CURIOUS are the agencies that throw the true believer into the
occult state. Convalescence may do it. Acts of piety may do it.
Self-mortification may do it.
After reading my evening sermon in rhyme in the house of the stranger,
I had slept on the lounge in the parlor. The lounge had lost some of
its excelsior, and the springs wound their way upwards like steel
serpents. So strenuous had been the day I could have slumbered
peacefully on a Hindu bed of spikes.
I awoke refreshed, despite several honorable scars. What is more
important I left that house with faculties of discernment.
I did not realize at first that I was particularly spiritualized. I
was merely walking west, hoping to take in Oil City on my route. Yet I
saw straight through the bark of a big maple, and beheld the loveliest
... but I have not time to tell.
Then I heard a fluttering in a patch of tall weeds and discovered what
the people in fairyland call ... but no matter. We must hurry on.
At noon your servant was on the front step of a store near a
cross-roads called Cranberry, Pennsylvania. The store was on the south
side of the way by which I had come. I sat looking along wagon tracks
leading north, little suspecting I should take that route soon.
On one side overhead was the sign: “Fred James, Undertaker.” On the
other: “Fred James, Grocer.”
“_And so_,” I thought, “_I am going to meet, face to face, one of the
eternal powers._ He may call himself Fred James all he pleases. His
real name is Death.”
I met the lady Life, once upon a time, long ago. She had innocent blue
eyes. Alone in the field I felt free to kiss the palm of her little
hand, under the shadow of the corn.
It has nothing to do with the tale, but let us here reflect how the
corn-stalk is a proud thing, how it flourishes its dangerous blades,
guarding the young ear. It will cut you on the forehead if the wind is
high. Above the blades is the sacred tassel like a flame.
Once, under that tassel, under those dangerous blades, I met Life, and
for good reason, bade her good-by. After her solemn words of parting,
she called me back, and mischievously fed me, from the pocket of her
gingham apron, crab apples and cranberries. Ever since that time those
fruits have been bitter delights to my superstitious fancy.
And here I was at CRANBERRY cross-roads, with a funeral director’s sign
over my head. A long five minutes I meditated on the mystery of Life
and Death and cranberries. A fat chicken, apparently meditating on the
same mystery, kept walking up and down, catching gnats.
At length it was revealed to me that when things have their proper
rhythm Life and Death are interwoven, like willows plaited for a
basket. Somewhat later in the afternoon I speculated that when times
are out of joint, it is because Death reigns without Life for a
partner, with the assistance of the Devil rather. But do not remember
this. It anticipates the plot.
One does not hasten into the presence of the undertaker. One rather
waits. HE was coming. I did not look round. Even at noon he cast a
considerable shadow.
The shadow dwindled as he sat on the same step and asked: “What road
have you come?” His non-partisan drawl was the result, we will suppose,
of not knowing which side of the store the new customer approached.
“I came from over there. I have been walking since sunrise.”
He had some account of my adventures, and my point of view as a
religious mendicant. I knew I would have to ask the further road of
him, but disliked the necessity. He waited patiently while I watched my
friend, the fat chicken, explore an empty, dirty, bottomless basket for
flies.
“I want to go west by way of Oil City,” I finally said.
He answered: “Oil City is reached by the north road, straight in front
of you as you sit. It is about an hour’s walk to the edge of it. It is
a sort of trap in the mountains. When you get in sight of it, _keep on
going down_.” This he said very solemnly.
He put his hand on my shoulder: “Come in and rest and eat first. It
won’t cost you a cent.”
I was hungry enough to eat a coffin handle, and so I looked at him and
extended my hand. He was a handsome chap, with a grey mustache. His
black coat was buttoned high. He was extra neat for a country merchant,
and chewed his tobacco surreptitiously. His face was not so bony and
stern as you might think.
I gave him an odd copy of the _Tree of Laughing Bells_, still
remaining by me. He looked at the outside long, doing the cover more
than justice. Then he opened it, with a certain air of delicate
appreciation. I urged him to postpone reading the thing till I was gone.
His store was high and long and narrow and cool. There was a counter
to the west, a counter to the east. Behind the western one were tall
coffin cupboards. As he proudly opened and shut them, one could not but
notice the length of his fingers and their dexterity. He showed plain
coffins and splendid coffins. He unscrewed the lid of one, that I might
see the silky cushions within. They looked easier than last night’s
lounge.
As he stepped across what might be called the international date line
of the store, and entered the hemisphere of groceries, he began to look
as though he would indulge in a merry quip. A faint flush came to his
white countenance, that shone among the multi-colored packages.
Before us were the supplies of a rural general store, from the kitchen
mop to the blue parlor vase. Hanging from the ceiling was an array of
the flamboyant varnished posters of the seedsmen, with pictures of cut
watermelons, blood-red, and portraits of beets, cabbages, pumpkins.
I read his home-made sign aloud: “I guarantee every seed in the store.
Pansy seeds a specialty.”
“Not that they all grow,” he explained. “But the guarantee keeps up
the confidence of the customers. I have made more off of vegetable and
flower seeds this year than caskets.”
He pulled out a chip plate and fed me with dried beef, sliced thin.
He smiled broadly, and set down a jar. The merry quip had arrived.
“Why,” he asked, “is a stick of candy like a race-horse?”
I remained silent, but looked anxious to know. Delighted with himself,
he gave the ancient answer, and with it several sticks of candy. Kind
reader, if you do not know the answer to the riddle, ask your neighbor.
There was no end of sweets. He skilfully sliced fresh bread, and
spread it with butter and thick honey-comb. With much self-approval he
insisted on crowding my pockets with supper.
“Nobody knows how they will treat you around Oil City. _I go often, but
never for pleasure. Only on funeral business._”
He gave me pocketfuls of the little animal crackers, so daintily cut
out, that used to delight all of us as children. Since he insisted I
take something more, I took figs and dates.
He held up an animal cracker, shaped like a cow, and asked: “When was
beefsteak the highest?” I ventured to give the answer.
Death is not a bad fellow. Let no man cross his grey front stoop with
misgiving. The honey he serves is made by noble bees. Yet do not go
seeking him out. No doubt his acquaintance is most worth while when it
is casual, unexpected, one of the natural accidents. And he does not
always ask such simple riddles.