannot. I am very sorry, but to tell the truth plainly, I
am engaged to another gentleman.”
“To Dunwoody?”
“I did not mention his name, sir.”
“But I know him! A one-legged Major! And you refuse me for him?”
“I refuse you; that is enough.”
“Oh, very well, Miss M’Duffy. I understand you. I will bid you a
very good evening. I hope you will not have occasion to regret your
decision.”
“Certainly I shall not! Good evening, sir!”
As Achilles passed out through the hall he encountered Major Dunwoody,
who was just placing his hat upon the rack. Achilles looked back at
him for a second, scowling with rage and mortification, and then as he
rushed into the open air, he said to himself,--
“Never mind, you hopping, mud-headed, military humbug. I’ll settle
_your_ case before you’re many days older.”
And then Mr. Smith went home to bed.
Pandora greeted the Major with a joyful smile.
“Darling,” said the Major, “who was that person I passed in the hall as
I came in?”
“That was Achilles Smith, the man of whom I told you. He proposed to me
a few moments before you came in.”
“He did, did he?” exclaimed the Major savagely. “I wish I had known it.
I would have kicked him down the steps.”
“But how could you, dearest, with only one leg?”
“True!” said the Major. “But I could have thrashed him with my cane. So
he wants to marry you, does he?”
“Yes, and mother thinks I ought to accept him.”
“And you have firmly made up your mind to marry me?” asked the Major,
fondly.
“Yes, dear,” said Pandora, with a roguish smile, “but only when you
have succeeded in getting for me your disconnected leg. You will try to
get it for me soon, Henry, won’t you?”
“I am trying now, my sweet. Colonel Dabney, of the Maine delegation,
has already introduced to the House of Representatives a bill
appropriating my leg to me.”
“How splendid!”
“And he says it will pass promptly, so that I can obtain the leg within
less than two months. We’ll be married right off then, won’t we?”
“At once. But I’m afraid, Henry, Mr. Smith and General Belcher will
oppose Colonel Dabney’s bill if they hear of it.”
“I’ll brain both of them if they do,” said the Major. “No, I won’t
brain Smith; he has no brains. And now, Pandora, darling, let us talk
of something else. Are you sure, my dearest, that you love me _very_,
very, _very_ much?”
“Oh, Henry! ten thousand, thousand times more than I can ever tell you.
I--”
A person passing the parlor door at this juncture might have heard a
sharp sound resembling somewhat that made by the tearing of a piece
of muslin. The conversation need not be quoted at greater length. It
appeared to give the most intense pleasure to the Major and Pandora,
but talk of that kind is usually rather dreary for outside parties; so
we will lower the curtain here.
CHAPTER III.
About a week later, Colonel Dabney reported, with a favorable
recommendation to the House, from the Committee on Public Property, “An
Act restoring a certain amputated limb in the Medical Museum to Major
Henry G. Dunwoody.” The Act specified the leg contained in Exhibit
1307, Case 25, as the property to be restored.
When the bill came up for discussion, General Belcher moved to lay it
upon the table. Defeated. Then he moved to amend it with a provision
that the bone of the leg should be withdrawn and retained in the
Museum. Rejected. Then he offered a resolution referring the whole
matter to a committee of inquiry, which should be directed to sit for
two years, and to take testimony as to what had been the practice of
governments in the matter of surrendering legs blown off in battle,
from the time of Sennacherib down to the battle of Sedan, including
evidence respecting the custom in Persia, Greece, Egypt, Rome,
Carthage, Palestine, and modern Europe. After a spirited debate the
resolution was lost. But the General was not discouraged. He presented
another resolution, that a special committee be directed to inquire
whether the person mentioned in this bill was the same Major Dunwoody
who, in a fit of alcoholic frenzy, in Clarion County, Pennsylvania,
in 1866, treed his aged grandfather one rainy night, and compelled
that venerable and rheumatic person to roost upon a lofty branch until
morning. Voted down: Yeas 304; Nays 1 (General Belcher).
The bill finally passed to a third reading, and was adopted. When
it had received the approval of the Senate and the President, Major
Dunwoody drove round to the Museum in high glee with Pandora. He
carried in his pocket an empty pillow-case, in which he proposed to
take home with him the long-lost fragment of himself. When he found the
janitor and presented his credentials, that official was exceedingly
polite, and at once led the way to the place where the treasure was
kept.
While he was unlocking the case, Pandora could hardly repress her
feelings of joy. Leaning upon her lover’s arm, and watching the
janitor, she exclaimed,--
“Isn’t it elegant, dear? I can hardly realize that we are really going
to get it! Mother will be so glad when George Washington has his other
leg on.”
“I wish I had _my_ other one on,” said the Major, pleasantly.
“So do I. It’s too bad! But you can stand it up on the table and look
at it now as much as you want to, can’t you, darling?”
The janitor lifted down the huge jar containing the limb, and took it
out of the spirits.
“I feel,” said the Major, as he unfolded his pillow-case, “as if I was
in a cemetery, disinterring one of my near relations.”
“So beautiful! Isn’t it?” said Pandora.
The Major suddenly scrutinized the leg closely.
“Why, how--how’s this? I don’t exactly understand--let’s see, janitor,
this is Exhibit 1307? Yes. Case 25? Yes, Case 25; so it is. Why,
Thunder and Mars! (excuse my agitation, Pandora,) there must be
something wrong about this!”
“Wrong, Henry? How?”
“Guess not, sir,” said the janitor. “This is what the bill calls for.”
“But it can’t be, you know. I lost my left leg, and this one you had
in the jar here is a right leg. I couldn’t have had two right legs,
Pandora, of course!”
“I do not know, dear. Some persons have peculiarities of formation
which--”
“Oh, well, now, be reasonable. I am absolutely certain that my leg was
a left leg in every particular. You see, Pandora, this is a matter
about which I may fairly be considered an authority.”
“Yes, Henry, but--but maybe being in the alcohol so long may have
changed it.”
“Impossible. Quite impossible, Pandora. The annals of medical science,
from Esculapius down, contain no record of such a thing. The leg is not
mine.”
“But you might as well take it, dearest, mightn’t you, because my
George Washington ought to be finished as quickly as possible?”
“You don’t want to put two right legs on him, too, do you?”
“I don’t know, Henry, I might. People won’t look at his toes;
and if they did, they would regard the arrangement as one of the
eccentricities of genius, perhaps.”
“Let us look about,” said the Major. “Perhaps my leg is in one of these
other cases. Why, here it is! Sure enough! In Case 1236, Exhibit 11.
That is mine. You’ll let me have it, Mr. Janitor, of course?”
“Can’t do it, sir; I have to follow the Act of Congress carefully. I
daren’t go outside of it.”
“Well, this is too bad!” exclaimed the Major. “You positively won’t
give it to me?”
“No, sir; I won’t.”
“Well, then, Pandora, there is nothing to do but to wait. I’ll get
Colonel Dabney to put another bill through at once. Let me get the
numbers: Exhibit 11, Case 1236.”
Then, taking Pandora upon his arm, the Major hobbled to his carriage
and drove straight to the Capitol.
About three weeks later another bill passed the House without
opposition, General Belcher being absent in New York upon a Committee
of Inquiry. While the measure was pending in the Senate, Achilles
Smith, one morning, at an early hour, entered a rear door of the
Museum with a key which he had obtained by bribing the charwoman, and
proceeding to Case 1236, he removed the leg from the jar No. 11, and
put it in another jar in another case, replacing it with the leg that
had been in the latter jar.
He went down-stairs chuckling. “You mutilated outcast, you,” he said,
addressing the Major in imagination; “we’ll see who’ll beat at this
game!”
When the Act had been signed by the President, the Major drove with
Pandora to the Museum a second time. Upon reaching Case 1236 he was for
a moment stricken dumb with amazement. Presently he said,--
“Why, Pandora, my dear, do you see? It’s the leg of a colored man!”
“Ye--e--es, it seems to be, Henry. But perhaps mortification or
something has set in.”
“It is very mysterious. I can’t account for it.”
“One of your legs was not colored, was it, my love?”
“Oh, no, of course not!”
“Perhaps the janitor here has tarred it over, to preserve it better?”
“No, ma’am; that’s not allowed in this institution.”
“You’ll take it anyhow; won’t you, Henry?”
“Oh, my dear, be reasonable. Take the leg of a negro for mine!”
“Well, but, Henry, I can paint it white in my picture.”
“Yes; but, Pandora, you know we won’t care to have particles of
fractured Africans scattered about our house. We can have no cherished
memories associated with a leg like this.”
“I suppose not; but it seems rather hard that my Washington should have
to stand upon that one leg at least a month longer.”
“He won’t mind it. He was heroic. He would have stood upon a solitary
leg for centuries rather than have robbed another man of his members.”
Pandora sighed deeply, and made up her mind to try to be resigned; and
so they went downstairs, and drove away to state the case to Colonel
Dabney.
The Colonel, after hearing the story, distinctly affirmed the opinion
that there had been foul play. The Major jumped at the suggestion,
and told him of General Belcher and Achilles Smith, and their designs
respecting Pandora.
“Never mind; I will defeat their plans,” said the Colonel. “You shall
have the leg next time, if it is still in existence, no matter who
meddles with it.”
The next Act reported by Colonel Dabney provided that Major Henry G.
Dunwoody should have authority to take possession of his leg wherever
it could be found, in any institution under control of the Government.
General Belcher made a long and eloquent speech in opposition to the
bill.
He referred to the heroes of the past. Who ever heard of Epaminondas
prowling about in search of a leg lost in honorable warfare? Did
Leonidas return from Thermopylæ to seek the aid of the national
legislature in an effort to recover members of his body that had been
hacked off? Hannibal was fairly torn to pieces, but he would have
scorned to go fishing in alcohol jars for them. Cæsar, Alexander,
Wallenstein, Wellington, General Jackson, were all mighty warriors, but
he had yet to learn that they ever stooped to begging their respective
governments for mangled remains that had been preserved for the
instruction of medical men and the alleviation of the sufferings of the
human race. No, it was reserved for this obscure American militiaman,
who was gravely suspected of fiendish barbarity to an aged and infirm
grandsire, and who had been charged with hiding behind a baggage-wagon
at Gettysburg, to begin this ghoulish practice of grasping for legs
that had been solemnly dedicated to the uses of our common country.
He would direct attention to the remarkable and mysterious
circumstances surrounding this case. It was admitted even by the
friends of Major Dunwoody that he had _one_ leg. Two other legs had
been awarded him by separate Acts of Congress. That made three. He
had in his hand a receipt for two artificial legs supplied to Major
Dunwoody by the Government, making five; and he was credibly informed
that the Major had recently appeared at a church in the capital wearing
a French leg, with which he performed some extraordinary, not to say
scandalous, feats during the service. Thus there was positive evidence
that this person had already in his possession six legs, and now he
was demanding from Congress permission to take a seventh. He appealed
to the House, was it reasonable that one man should be allowed to
have seven legs? Would it look well for this House to announce to the
country that it was willing to rifle the Medical Museum in order to
confer an additional leg upon a man who was the owner of six others?
He could understand such legislation if men were constructed like
centipedes, but it seemed to him more than monstrous, positively
iniquitous, indeed, to vote away the pathetic and instructive remnants
of our glorious heroes for the purpose of furthering the insidious,
perhaps treasonable, designs of a man who had enough legs of various
kinds already to make three ordinary men comfortable.
When the General concluded his remarks, Colonel Dabney replied, and
stated the facts of the case plainly and forcibly. The bill was passed
by a handsome majority.
CHAPTER IV.
Upon the very same day, General Belcher’s Act indemnifying Achilles
Smith for the loss of his scalp by removing the Pottawatomie Indians
from their reservation, was squeezed through the House by a majority
of two votes. The bill provided for the immediate withdrawal of the
Indians from their reservation in the Indian Territory, and the
location of the tribe upon another reservation in Colorado, in a
part of the country which is absolutely a desert, without water or
shrubbery, and wholly unfit for the residence of any animal of a higher
grade than a rattlesnake.
By some means the information of the action of the House was conveyed
to the Pottawatomie chiefs, and they expressed to their agent their
disgust in very strong language. The agent was scared, and he sent to
Fort Gibson for a company of cavalry to protect him. The commander
could spare but ten men. When the Indians discovered the approach of
the soldiers they imagined that a force was coming to drive them from
their homes, and accordingly they attacked the squad, killed all but
one man, and then the entire tribe went upon the warpath.
The Government took instant action. The Indians numbered about one
thousand warriors. The force sent to crush them included not more
than two hundred cavalrymen. The Indians were mounted upon fleet and
hardy ponies, which could endure an incredible amount of fatigue and
live upon grass. The cavalrymen bestrode horses which had performed
service in New York omnibuses and upon St. Louis horse-cars, and which
could hardly be driven faster than six miles an hour under stress.
The Indians were armed with telescope rifles, breech-loading, and
warranted to kill at three-quarters of a mile. These had been furnished
gratuitously in time of peace by a beneficent Government. The soldiers
were armed with short-range carbines, and with sabres which were about
as useful in fighting savages who never came within gun-shot as a
fishing-rod would have been. The Indians carried upon their ponies what
food they wanted. The military force was encumbered by ambulances and
several wagons carrying camp equipage. In a fight at close quarters
the soldiers could have beaten their adversaries easily. In a race,
which permitted no other fighting than occasional skirmishing, all
the chances were on the side of the Indians; and a race was what the
combatants were in for.
Just before the expedition was ready to start, General Belcher, by
bringing some influence indirectly to bear, succeeded in having
Major Dunwoody detailed to accompany it in command of the Commissary
Department. The Major was wild with vexation and disgust.
“Pandora, darling,” he said, “you know that I was to get my leg
to-morrow, and that we were to be married within the month?”
“Well! Won’t we? Is anything wrong?”
“Wrong! Why, my dear, I have just received from the War Department
orders to accompany the expedition against the Pottawatomies. I start
to-morrow for Fort Gibson.”
“How can you ride, with only one leg?”
“I am to command the Commissary Department. I shall have to ride in an
ambulance. This is the fault of that accursed Smith. Why didn’t he and
Belcher let the Indians alone?”
“And we can’t be married, then, until you return?”
“I don’t see how. Isn’t it outrageous? I have the worst luck of any man
in the army.”
Pandora looked as if she were going to cry.
“And your leg? Won’t you get that until you come back?”
“Yes, dear, I will take it out of the Museum this evening, and you can
amuse yourself throwing it upon the canvas while I am gone.”
“Oh, that will be so nice!”
“So nice that I am gone?”
“Oh, Henry! How could you think I meant that?”
“I didn’t; I was only jesting. And you will think of me sometimes?”
“Yes, oh yes; every moment of the day.”
“And you love me very much?”
“Indeed, indeed, I do!”
“My darling!”
“My dearest!”
Probably the curtain might as well drop again at this point.
The expedition started from Fort Gibson. It marched straight across the
Indian territory to the Pottawatomie Reservation. The savages had moved
off, about a day’s march ahead of the soldiers, toward the northwest.
The military pressed forward; the Indians kept always just a little in
advance. The two forces crossed into Kansas. The troops pressed their
omnibus horses a little harder, and came within sight of the Indian
rear-guard. Then the savages spurred up and increased the interval
between them and the pursuers.
The Pottawatomies headed for Colorado, and crossed the line in a few
days, with the soldiers the usual distance behind. Just after passing
the Colorado border, the Colonel commanding resolved to steal a march
upon the foe. One night, instead of going into camp, he pressed on
until twelve o’clock, and then halted upon the bank of the Arkansas
River.
Four omnibus horses succumbed under the strain, and ere morning dawned
some Pottawatomies crept into the camp and stole six mules.
The most degraded Indian was never known to steal a New York omnibus
horse, even in the dark.
The next day the four dismounted troopers were placed in an ambulance,
and the pursuit began again. The Indians fled up through Colorado into
Wyoming Territory, and the Colonel commanding pushed after them, going
faster and faster every day. By the time he reached Fort Russel, just
over the edge of the Wyoming line, the route of his march was marked
with a succession of omnibus and car horses in various stages of decay.
At the Fort he obtained fresh horses, and sacrificing the baggage
wagons, keeping only the ambulances, he pressed on.
On the 27th of August his scouts discovered the Indians in camp in a
valley a few miles ahead. The Colonel resolved upon a surprise. When
everything was arranged the troops charged down upon the village with a
wild hurrah. Not an Indian could be seen. The soldiers, however, burned
the lodges and withdrew. Upon their return they found that in their
absence the Indians had stampeded their mules and all their ambulances
but one, which Major Dunwoody had saved by hard driving.
The chase was resumed with greater heat than ever. So far there had not
been a chance for anything like a fight. In fact, not a dozen savages
had been seen.
Within a week or two Wyoming was traversed and Montana Territory
reached. There, just beyond the Crow Indian Reservation, the first
Pottawatomie of the campaign was slain. He sneaked into the camp one
night, and while cutting loose one of Major Dunwoody’s mules, the mule
kicked him upon the head and killed him.
On the 6th of October the soldiers had marched for thirty-six hours
without rest, and it was believed that they would at last strike a
telling blow upon the savages. Everything was ready for a fight, and
the troops were full of eagerness for the fray. While they were halting
for water upon a small creek, a friendly Gros Ventre Indian came in
with the information that the fugitive Pottawatomies had crossed the
British line and were now safe from pursuit within the dominions of Her
Majesty.
The Colonel and his officers and men fairly tore the English language
into shreds in their efforts to express with the necessary emphasis
their appreciation of the facts of the situation.
The “war” cost the Government a little less than a million and a
half dollars, omnibus horses included; and it was estimated by
well-informed persons that the flying Indians, while upon the route,
destroyed private property to the amount of half a million more,
besides killing and scalping a party of eighteen emigrants which was
passing through Wyoming.
It seemed like rather a large price to pay for Mr. Achilles Smith’s
scalp.
Some time during the month of September, while the chase was in
progress, Achilles called at the house of Mrs. M’Duffy in Washington
and asked for Pandora. He said,--
“Miss M’Duffy, I come upon a somewhat painful errand, but I have a duty
devolving upon me, and I must perform it.”
“No bad news from Major Dunwoody, I hope, Mr. Smith?”
“I am sorry to say there is.”
Pandora’s eyes filled with tears. Her face became pale.
“What is it?” she asked.
“I have here a dispatch to the Secretary of War, saying that in a fight
with the Indians, on last Wednesday week, Major Dunwoody--”
“Not killed! Oh, please don’t say he was slain! I can’t bear it.”
“No, not killed. Major Dunwoody has lost his other leg and his right
arm.”
“How terrible!” screamed Pandora; then she wept bitterly.
“Terrible, indeed!” replied Smith in a sympathetic tone. “But you know
this is the fortune of war. This it is to be a soldier.”
“Poor Henry! How he must have suffered! Do you know how he is? What are
the chances of recovery?”
“The dispatch says he is doing very well. But of course he will be a
mere wreck.”
“It is dreadful, too dreadful!”
“Perfectly helpless, too. A mere burden upon those who will have to
take care of him.”
“Not if they love him!”
“But surely you--you do not intend to cling to such a--a--such a
disintegrated ruin as he?”
“I shall be true to him unto death.”
“I had hoped,” said Achilles sadly, “that now that Dunwoody is reduced
to about one half his original dimensions, I might hope to have you
consider my claims.”
“Never! It can never be!”
“Because I am about moving out on the Pottawatomie Reservation, and
with you as my bride I could make it a little paradise here below. If
you will take me, the Reservation is yours in fee-simple.”
“I scorn the offer, sir!”
“You scorn it, do you? Scorn the most splendid tract of land in the
Mississippi Valley for the sake of marrying half of a man, whom you’ll
have to carry to church in a market basket and to feed with a spoon!”
“Yes, sir. I scorn it and you. For to you and your wicked schemes
against the unoffending Indians, this awful, this dreadful suffering
of Major Dunwoody is due. I hate you! Yes, I hate you! Leave the house
this instant, sir!”
Smith withdrew, and as he closed the door Pandora fell upon the sofa
and cried as if her poor little heart would break.
Enter Mrs. M’Duffy.
“Pandora, my child, what is the matter?”
“Didn’t that horrid Smith tell you?”
“What horrid Smith? I don’t know any such person. If you mean Mr.
Achilles Smith, why, he didn’t tell me anything. I have not seen him.”
“Poor Major Dunwoody has had his arm shot off.”
“What! Not another limb lost! Why, the man is falling apart in
sections.”
“And that’s not the worst of it.”
“Not the worst? Why, my child, what do you mean?”
“His other leg has been amputated.”
“Humph! Well, that’s agreeable news. No legs and only one arm. Pity
they didn’t amputate his head at once. I suppose, of course, you will
break your engagement?”
“Oh, mother! How can you be so unkind?”
“Pandora M’Duffy, you must be insane. Marry a man with only one limb.
How is he going to waddle around? Do you intend to carry him under
your arm, in a bundle?”
“He will go on wheels, of course,” said Pandora with brimming eyes.
“On wheels! A Hunsicker and a M’Duffy married to a man on wheels, and
who has to slide on the banister when he wants to come downstairs! Why
don’t you accept Mr. Smith at once? He is intact, I believe, with the
exception of his scalp. This family seems to be haunted by men who are
more or less in piecemeal.”
“I would rather die than marry Smith.”
“You might do it for your mother’s sake, so as to be near to her.”
“Near to her? What do you mean?”
“Why, I came in to tell you, my child, that I have accepted General
Belcher’s hand. I shall marry him, and we shall probably spend
our summers at his prospective country seat upon the Pottawatomie
Reservation.”
“General Belcher!” exclaimed Pandora in disgust; “I never thought,
mother, it would come to _that_!”
Then Pandora swept out of the room, with her handkerchief to her eyes,
leaving the majestic Mrs. M’Duffy in a condition of some uncertainty as
to her daughter’s theory respecting the degree of humiliation which had
been reached in her contract with the General.
“But I know he is rich, and that he has a promise of an appointment as
Minister to Peru, where he expects to speculate in bark,” said Mrs.
M’Duffy to herself.
The Secretary of the Interior Department at that period was an
especially capable officer. He obtained by some means a clue to the
secret of the movement against the Pottawatomie Reservation, and he
followed it industriously by means of his agents. Late in the month of
October he had probed the matter to the bottom, and he gave it to the
newspapers.
The entire conspiracy of General Belcher and Achilles Smith was
exposed, and an indignant nation discovered that the costly struggle
with the Pottawatomies had not even so slight a basis of justice on the
part of the Government as a real injury done to Achilles Smith. It was
ascertained that Smith had not been scalped at all. He had merely had
his hair pulled at the Pottawatomie agency by a muscular squaw whom he
was trying to cheat out of her fair allowance of rations.
It became clear that a Congressional investigation would be ordered
before the year was out, and Achilles Smith fled. General Belcher’s
conduct excited so much indignation at Kansas, that the politicians,
following the popular lead, turned on him. He was arrested and tried
upon a charge of bribery, and was committed. When on his way to
prison he knocked down his custodian, took the first horse he came
to, and started due South. It is supposed that he went to Mexico. The
feeling in Kansas is that the unhappy land of the Montezumas has yet
to experience her bitterest woes. It will be a charming country to
emigrate from when General Belcher begins to feel at home.
Early in November Major Dunwoody obtained release from his duties and
came to Washington. He had not warned Pandora; he wished to surprise
her. When he called he withheld his name from the servant. Pandora
entered the room slowly. When she saw her lover she gave a little
scream of joy and flew towards him. Before reaching him a thought
struck her. She paused and seemed astonished.
“What’s the matter, darling? Aren’t you glad to see me?”
“Yes, but what--what--why--Henry dear, how is it you have your leg with
you?”
“I always keep it by me, sweet. It is so convenient to have it along.
You have the other one, you know.”
“But, Henry, you appear to have both arms, too.”
“I brought them to hug you with, you angel, you.”
She flew into them, and after a brief moment expended in exercising
their lips, Pandora looked up into the Major’s face and said,--
“You know, dear, I heard that you had lost your other leg and one of
your arms. I cried about it for a month.”
“Who gave you that information?”
“That scandalous story-teller, Achilles Smith.”
“Smith, hey! Is he still around? That young man is actually suffering
for somebody to macerate him.”
“And you’re not hurt a bit, are you, deary?”
“I am a little dyspeptic from too regular dieting upon salt pork so
tough that it creaked when I swallowed it; but that’s all.”
“Oh, Henry, you don’t know how glad I am!”
More osculatory exercise at this juncture; but we will not stop to
consider it, satisfactory as it appeared to be.
“And now, my love,” said the Major, as they sat together on the sofa,
the Major’s right arm encircling Pandora’s waist, “tell me about
everything.”
“Well, let me see. First of all--you know, mother?”
“Yes.”
“Well, she is going to marry Colonel Dabney.”
“You don’t say so?”
“Yes; she _was_ engaged to General Belcher, but--”
“Not old Belcher of Kansas?”
“Yes; but he proved a rascal, so she discarded him, and now she is
engaged to Colonel Dabney. Splendid, isn’t it?”
“Perfectly splendid. By the way, have you copied my off leg yet?”
“Oh, yes; long ago.”
“Then your picture is done?”
“Yes, Henry dear, but--”
“What! Isn’t it satisfactory, after all?”
“It is to me, darling, but Colonel Dabney says Congress will never
accept it.”
“Why not?”
“He seemed embarrassed when I asked him the reason, and he turned the
subject.”
“Absolutely hopeless, is it?”
“Colonel Dabney says so.”
“What will you do with it?”
“I don’t know, dear; what do you think?”
“Couldn’t you alter it into something else?”
“I thought of that. It occurred to me that maybe I might turn it into
the Execution of Mary Queen of Scots and get the Canadian Government to
buy it.”
“Not a bad idea.”
“Paint in different clothes, you know, on Washington, and fix up the
tree somehow into Mary Queen of Scots. I think the hatchet will do as
it is--do for the executioner’s axe, you know.”
“I see. It’s a good notion.”
“Mother said she thought I might make it a battle between a Crusader
and a Saracen, but the tree is in the wrong position for a person
supposed to be fighting.”
“Won’t do at all, of course.”
“When General Belcher was here he said he believed that by painting
the grass red so as to represent fire, and making a mast with
rigging out of the tree, it might pass for the Boy who stood on the
Burning Deck--Casabianca. But the Canadian Government would not care
particularly about the Boy who stood on the Burning Deck, would they,
Henry?”
“I have a dim idea that they wouldn’t.”
“I think I’ll stick to Mary Queen of Scots.”
“And now about our wedding?”
“I’m ready.”
“Name the day.”
“Will next Thursday do?”
“Admirable. So, next Thursday you will be my darling wife.”
“And you will be my sweet, splendid husband.”
“Pandora!”
“Henry!”
Another fall of the curtain appears to be necessary just here. We will
ring it down. If it could have been raised again a glimpse might have
been caught of a pretty room in which sat a lovely and smiling woman by
the side of a table, sewing. Close to her sat a handsome young soldier,
with one leg upon the floor. His other leg bobbed about in a huge jar
that rested in a corner. Pandora M’Duffy had been transformed into Mrs.
Major Henry G. Dunwoody, and she was happy.
“JINNIE.”
A STORY OF A CHILD.
“Jinnie! Vir-r-rginia-a-a! You ‘Jin’! If you’re not here in a minute,
I’ll whip you within an inch of your life!”
It was the shrill voice of Mrs. Tyke. Down from some mysterious part
of the recesses of the house it came with the force and precision of
a rifle-ball, through the narrow hall and open door to the ears of
Jinnie, who was scrubbing the front steps.
Why Mrs. Tyke desired that the steps and the pavement should be
scrubbed upon that cold and dismal December morning cannot be imagined.
Probably she herself could not have given a reason for it if she had
been asked. The bricks looked very clean and wholesome before the work
began, and the marble steps were almost painfully white. Now, the
pavement was covered with a film of ice upon which pedestrians slipped
and were provoked to anger, and the steps were positively so icy as to
be unfit for use.
The voice of Mrs. Tyke gave fresh impetus to the arm of the child,
who was just giving a few finishing wipes to the uppermost step. She
was a little child, surely not more than eight years of age. As she
knelt upon the marble, rather painful prominence was given to a pair
of shoes which might once have been the property of Mrs. Tyke herself,
but which were now worn, as forlorn and riddled wrecks, upon feet which
were stockingless. The thin little legs above the leather ruins were
blue with cold, and the tiny arms which wielded the wiping-cloth with
accelerated speed were bare and chapped to redness.
If it was an offence to cover a pavement with ice upon such a morning,
it was a bitter wrong to compel a little child so poorly clad to
perform the work.
Before Jinnie had replaced her cloth in her bucket, Mrs. Tyke appeared
in the doorway with anger in her face. She took hold of one of the
child’s ears with her coarse fingers and pulled her into the hallway
head foremost with as much force as if she had been shot out of a
catapult. Then Mrs. Tyke, with a vigorous hand, boxed the ear that
she had pulled, cuffed the other ear, impartially, knocking the child
against the wall.
“I’ll teach you to mind me when I call you! Pottering and fooling with
your work! Now you go right out into the yard and scrub those bricks
in a jiffy, or you’ll know how the broom-handle feels.”
Mrs. Tyke was going to have the back-yard scrubbed also. Why Mrs.
Tyke did not scrub the four walls of the house, and the roof, and
the chimney flues and the fence, and why she did not scrub the
cobble-stones in the street, is an impenetrable secret.
Jinnie picked up the bucket, and went staggering through the hall, into
the kitchen, with a feeling that her head might at any moment tumble
off, as a result of Mrs. Tyke’s blows, and roll upon the floor. She
refilled her bucket at the hydrant, and began her work with a vigor
that promised to make Mrs. Tyke’s back-yard within a few moments a fit
place for skaters.
Just before the work was done, Mrs. Tyke appeared at the window with
her bonnet on, and in a severe tone gave Jinnie some directions
respecting the preparation of dinner during her absence. Then Mrs. Tyke
withdrew, and just as the front door slammed Jinnie saw the head of a
child appear over the top of the partition fence, between the yards of
Mrs. Tyke and Mrs. Brown.
Young Miss Brown watched Jinnie putting away the scrubbing implements,
and when Jinnie drew near to the fence with an apparent purpose to have
some conversation, the little Brown said:
“It’ll pretty soon be Christmas, now.”
“Will it?” said Jinnie, without manifesting any trace of interest in
the fact.
“Yes, and Kris Kingle is coming to our house. Mamma said so. Does Kris
Kingle come to your house on Christmas?”
“Nobody ever comes to our house but the milkman. He is not Kris Kingle,
is he?”
“Oh, no! Don’t you hang up your stockings on Christmas eve?”
“I have no stockings to hang up.”
“Where does Kris Kingle put all your pretty things, then?”
“He don’t bring me any. Who is Kris Kingle?”
“Why, don’t you know? He comes in a sleigh full of toys, pulled by
reindeer, and--”
“Where does he come from? Ohio?”
“I guess so. But he comes down the chimbley every night before
Christmas, and--”
“I expect our chimbley must be too little. Or maybe he don’t know we
live here.”
“Oh, he knows where everybody lives; all the little children.”
“I’m _so_ sorry he forgets me! Maybe it’s because I have no stockings!
Oh, I wish, I wish I had!”
“Won’t Mrs. Tyke lend you one of hers?”
“I’m afraid to ask her. I wonder would Kris Kingle come if I put a
bucket there for him?”
“I never heard of his giving toys in a bucket. If he gave you a large
doll maybe he would. Have you got a large doll?”
“I never had any doll. I made one once out of a dust brush and some
rags, but Mrs. Tyke whipped me and took it away. If I had a real doll
I’d be so happy that I couldn’t stand it.”
“If Mrs. Tyke whipped you for it that would keep you from being too
happy, wouldn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you ask your mamma to write to Kris Kingle to come?”
“I never had a mamma; and no father, either. I was born in an asylum,
and Mrs. Tyke always says it’s a pity I was ever.”
“Maybe he’d come if you’d pray to get him.”
“I only know ‘Now I lay me.’ I learned it at the asylum; but I daren’t
say it out loud any more.”
“I don’t know what we can do about it, then.”
Jinnie began to cry; but suddenly remembering the imminent probability
of Mrs. Tyke’s return, she wiped her eyes with a rag of her dress, and
said,--
“Good-bye; I must go in now. I have to get dinner.”
So she ran into the kitchen, and the head of the youthful Brown slowly
descended until it was eclipsed by the fence.
Jinnie went to work to prepare the vegetables for dinner, with her
poor little brain in such a stir of excitement about Kris Kingle and
the possibility of his remembering her or forgetting her, that she
could hardly keep her mind upon the task that her hands were doing;
but she was recalled from her dreams by the sound of Mrs. Tyke’s step
in the hall; and as Mrs. Tyke perceived that she had not been very
industrious, Mrs. Tyke promptly boxed her ears. She fell to the floor,
and then Mrs. Tyke kicked her two or three times. This energetic
treatment effectively dispelled all of Jinnie’s visions of Kris Kingle.
She had rarely had any information upon which to build pleasant
thoughts of what life might have been to her; and now when her little
mind was taking its first flight into those realms of imagination
wherein so many of the forlorn of earth find at least a taste of
happiness, the red and vigorous hand of Mrs. Tyke hurled her back once
more into the dreary and dreadful reality of life.
For the rest of the day Jinnie hurried through her myriad duties with a
tremulous fear upon her that if she should dare even to think of that
mysterious being who loved the little children she might invoke still
further blows. The blows came at any rate, more than once, despite her
carefulness; but that was always a part of her experience, and she bore
them perhaps a little better now because she was looking forward with
a faint suggestion of happiness to the night, when she should lie
beneath the scant covering of her bed, and think without fear of harm
of the reindeer and sleigh and the toys of the kind old man, who might
perhaps not forget her this time.
When supper-time came Mrs. Tyke ordered her to go to the baker’s for
bread. The shop to which she had been accustomed to go was closed,
for some reason, and Jinnie sought another, upon another street. On
her way home through the dusky thoroughfare she came suddenly upon a
show-window brilliantly lighted, and filled with childish splendors
belonging to the Christmas season.
She had never seen so many beautiful things before. There were toys
of all kinds, some of which she understood and some of which were all
the more fascinating for the mystery that surrounded them. There were
wagons and horses, and miniature tea-sets, and pop-guns, and baby
houses, and jumping-jacks, and railroad cars, and tin steamboats, and
make-believe soldier caps; and these were mingled with clusters of
glass balls of various colors, which glittered in the gaslight in a
most wonderful manner. But the glory of the window was a huge waxen
doll dressed as a bride, in pure white, with a veil and a wreath and
the loveliest satin dress. She had real golden hair and the softest
blue eyes, that stared and stared as though they were looking into some
other surprising show-window over the way.
Jinnie trembled when she saw this marvellous doll. She had no idea
that anybody ever wore such wonderful clothing as that. She had never
dreamed that anything could be so beautiful. She thought she would be
perfectly happy if she could stand there and gaze at it during the
remainder of her life. Oh, if Kris Kingle would come and leave her
such a doll as that! No, that could not be; it was impossible that she
should ever have such a joyful experience. But maybe he might bring her
a doll like some of the smaller and less splendid ones which surrounded
the bride in swarms. Yes, she would be satisfied with the very poorest
one of them. She would hide it somewhere, under her bed covering,
perhaps, where Mrs. Tyke could not see it, but where she could find it
and kiss it and hug it and take it close in her arms when she went to
sleep at night.
The thought of Mrs. Tyke came to her like a blow in the midst of her
delight. She remembered that she must hurry homeward, and so taking a
last, long look she turned and ran along the pavement, her heart filled
with a wild, passionate longing that Kris Kingle would come to her and
bring her something she could love.
Of course Mrs. Tyke greeted her with angry words and two or three
savage thumps. She expected that. But Mrs. Tyke was not content with
this. When she sat down to supper she told Jinnie that as she had
been unusually idle and bad that day she should go hungry to bed. Then
Mrs. Tyke ate a particularly hearty meal, with the child watching her;
and when she had finished she sat by, growling and threatening, while
Jinnie cleared away the tea-things preparatory to being marched off to
bed.
Jinnie missed her supper sadly, but she did not mind the hunger so much
on that night, for her mind was busy with new delights.
It was dark in her room, but she knew where the chimney was; and before
she undressed she went over and felt it. There was a hole there for a
stove-pipe, but it had paper pasted over it.
“Perhaps,” said Jinnie, “Kris Kingle did not come because the hole was
shut.”
He would not come down the chimney and out into the dining-room, she
knew, because he would have to go through the stove; and that would
burn him, and his toys, too, perhaps. She thought it might be an
inducement for him to come if she should punch a hole through the
paper. She was afraid to tear it off, afraid of Mrs. Tyke’s vengeance;
so she pushed her finger through it. Then she undressed, and went
hopefully to her bed upon the floor.
But not to sleep; she was too greatly excited. She began to wonder why
it was that life was so terrible. She never imagined that her life
differed from those of other children. It is the peculiar infamy of
brutality to a child that the victim does not know how to sound the cry
for the help that is almost always near to it. It accepts its lot as a
thing of course; it does not know that there are perhaps within a few
short steps of its house of suffering hearts that would stir with wrath
for its wrongs, and that there is within reach a law which would bring
retribution upon the head of its oppressor.
Jinnie believed that all childhood was a time of punishment and misery.
She saw other children playing in the street who seemed merry and
joyous, and she could not understand why they were so. She remembered
the Brown girl, also, and how she had heard her sometimes laughing
and singing. Jinnie could not laugh and sing in her house with Mrs.
Tyke near her. She thought the other children might be happy because
they had dolls, and because they could have their stockings filled at
Christmas time. She knew that grown-up people were not abused as she
was, but it seemed such a long, long time to wait until she was grown
up. She felt that when she was she would be kinder to children, and not
strike them with the poker, at any rate, as Mrs. Tyke sometimes struck
her.
And if Kris Kingle should come down into her room through the hole in
the paper, she thought she would like to be awake and to ask him to
take her away with him in his sleigh somewhere. As she dwelt upon this
she pictured herself going up the chimney and then flying over the
roofs behind the reindeer, and looking back at Mrs. Tyke standing at
the window and cursing her. And so she fell asleep and into a tangled
maze of dreams, wherein Kris Kingle, Mrs. Tyke and the doll-baby bride
were mingled in great confusion.
Jinnie’s first thought in the morning was the last that she had upon
the night before. But as she hurriedly dressed herself it flashed
across her mind that as there was grave peril that Kris Kingle might
not come to her, perhaps it would make matters surer if she should go
to him.
The milkman, whose cry she expected every moment, to her seemed a
likely person to know where Kris lived, and to take her there. Young
Miss Brown had rather indicated that Kris’s home was in Ohio; but
whether Ohio was a little piece up the street or millions of miles
away, or whether it was a house or a stable or a town, she did not
know. The milkman had spoken pleasantly to her sometimes, and he had a
wagon. It was not as attractive as a sleigh with reindeer, but she had
often longed to ride in it. She determined to speak to him. But when
he came and she opened the door with a beating heart, he snatched the
pitcher from her hand and frowned while he filled it. He was thinking
of some offensive suggestions made by Mrs. Tyke upon the preceding
evening in reference to his too intense partiality for water; and he
seemed so cross that Jinnie was afraid to speak to him.
She came into the house again sorrowfully, but with a strong purpose
to seek some other means of reaching Kris Kingle; and she carried
this determination with her stubbornly through all the fatigues and
hardships of the day.
About four o’clock in the afternoon Mrs. Tyke went out. Jinnie felt
that her time had come. She resolved to make an effort to find Kris
Kingle, to tell him of her longing desire, and to return home again
before Mrs. Tyke got back. She put her woollen hood upon her head,
wrapped around her shoulders the thin and faded rag which Mrs. Tyke
dignified with the name of a shawl; and then she concluded to take a
newspaper with her, so that if Kris Kingle showed any disposition to
urge the doll-baby upon her in advance of Christmas, she could have
something to wrap it in.
When she came out of the house she crossed the street so that she could
notice particularly whether there was anything in the construction of
the roof of Mrs. Tyke’s dwelling which would be likely to discourage
Kris Kingle from attempting to reach the chimney. She saw that the
roof was much lower than the roofs of the houses upon each side of
it, and that it sloped at a sharp angle toward the front, while they
were flat. The chimney, also, was certainly smaller than others in the
vicinity, and the conclusion reached by the child’s mind was that Kris
Kingle had probably been indisposed to take the risks of running his
sleigh upon so precipitous a roof for the sake of descending such a
very narrow chimney.
This gave a fresh impulse to the child’s purpose to visit Kris Kingle,
so that she might plead with him to make a call at Mrs. Tyke’s despite
the inconveniences of the construction of the house. It occurred to
her that she might possibly arrange for him to come to the front door
and ring the bell, when she would come softly down stairs and open to
receive him.
While she thought of the matter she walked quickly up the street, now
somewhat gloomy in the early dusk, but before she had gone far she
reflected that she ought to inquire the way to Ohio before the darkness
should come. She paused to speak to two or three men who were hurrying
by, but evidently they thought she intended to ask alms of them, and
so they would not pause to listen to her. She was discouraged; but at
last she saw a boy standing by a street lamp, doing nothing, and she
resolved to ask him.
He laughed rudely at her question and walked away. A moment later he
turned and threw a snowball at her. It hit her in the face and hurt
her badly; and her foot slipping upon the icy pavement, she fell. A
moment elapsed before she was able to rise; but at last she got up, and
although she was cold and weak and greatly discouraged, she thought she
would press on. She might never have so good a chance again; and if she
did not see Kris Kingle now, Christmas would come, and he would come
and go, and there would be no doll for her.
While she was standing there, in a very miserable frame of mind, a
nicely dressed lady went past her. Presently the lady turned and looked
at her; then she came back to where Jinnie stood and spoke to her.
“What is your name, my child?” asked the lady.
“Virginia, ma’am. But Mrs. Tyke generally calls me Jinnie.” She had
never heard so sweet a voice. It seemed so beautiful, so gentle, so
full of tender pity, that it thrilled her with a strange joy.
“And where are you going?”
“I am going out to Ohio, to see Kris Kingle.”
The lady smiled; but the smile faded into a look of deep compassion,
and she said,--
“Did your mother let you come away from home?”
“I have no mother. I’m a bound girl.”
“Who sent you to find Kris Kingle?”
“Nobody. He always forgets to come to our house, so I was goin’ to put
him in mind.”
“Don’t you get any toys or candy on Christmas?”
“No, ma’am. Mrs. Tyke won’t give me any, and Kris Kingle forgets me.
And I never tasted candy but once.”
“Is Mrs. Tyke the woman you live with?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Does she treat you kindly?”
“Whips me and knocks me down sometimes.”
“Will you go back to her?”
“Oh yes, ma’am. I am going right back as soon as I see Kris Kingle.”
The lady took her hand and resolved to go back with her, and to see the
terrible Mrs. Tyke. She told Jinnie so, and Jinnie submitted, although
she was grieved to forego her errand.
“Do you know who Kris Kingle really is?” the lady asked.
“Yes; he brings nice things down the chimbley to children.”
“He does better things than that, my dear. The real Kris Kingle is the
Christ-child.”
“Who is He?”
“Did you never hear anybody tell of Christ?”
“No, ma’am.”
“He is God. He came down here to live upon earth, where He suffered and
died for us. He loved little children, for He was Himself once a child.”
“Was He little, like me?”
“Yes.”
“How did He suffer?”
“Wicked men insulted Him and beat Him and killed Him.”
“Did they beat Him and strike Him like they do me?”
“Yes, my poor child.”
“What makes Him love me? Because I am beaten just like He was?”
“Yes, yes, that is it. But He loves everybody, good and bad.”
“He doesn’t know Mrs. Tyke, does He?”
“He knows everybody in the world.”
“Where is He now?”
“Up in Heaven.”
“Is that farther than Ohio?”
“Yes, that is far, far away in the skies.”
“Then how does He get here? I always thought the real Kris Kingle came
down chimbleys.”
“He comes in your heart, my dear child. You will understand it all some
day.”
The lady seemed strangely moved as she said this to Jinnie; but she
said nothing, and led Jinnie through the street, towards the child’s
home.
When Jinnie and her companion reached Mrs. Tyke’s house and rang
the bell, Mrs. Tyke herself came to the door and opened it. As soon
as she saw Jinnie she poured out at her a volley of abusive words,
without regarding the presence of the lady who accompanied her. The
lady remonstrated with Mrs. Tyke, and then Mrs. Tyke assailed her with
her tongue. The lady then told Mrs. Tyke that she knew of the cruel
treatment to which the child had been subjected, and that she would
interfere if it was repeated.
Jinnie was astonished that any one should be so bold as to speak with
so much severity to Mrs. Tyke. The response made to this threat by Mrs.
Tyke was to seize Jinnie by the arm, to drag her suddenly into the
hallway, and to slam the door in the lady’s face.
The lady stood upon the step and listened. She could hear Mrs. Tyke
beating the child and cursing her; and then the sounds receded, as if
Mrs. Tyke were dragging Jinnie into a room at the end of the hallway.
Mrs. Tyke was in a paroxysm of fury; and she intended to visit upon
Jinnie the vengeance she would have liked to inflict upon Jinnie’s
unknown friend.
Beating was too common and too tame a form of punishment. Mrs. Tyke’s
ingenuity devised a more terrible one. She made the child remove her
shoes, and then she tied her upon a chair, with her naked feet within a
few inches of the hot stove. In that position she left Jinnie, who bore
the frightful pain bravely, until presently she fainted.
If there is no hell, what is going to become of people like Mrs. Tyke?
When Jinnie regained consciousness, Mrs. Tyke sternly ordered her to
go up to bed; and Jinnie crawled up the staircase slowly and painfully
upon her hands and knees, suffering so much that she could hardly help
screaming aloud.
She reached her room at last, and flung herself down upon the bed.
Her pain was so great that it was a long while before she could go to
sleep; and she lay there thinking with all her might about Kris Kingle
and the doll baby, and her adventures in the street, and wondering if
she would ever be any happier. Then she remembered what little Miss
Brown had said about praying, and what the sweet lady had told her
about the Christ-child and His wondrous love; and so she thought she
would try to pray to Him; and praying, she fell asleep.
The lady who brought Jinnie home turned away with her soul filled with
indignation at Mrs. Tyke’s cruelty to the child, and she determined to
have it ended. She knew a man, Thomas Elwood, who was active in the
service of the Society for Protecting Children from Cruelty, and she
went to his house. He was a very plain Friend; a young man, and of a
fair countenance. He was at home with his wife, and both expressed deep
interest in the visitor’s story. The visitor left with the assurance
from Elwood that the case would receive attention early the next
morning.
Next morning, when Mrs. Tyke called Jinnie, Jinnie tried to rise,
but found that she could not: she was too feeble and wretched. Mrs.
Tyke saw this, and she did not compel Jinnie to get up. Mrs. Tyke was
beginning to be frightened. So Jinnie fell asleep again, and when
she awoke it was broad daylight, and a man with what seemed to be an
angelic face was standing beside her. It was Thomas Elwood. Jinnie was
startled; her first impression was that this was Kris Kingle, come in
answer to her prayer. But when Jinnie looked at the finger-hole she
had made in the fire-board and at the man, and particularly at the
circumference of his hat, it seemed to her impossible, if this was Kris
Kingle, that he should have come in by way of Mrs. Tyke’s chimney.
Thomas Elwood spoke to her and asked her if she suffered much. She said
yes, and then she asked him if he really was Kris Kingle.
Thomas smiled and said,--
“No, dear child; but I am thy friend, and I am going to take thee away
from this misery and keep thee until thee is well again.”
Then he lifted Jinnie in his arms, bore her downstairs and out, and
placed her in a carriage.
“Where is Mrs. Tyke?” thought Jinnie. Mrs. Tyke was at a magistrate’s
office, listening to Mrs. Brown and others of the neighbors while they
testified of her brutal treatment of Jinnie. The lady who had brought
Jinnie home was there also; and Jinnie was kindly pressed by the
magistrate to tell what Mrs. Tyke had done to her.
Mrs. Tyke gave bail and went home. Thomas Elwood took Jinnie to his
own house, and his wife wept as he told her how the child had been
tortured. She carried Jinnie upstairs and washed her, and dressed her
in clothes that Jinnie thought were wonderful, though they were so
plain. Then she kissed Jinnie and said to her,--
“I once had a little girl of thy age; but a year ago she died. She even
looked like thee, my dear.”
Jinnie was so weak that she had to lie upon the bed when the washing
and dressing were over; “and such a bed!” thought Jinnie. Thomas
Elwood’s wife brought some breakfast up to her, and Jinnie thought
that she had never tasted anything so good. She did not know that such
delicious food could be found anywhere in the world.
Jinnie grew better and stronger in a few days, and Thomas Elwood and
his wife became so much attached to her that they resolved that they
would keep her and adopt her in the place of the child that had been
taken away from them.
Jinnie was very happy, and she talked freely with them. She told them
about her search for Kris Kingle, and about that splendid doll she saw
in the window on the night she went to the strange baker’s.
Although entertaining sentiments which forbade any enthusiasm for
Christmas and Kris Kingle, and dolls in gorgeous apparel, something
impelled Thomas Elwood to go to see that special doll.
That night, as he sat with his wife in front of the grate fire in the
sitting-room, she said to him, Jinnie being in bed,--
“Thomas, does thee think there would be any harm in giving Virginia a
little pleasure on the 25th of this month?”
“How does thee mean, Rachel?”
“Well, she seems to have her little head filled with nonsense about
Kris Kingle and Christmas, and as the poor child has had a life so full
of misery, I thought, perhaps, we might--”
“Thee doesn’t mean to keep Christmas in this house, does thee?”
“Not exactly that, but--”
“What would Friends say if we should do that?”
“No; but there can be no harm in giving the poor child some playthings,
and we may as well give them upon one day as another.”
“What kind of playthings would thee give her?”
“Why not buy her a doll? She seemed to like that doll at Thomas Smith’s
store very much.”
“But, Rachel, that doll was dressed in a most worldly manner. Ought we
to risk filling the child’s mind with vain and frivolous notions about
dress?”
“She has hardly had a chance to feed her vanity in that manner thus
far.”
“Thee would be willing, then,” said Thomas, “to buy for her that
gaily-dressed doll?”
“I think I would; just this once.”
“Well,” said Thomas, slowly, “I am glad to hear thee say so, because
to-day I bought that very doll.” And he produced it from a bundle that
he took from under the sofa.
Kris Kingle came to Jinnie that Christmas eve, and in the morning her
joy as she clasped the doll in her arms was so great that she could
not express it. While she was at the breakfast table Thomas Elwood was
called to the parlor to see a visitor. Presently he summoned Jinnie,
and when Jinnie came into the room she was startled to see Mrs. Tyke.
It flashed across her mind that Mrs. Tyke had come to take her away,
and she began to cry. Thomas Elwood comforted her. Mrs. Tyke had come
to beg for mercy. She wished to escape prosecution.
Thomas turned to Jinnie and said,--
“Virginia, this is the woman who has done thee so much harm. I can have
her punished if I wish. What would thee do to her if thee had thy way?”
“I would forgive her,” said Jinnie, timidly.
It seemed as if Jinnie had been visited also by the _real_ Kris Kingle.
Mrs. Tyke was permitted to go unpunished.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made consistent when a
predominant preference was found in the original book; otherwise they
were not changed.
Simple typographical errors were corrected; unbalanced quotation marks
were remedied.
Except for the Frontispiece, illustrations in this eBook have been
positioned next to paragraphs they reference, and page number
references in the captions have been removed, as they’re not needed.