The bench, the barrel, and the cracker box in front of Hennery McNabb's
general store held three men, all of whom seemed to be thinking. Two of
them were not only thinking but chewing tobacco as well. The third,
more enterprising than the other two, more active, was exerting himself
prodigiously. He was thinking, chewing tobacco, and whittling all at the
same time.
Two of the men were native and indigenous to Hazel-ton. They drew their
sustenance from the black soil of the Illinois prairie on which the
little village was perched. They were as calm and placid as the
growing corn in the fields round about, as solid and self-possessed and
leisurely as the bull-heads in the little creek down at the end of Main
Street.
The third man was a stranger, somewhere between six and eight feet high
and so slender that one might have expected the bones to pop through the
skin, if one's attention had not been arrested by the skin itself. For
he was covered and contained by a most peculiar skin. It was dark and
rubbery-looking rather than leathery, and it seemed to be endowed with
a life of its own almost independent of the rest of the man's anatomy.
When a fly perched upon his cheek he did not raise his hand to brush it
off. The man himself did not move at all.
But his skin moved. His skin rose up, wrinkled, twitched, rippled
beneath the fly's feet, and the fly took alarm and went away from there
as if an earthquake had broken loose under it. He was a sad-looking man.
He looked sadder than the mummy of an Egyptian king who died brooding on
what a long dry spell lay ahead of him.
It was this third man of whom the other two men were thinking, this
melancholy stranger who sat and stared through the thick, humid heat of
the July day at nothing at all, with grievous eyes, his ego motionless
beneath the movements of his rambling skin. He had driven up the road
thirty minutes before in a flivver, had bought some chewing tobacco
of Hennery McNabb, and had set himself down in front of the store and
chewed tobacco in silence ever since.
Finally Ben Grevis, the village grave-digger and janitor of the church,
broke through the settled stillness with a question:
“Mister,” he said, “you ain't done nothing you're afraid of being
arrested for, hev you?”
The stranger slowly turned his head toward Ben and made a negative sign.
He did not shake his head in negation. He moved the skin of his forehead
from left to right and back again three or four times. And his eyebrows
moved as his skin moved. But his eyes remained fixed and melancholy.
“Sometimes,” suggested Hennery McNabb, who had almost tired himself out
whittling, “a man's system needs overhaulin', same as a horse's needs
drenchin'. I don't aim to push my goods on to no man, but if you was
feelin' anyway sick, inside or out, I got some of Splain's Liniment for
Man and Beast in there that might fix you up.”
“I ain't sick,” said the stranger, in a low and gentle voice.
“I never seen many fellers that looked as sad as you do,” volunteered
Ben Grevis. “There was a mighty sad-lookin' tramp, that resembled you
in the face some, was arrested here for bein' drunk eight or nine years
ago, only he wasn't as tall as you an' his skin was different. After
Si Emery, our city marshal, had kep' him in the lock-up over Sunday and
turned him loose again, it come to light he was wanted over in I'way for
killin' a feller with a piece of railroad iron.”
“I ain't killed anybody with any railroad iron over in I'way,” said the
lengthy man. And he added, with a sigh: “Nor nowheres else, neither.”
Hennery McNabb, who disagreed with everyone on principle--he was the
Village Atheist, and proud of it--addressed himself to Ben Grevis. “This
feller ain't nigh as sad-lookin' as that tramp looked,” said Hennery.
“I've knowed any number of fellers sadder-lookin' than this feller
here.”
“I didn't say this feller here was the saddest-lookin' feller I ever
seen,” said Ben Grevis. “All I meant was that he is sadder-lookin' than
the common run of fellers.” While Hennery disagreed with all the world,
Ben seldom disagreed with any one but Hennery. They would argue by the
hour, on religious matters, always beginning with Hennery's challenge:
“Ben Grevis, tell me just one thing if you can, _where_ did Cain get his
wife?” and always ending with Ben's statement: “I believe the Book from
kiver to kiver.”
The tall man with the educated skin--it was educated, very evidently,
for with a contraction of the hide on the back of his hand he
nonchalantly picked up a shaving that had blown his way--spoke to Ben
and Hennery in the soft and mild accents that seemed habitual to him:
“Where did you two see sadder-lookin' fellers than I be?”
“Over in Indianny,” said Hennery, “there's a man so sad that you're one
of these here laughin' jackasses 'longside o' him.”
And, being encouraged, Hennery proceeded.
This here feller (said Hennery McNabb) lived over in Brown County,
Indianny, but he didn't come from there original. He come from down in
Kentucky some-wheres and his name was Peevy, Bud Peevy. He was one of
them long, lank fellers, like you, stranger, but he wasn't as long and
his skin didn't sort o' wander around and wag itself like it was a tail.
It was from the mountain districts he come. I was visitin' a brother of
mine in the county-seat town of Brown County then, and this Bud Peevy
was all swelled up with pride when I first knowed him. He was proud
of two things. One was that he was the champeen corn-licker drinker
in Kentucky. It was so he give himself out. And the other thing he
was prouder yet of. It was the fact, if fact it was, that he was the
Decidin' Vote in a national election--that there election you all
remember, the first time Bryan run for President and McKinley was
elected.
This here Bud Peevy, you understand, wasn't really sad when I first
knowed him: he only _looked_ sad. His sadness that matched his innard
feelin's up to his outward looks come on to him later. He was all-fired
proud when I first knowed him. He went expandin' and extendin' of
himself around everywheres tellin' them Indianny people how it was him,
personal, that elected McKinley and saved the country from that there
free-silver ruination. And the fuller he was of licker, the longer he
made this here story, and the fuller, as you might say, of increditable
strange events.
Accordin' to him, on that election day in 1896 he hadn't planned to go
and vote, for it was quite a ways to the polls from his place and his
horse had fell lame and he didn't feel like walkin'. He figgered his
district would go safe for McKinley, anyhow, and he wouldn't need to
vote. He was a strong Republican, and when a Kentuckian is a Republican
there ain't no stronger kind.
But along about four o'clock in the afternoon a man comes ridin' up to
his house with his horse all a lather of foam and sweat, and the horse
was one of these here Kentucky thoroughbred race horses that must 'a'
travelled nigh a mile a minute, to hear Bud Peevy tell of it, and that
horse gives one groan like a human bein' and falls dead at Bud Peevy's
feet afore the rider can say a word, and the rider is stunned.
But Bud Peevy knowed him for a Republican county committeeman, and he
poured some corn licker down his throat and he revived to life again.
The feller yells to Bud as soon as he can get his breath to go to town
and vote, quick, as the polls will close in an hour, and everybody else
in that district has voted but Bud, and everyone has been kep' track of,
and the vote is a tie.
It's twelve miles to the pollin' place from Bud's farm in the hills
and it is a rough country, but Bud strikes out runnin' acrost hills and
valleys with three pints of corn licker in his pockets for to refresh
himself from time to time. Bud, he allowed he was the best runner in
Kentucky, and he wouldn't 'a' had any trouble, even if he did have to
run acrost mountains and hurdle rocks, to make the twelve miles in an
hour, but there was a lot of cricks and rivers in that country and
there had been a gosh-a-mighty big rain the night before and all them
cricks had turned into rivers and all them rivers had turned into
roarin' oceans and Niagara catarac's. But Bud, he allows he is the best
swimmer in Kentucky, and when he comes to a stream he takes a swig of
corn licker and jumps in and swims acrost, boots and all--for he was
runnin' in his big cowhides, strikin' sparks of fire from the mountains
with every leap he made.
Five times he was shot at by Democrats in the first six miles, and in
the seventh mile the shootin' was almost continual, and three or four
times he was hit, but he kep' on. It seems the Democrats had got wind he
had been sent for to turn the tide and a passel of 'em was out among the
hills with rifles to stop him if they could. But he is in too much of a
hurry to bandy words with 'em, and he didn't have his gun along, which
he regretted, he says, as he is the best gun fighter in Kentucky and he
keeps on a-runnin' and a-swimmin' and a-jumpin' cricks and a-hurdlin'
rocks with the bullets whizzin' around him and the lightnin' strikin' in
his path, for another big storm had come up, and no power on this here
earth could head him off, he says, for it come to him like a Voice from
on High he was the preordained messenger and hero who was goin' to turn
the tide and save the country from this here free-silver ruination.
About two miles from the pollin' place, jist as he jumps into the last
big river, two men plunges into the water after him with dirks, and
one of them he gets quick, but the other one drags Bud under the water,
stabbin' and jabbin' at him. There is a terrible stabbin' and stickin'
battle way down under the water, which is runnin' so fast that big
stones the size of a cow is being rolled down stream, but Bud he don't
mind the stones, and he can swim under water as well as on top of it, he
says, and he's the best knife fighter in Kentucky, he says, and he soon
fixes that feller and swims to shore with his knife in his teeth, and
now he's only got one more mountain to cross.
But a kind of hurricane has sprung up and turned into a cyclone in there
among the hills, and as he goes over the top of that last mountain,
lickety-split, in the dark and wind and rain, he blunders into a whole
passel of rattlesnakes that has got excited by the elements. But he fit
his way through 'em, thankin' God he had nearly a quart of licker left
to take for the eight or ten bites he got, and next there rose up in
front of him two of them big brown bears, and they was wild with rage
because the storm had been slingin' boulders at 'em. One of them bears
he sticked with his knife and made short work of, but the other one give
him quite a tussel, Bud says, afore he conquered it and straddled it.
And it was a lucky thing for him, he says, that he caught that bear
in time, for he was gittin' a leetle weak with loss of blood and snake
bites and battlin' with the elements. Bud, he is the best rider in
Kentucky, and it wasn't thirty seconds afore that bear knowed a master
was a-ridin' of it, and in five minutes more Bud, he gallops up to that
pollin' place, right through the heart of the hurricane, whippin' that
bear with rattlesnakes to make it go faster, and he jumps off and cracks
his boot heels together and gives a yell and casts the decidin' vote
into the ballot box. He had made it with nearly ten seconds to spare.
Well, accordin' to Bud Peevy that there one vote carries the day for
McKinley in that county and not only in that county alone, but in that
electorial district, and that electorial district gives McKinley the
State of Kentucky, which no Republican had ever carried Kentucky for
President for afore. And two or three other States was hangin' back
keepin' their polls open late to see how Kentucky would go, and when
it was flashed by telegraph all over the country that Bud Peevy was
carryin' Kentucky for McKinley, them other States joined in with
Kentucky and cast their electorial votes that-a-way, too, and McKinley
was elected President.
So Bud figgers he has jist naturally elected that man President and
saved the country--he is the one that was the Decidin' Vote for this
whole derned republic. And, as I said, he loves to tell about it. It was
in 1896 that Bud saved the country and it was in 1900 that he moved to
Brown County, Indianny, and started in with his oratin' about what a
great man he was, and givin' his political opinions about this, that
and the other thing, like he might 'a' been President himself. Bein' the
Decidin' Vote that-a-way made him think he jist about run this country
with his ideas.
He's been hangin' around the streets in his new home, the county town of
Brown County, for five or six weeks, in the summer of 1900, tellin' what
a great feller he is, and bein' admired by everybody, when one day the
news comes that the U. S. Census for 1900 has been pretty nigh finished,
and that the Centre of Population for the whole country falls in Brown
County. Well, you can understand that's calculated to make folks in that
county pretty darned proud.
But the proudest of them all was a feller by the name of Ezekiel
Humphreys. It seems these here government sharks had it figgered out
that the centre of population fell right on to where this here Zeke
Humphrey's farm was, four or five miles out of town.
And Zeke, he figgers that he, himself, personal, has become the Centre
of Population.
Zeke hadn't never been an ambitious man. He hadn't never gone out and
courted any glory like that, nor schemed for it nor thought of it. But
he was a feller that thought well enough of himself, too. He had been a
steady, hard-workin' kind of man all his life, mindin' his own business
and payin' his debts, and when this here glory comes to him, bein' chose
out of ninety millions of people, as you might say, to be the one and
only Centre of Population, he took it as his just due and was proud of
it.
“You see how the office seeks the man, if the man is worthy of it!”
says Zeke. And everybody liked Zeke that knowed him, and was glad of his
glory.
Well, one day this here Decidin' Vote, Bud Peevy, comes to town to
fill himself up on licker and tell how he saved the country, and he is
surprised because he don't get nobody to listen to him. And pretty soon
he sees the reason for it. There's a crowd of people on Main Street all
gathered around Zeke Humphreys and all congratulatin' him on being the
Centre of Population. And they was askin' his opinion on politics and
things. Zeke is takin' it modest and sensible, but like a man that
knowed he deserved it, too. Bud Peevy, he listens for a while, and he
sniffs and snorts, but nobody pays any 'tention to him. Finally, he
can't keep his mouth shut any longer, and he says:
“Politics! Politics! To hear you talk, a fellow'd think you really got a
claim to talk about politics!”
Zeke, he never was any trouble hunter, but he never run away from it,
neither.
“Mebby,” says Zeke, not het up any, but right serious and
determined-like, “mebby you got more claim to talk about politics than I
have?”
“I shore have,” says Bud Peevy. “I reckon I got more claim to be
hearkened to about politics than any other man in this here whole
country. I'm the Decidin' Vote of this here country, I am!”
“Well, gosh-ding my melts!” says Zeke Humphreys. “You ain't proud of
yourself, nor nothin', are you?”
“No prouder nor what I got a right to be,” says Bud Peevy, “considerin'
what I done.”
“Oh, yes, you be!” says Zeke Humphreys. “You been proudin' yourself
around here for weeks now all on account o' that decidin' vote business.
And _anybody_ might 'a' been a Decidin' Vote. A Decidin' Vote don't
amount to nothin' 'longside a Centre of Population.”
“Where would your derned population be if I hadn't went and saved this
here country for 'em?” asks Bud Peevy.
“Be?” says Zeke. “They'd be right where they be now, if you'd never been
born nor heard tell on, that's where they'd be. And I'd be the centre of
'em, jist like I be now!”
“And what _air_ you now?” says Bud Peevy, mighty mean and
insultin'-like. “You ain't nothin' but a accident, you ain't! What I
got, I fit for and I earnt. But you ain't nothin' but a happenin'!”
Them seemed like mighty harsh words to Zeke, for he figgered his glory
was due to him on account of the uprighteous life he always led, and so
he says:
“Mister, anybody that says I ain't nothin' but a happenin' is a liar.”
“1 kin lick my weight in rattlesnakes,” yells Bud Peevy, “and I've done
it afore this! And I tells you once again, and flings it in your face,
that you ain't nothin' but a accidental happenin'!”
“You're a liar, then!” says Zeke.
With that Bud Peevy jerks his coat off and spits on to his hands.
“Set yo'self, man,” says he; “the whirlwind's cornin'!” And he makes
a rush at Zeke. Bud is a good deal taller'n Zeke, but Zeke is sort o'
bricky-red and chunky like a Dutch Reformed Church, and when this here
Peevy comes on to him with a jump Zeke busts him one right on to the
eye. It makes an uncheerful noise like 1 heard one time when Dan Lively,
the butcher acrost the street there, hit a steer in the head with a
sledge hammer. Bud, he sets down sudden, and looks surprised out of
the eye that hadn't went to war yet. But he must 'a' figgered it was a
accident for he don't set there long. He jumps up and rushes again.
“I'm a wildcat! I'm a wildcat!” yells this here Bud. And Zeke, he
collisions his fist with the other eye, and Bud sets down the second
time. I won't say this here Zeke's hands was as big as a quarter of
beef. The fact is, they wasn't that big. But I seen that fight myself,
and there was somethin' about the size and shape of his fist when it
was doubled up that kind o' _reminded_ me of a quarter of beef. Only his
fists was harder than a quarter of beef. I guess Zeke's fists was about
as hard as a hickory log that has been gettin' itself soaked and dried
and seasoned for two or three years. I heard a story about Zeke and a
mule that kicked him one time, but I didn't see it myself and I dunno'
as it's all true. The word was that Zeke jist picked up that mule after
it kicked him and frowned at it and told it if it ever done that again
he would jist naturally pull off the leg that it kicked him with
and turn it loose to hop away on three legs, and he cuffed that mule
thorough and thoughtful and then he took it by one hind leg and fore leg
and jounced it against a stone barn and told it to behave its fool self.
It always seemed to me that story had been stretched a mite, but that
was one of the stories they telled on Zeke.
But this here Bud Peevy is game. He jumps up again with his two eyes
lookin' like a skillet full of tripe and onions and makes another rush
at Zeke. And this time he gets his hands on to Zeke and they rastles
back and forth. But Bud, while he is a strong fellow, he ain't no ways
as strong as a mule even if he is jist as sudden and wicked, so Zeke
throws him down two or three times. Bud, he kicks Zeke right vicious
and spiteful into the stomach, and when he done that Zeke began to get
a little cross. So he throwed Bud down again and this time he set on top
of him.
“Now, then,” says Zeke, bangin' Bud's head on to the sidewalk, “am I a
happenin', or am I on purpose?”
“Lemme up,” says Bud. “Leggo my whiskers and lemme up! You ain't licked
me any, but them ol' wounds I got savin' this country is goin' to bust
open ag'in. I kin feel 'em bustin'.”
“I didn't start this,” says Zeke, “but I'm a-goin' to finish it. Now,
then, am I a accident, or was I meant?”
“It's a accident you ever got me down,” says Bud, “Whether you are a
accident yourself or not.”
Zeke jounces his head on the sidewalk some more and he says: “You answer
better nor that! You go further! You tell me whether I'm on purpose or
not!”
“You was meant for somethin',” says Bud, “but you can't make me say
what! You can bang my head off and I won't say what. Two or three of
them bullets went into my neck right where you're bendin' it and I feel
them ol' wounds bustin' open.”
“I don't believe you got no ol' wounds,” says Zeke, “and I don't believe
you ever saved no country and I'm gonna keep you here till I've banged
some sense and politeness into your head.”
Bud, he gives a yell and a twist, and bites Zeke's wrist; Zeke slapped
him some, and Bud ketched one of Zeke's fingers into his mouth and nigh
bit it off afore Zeke got it loose. Zeke, he was a patient man and right
thoughtful and judicious, but he had got kind o' cross when Bud kicked
him into the stomach, and now this biting made him a leetle mite
crosser. I cal'ated if Bud wasn't careful he'd get Zeke really riled up
pretty soon and get his fool self hurt. Zeke, he takes Bud by the ears
and slams his head till I thought the boards in that sidewalk was goin'
to be busted.
“Now, then,” says Zeke, lettin' up for a minute, “has the Centre of
Population got a right to talk politics, or ain't he? You say he is got
a right, or I mebby will fergit myself and get kind o' rough with you.”
“This here country I saved is a free country,” says Bud Peevy, kind o'
sick an' feeble, “and any one that lives in this here country I saved
has got a right to talk politics, I reckon.”
Zeke, he took that for an answer and got good-natured and let Bud up.
Bud, he wipes the blood off'n his face and ketches his breath an' gits
mean again right away.
“If my constitution hadn't been undermined savin' this here country,”
says Bud, “you never could 'a' got me down like that! And you ain't
heard the end of this argyment yet, neither! I'm a-goin' for my gun, and
we'll shoot it out!”
But the townspeople interfered and give Bud to understand he couldn't
bring no guns into a fight, like mebby he would 'a' done in them
mountain regions he was always talkin' about; an' told him if he was to
start gunnin' around they would get up a tar-and-feather party and he
would be the reception committee. They was all on Zeke's side and they'd
all got kind o' tired listenin' to Bud Peevy, anyhow. Zeke was their own
hometown man, and so they backed him. All that glory had come to Brown
County and they wasn't goin' to see it belittled by no feller from
another place.
Bud Peevy, for two or three weeks, can't understand his glory has left
him, and he goes braggin' around worse than ever. But people only grins
and turns away; nobody will hark to him when he talks. When Bud tries
to tell his story it gets to be quite the thing to look at him and
say: “Lemme up! Leggo my whiskers! Lemme up!”--like he said when Zeke
Humphreys had him down. And so it was he come to be a byword around
town. Kids would yell at him on the street, to plague him, and he would
get mad and chase them kids, and when folks would see him runnin' after
the kids they would yell: “Hey! Hey, Bud Peevy! You could go faster if
you was to ride a bear!” Or else they would yell: “Whip yourself with a
rattlesnake, Bud, and get up some speed!”
His glory had been so big and so widespread for so long that when it
finally went, there jist wasn't a darned thing left to him. His heart
busted in his bosom. He wouldn't talk about nothin'. He jist slinked
around. He was most pitiful because he wasn't used to misfortune like
some people.
And he couldn't pack up his goods and move away from that place. For he
had come there to live with a married daughter and his son-in-law, and
if he left there he would have to get a steady job working at somethin'
and support himself. And Bud didn't want to risk that. For that wild run
he made the time he saved the country left him strained clean down to
the innards of his constitution, he says, and he wa'n't fit to work. But
the thing that put the finishing touches on to him was when a single
daughter that he had fell into love with Zeke Humphreys, who was a
widower, and married herself to him. His own flesh and blood has
disowned him, Bud says. So he turns sad, and he was the saddest man 1
ever seen. He was sadder than you look to be, stranger.
The stranger with the educated skin breathed a gentle sigh at the
conclusion of Hennery's tale of the Deciding Vote and the Centre of
Population, and then he said:
“I don't doubt Bud Peevy was a sad man. But there's sadder things
than what happened to Bud Peevy. There's things that touches the heart
closer.”
“Stranger,” said Ben Grevis, “you've said it! But Hennery, here, don't
know anything about the heart bein' touched.”
Hennery McNabb seemed to enjoy the implication, rather than to resent
it. Ben Grevis continued:
“A sadder thing than what happened to Bud Peevy is goin' on a good deal
nearer home than Indianny.
“I ain't the kind of a feller that goes running to Indianny and to
Kentucky and all over the known earth for examples of sadness, nor
nothin' else. We got as good a country right here in Illinois as there
is on top of the earth and I'm one that always sticks up for home folks
and home industries. Hennery, here, ain't got any patriotism. And he
ain't got any judgment. He don't know what's in front of him. But right
here in our home county, not five miles from where we are, sets a case
of sadness that is one of the saddest I ever seen or knowed about.
“Hennery, here, he don't know how sad it is, for he's got no finer
feelin's. A free thinker like Hennery can't be expected to have no finer
feelin's. And this case is a case of a woman.”
“A woman!” sighed the stranger. “If a woman is mixed up with it, it
could have finer feelin's and sadness in it!” And a ripple of melancholy
ran over him from head to foot.
This here woman (said Ben Grevis) lives over to Hickory Grove, in the
woods, and everybody for miles around calls her Widder Watson.
Widder Watson, she has buried four or five husbands, and you can see her
any day that it ain't rainin' settin' in the door of her little
house, smokin' of her corn-cob pipe, and lookin' at their graves and
speculatin' and wonderin'. I talked with her a good deal from time
to time durin' the last three or four years, and the things she is
speculatin' on is life and death, and them husbands she has buried,
and children. But that ain't what makes her so sad. It's wishin' for
somethin' that, it seems like, never can be, that is makin' her so sad.
She has got eighteen or twenty children, Widder Watson has, runnin'
around them woods. Them woods is jist plumb full of her children. You
wouldn't dare for to try to shoot a rabbit anywhere near them woods for
fear of hittin' one.
And all them children has got the most beautiful and peculiar names,
that Widder Watson got out of these here drug-store almanacs. She's been
a great reader all her life, Widder Watson has, but all her readin' has
been done in these here almanacs. You know how many different kinds
of almanacs there always are layin' around drug-stores, I guess. Well,
every two or three months Widder Watson goes to town and gets a new
bale of them almanacs and then she sets and reads 'em. She goes to
drug-stores in towns as far as twelve or fifteen miles away to keep
herself supplied.
She never cared much for readin' novels and story papers, she tells me.
What she wants is somethin' that has got some true information in it,
about the way the sun rises, and the tides in the oceans she has never
saw, and when the eclipses is going to be, and different kinds of
diseases new and old, and receipts for preserves and true stories about
how this or that wonderful remedy come to be discovered. Mebby it was
discovered by the Injuns in this country, or mebby it was discovered
by them there Egyptians in the old country away back in King Pharaoh's
time, and mebby she's got some of the same sort of yarbs and plants
right there in her own woods. Well, Widder Watson, she likes that kind
o' readin', and she knows all about the Seven Wonders of the World, and
all the organs and ornaments inside the human carcass, and the kind o'
pains they are likely to have and all about what will happen to you if
the stars says this or that and how long the Mississippi River is and a
lot of them old-time prophecies of signs and marvels what is to come to
pass yet. You know about what the readin' is in them almanacs, mebby.
Widder Watson, she has got a natural likin' for fine words, jist the
same as some has got a gift for hand-paintin' or playin' music or
recitin' pieces of poetry or anything like that. And so it was quite
natural, when her kids come along, she names 'em after the names in her
favourite readin' matter. And she gets so she thinks more of the names
of them kids than of nearly anything else. I ain't sayin' she thinks
more of the names than she does of the kids, but she likes the names
right next to the kids. Every time she had a baby she used to sit and
think for weeks and weeks, so she tells me, for to get a good name for
that baby, and select and select and select out of them almanacs.
Her oldest girl, that everybody calls Zody, is named Zodiac by rights.
And then there's Carty, whose real name is Cartilege, and Anthy, whose
full name is Anthrax, and so on. There's Peruna and Epidermis and
Epidemic and Pisces.
I dunno as I can remember all them swell names. There's Perry, whose
real name is Perihelion, and there's Whitsuntide and Tonsillitis and
Opodeldoc and a lot more--I never could remember all them kids.
And there ain't goin' to be no more on 'em, for the fact of the matter
seems to be that Widder Watson ain't likely to ever get another husband.
It's been about four years since Jim Watson, her last one, died, and was
buried in there amongst the hickory second-growth and hazel bushes, and
since that day there ain't nobody come along that road a-courtin' Widder
Watson. And that's what makes her sad. She can't understand it, never
havin' been without a husband for so long before, and she sets and
grieves and grieves and smokes her corn-cob pipe and speculates and
grieves some more.
Now, don't you get no wrong idea about Widder Watson. She ain't so
all-fired crazy about men. It ain't that. That ain't what makes her
grieve. She is sad because she wants another baby to pin a name to.
For she has got the most lovely name out of a new almanac for that there
kid that will likely never be born, and she sets there day after day,
and far into the night, lookin' at them graves in the brush, and talkin'
to the clouds and stars, and sayin' that name over and over to herself,
and sighin' and weepin' because that lovely name will be lost and
unknown and wasted forevermore, with no kid to tack it on to.
And she hopes and yearns and grieves for another man to marry her and
wonders why none of 'em never does. Well, I can see why they don't. The
truth is, Widder Watson don't fix herself up much any more. She goes
barefooted most of the time in warm weather, and since she got so
sad-like she don't comb her hair much. And them corn-cob pipes of hern
ain't none too savory. But I 'spose she thinks of herself as bein' jist
the same way she was the last time she took the trouble to look into the
lookin' glass and she can't understand it.
“Damn the men, Ben,” she says to me, the last time I was by there,
“what's the matter with 'em all? Ain't they got no sense any more? I
never had no trouble ketchin' a man before this! But here I been settin'
for three or four years, with eighty acres of good land acrost the road
there, and a whole passel o' young uns to work it, and no man comes to
court me. There was a feller along here two-three months ago I did
have some hopes on. He come a-palaverin' and a-blarneyin' along, and he
stayed to dinner and I made him some apple dumplin's, and he et an' et
and palavered.
“But it turned out he was really makin' up to that gal, Zody, of mine.
It made me so darned mad, Ben, I runned him off the place with Jeff
Parker's shotgun that is hangin' in there, and then I took a hickory
sprout to that there Zody and tanned her good, for encouragin' of him.
You remember Jeff Parker, Ben? He was my second. You wasn't thinkin' of
gettin' married ag'in yourself, was you, Ben?”
I told her I wasn't. That there eighty acres is good land, and they
ain't no mortgages on it, nor nothin', but the thought of bein' added to
that collection in amongst the hazel brush and hickory sprouts is enough
for to hold a man back. And the Widder Watson, she don't seem to realize
she orter fix herself up a little mite. But I'm sorry for her, jist
the same. There she sets and mourns, sayin' that name over and over
to herself, and a-grievin' and a-hopin', and all the time she knows it
ain't much use to hope. And a sadder sight than you will see over
there to Hickory Grove ain't to be found in the whole of the State of
Illinois.
“That is a mighty sad picture you have drawed,” said the stranger, when
Ben Grevis had finished, “but I'm a sadder man for a man than that there
woman is for a woman.”
He wrinkled all over, he almost grinned, if one could think of him as
grinning, when he mentioned “that there woman.” It was as if he tasted
some ulterior jest, and found it bitter, in connection with “that there
woman.” After a pause, in which he sighed several times, he remarked in
his tired and gentle voice:
“There's two kinds of sadness, gentlemen. There is the melancholy
sadness that has been with you for so long that you have got used to
it and kind o' enjoy it in a way. And then there's the kind o' sadness
where you go back on yourself, where you make your own mistakes and fall
below your own standards, and that is a mighty bitter kind of sadness.”
He paused again, while the skin wreathed itself into funeral wreaths
about his face, and then he said, impressively:
“Both of them kinds of sadness I have known. First I knowed the
melancholy kind, and now I know the bitter kind.”
The first sadness that I had lasted for years (said the stranger with
the strange skin). It was of the melancholy kind, tender and sort o'
sweet, and if I had been the right kind of a man I would 'a' stuck to it
and kept it. But I went back on it. I turned my face away from it. And
in going back on it I went back on all them old, sad, sweet memories,
like the songs tell about, that was my better self. And that is what
caused the sadness I am in the midst of now. It's the feelin' that I
done wrong in turnin' away from all them memories that makes me as sad
as you see me to-day. I will first tell you how the first sadness come
on to me, and secondly I will tell you how I got the sadness I am in the
midst of now.
Gentlemen, mebby you have noticed that my skin is kind o' different from
most people's skin. That is a gift, and there was a time when I made
money off'n that gift. And I got another gift. I'm longer and slimmer
than most persons is. And besides them two gifts, I got a third gift. I
can eat glass, gentlemen, and it don't hurt me none. I can eat glass as
natural and easy as a chicken eats gravel. And them three gifts is my
art.
I was an artist in a side-show for years, gentlemen, and connected with
one of the biggest circuses in the world. I could have my choice of
three jobs with any show I was with, and there ain't many could say
that. I could be billed as the India Rubber Man, on account of my skin,
or I could be billed as the Living Skeleton, on account of my framework,
or I could be billed as the Glass Eater. And once or twice I was billed
as all three.
But mostly I didn't bother much with eating glass or being a Living
Skeleton. Mostly I stuck to being an India Rubber Man. It always seemed
to me there was more art in that, more chance to show talent and genius.
The gift that was given to me by Providence I developed and trained
till I could do about as much with my skin as most people can with their
fingers. It takes constant work and practice to develop a skin, even
when Nature has been kind to you like she has to me.
For years I went along contented enough, seein' the country and being
admired by young and old, and wondered at and praised for my gift and
the way I had turned it into an art, and never thinkin' much of women
nor matrimony nor nothing of that kind.
But when a man's downfall is put off, it is harder when it comes. When
I fell in love I fell good and hard. I fell into love with a pair of
Siamese twins. These here girls was tied together somewheres about the
waist line with a ligament of some kind, and there wasn't no fake about
it--they really was tied. On account of motives of delicacy I never
asked 'em much about that there ligament. The first pair of twins like
that who was ever on exhibition was from Siam, so after that they called
all twins of that kind Siamese twins. But these girls wasn't from none
of them outlandish parts; they was good American girls, born right over
in Ohio, and their names was Jones. Hetty Jones and Netty Jones was
their names.
Hetty, she was the right-hand twin, and Netty was the left-hand twin.
And you never seen such lookers before in your life, double nor single.
They was exactly alike and they thought alike and they talked alike.
Sometimes when I used to set and talk to 'em I felt sure they was
just one woman. If I could 'a' looked at 'em through one of these here
stereoscopes they would 'a' come together and been one woman, I never
had any idea about 'em bein' two women.
Well, I courted 'em, and they was mighty nice to me, both of 'em. I used
to give 'em candy and flowers and little presents and I would set and
admire 'em by the hour. I kept gettin' more and more into love with
them. And I seen they was gettin' to like me, too.
So one day I outs with it.
“Will you marry me?” says I.
“Yes,” says Hetty. And, “Yes,” says Netty. Both in the same breath! And
then each one looked at the other one, and they both looked at me, and
they says, both together:
“Which one of us did you ask?”
“Why,” says I, kind o' flustered, “there ain't but one of you, is they?
I look on you as practically one woman.”
“The idea!” says Netty.
“You orter be ashamed of yourself,” says Hetty.
“You didn't think,” says Netty, “that you could marry both of us, did
you?”
Well, all I had really thought up to that time was that I was in love
with 'em, and just as much in love with one as with the other, and
I popped the question right out of my heart and sentiments without
thinking much one way or the other. But now I seen there was going to be
a difficulty.
“Well,” I says, “if you want to consider yourself as two people, I
suppose it would be marryin' both of you. But I always thought of you as
two hearts that beat as one. And I don't see no reason why I shouldn't
marry the two of you, if you want to hold out stubborn that you _are_
two.”
“For my part,” says Hetty, “I think you are insulting.”
“You must choose between us,” says Netty.
“I would never,” says Hetty, “consent to any Mormonous goings-on of that
sort.”
They still insisted they was two people till finally I kind o' got to
see their side of the argyment. But how was I going to choose between
them when no matter which one I chooses she was tied tight to the other
one?
We agreed to talk it over with the Fat Lady in that show, who had a good
deal of experience in concerns of the heart and she had been married
four or five times and was now a widder, having accidental killed her
last husband by rolling over on him in her sleep. She says to me:
“How happy you could be with either, Skinny, were t'other dear charmer
away!”
“This ain't no jokin' matter, Dolly,” I tells her. “We come for serious
advice.”
“Skinny, you old fool,” she says, “there's an easy way out of this
difficulty. All you got to do is get a surgeon to cut that ligament and
then take your choice.”
“But I ain't really got any choice,” I says, “for I loves 'em both and I
loves 'em equal. And I don't believe in tamperin' with Nature.”
“It ain't legal for you to marry both of 'em,” says the Fat Lady.
“It ain't moral for me to cut 'em asunder,” I says.
I had a feelin' all along that if they was cut asunder trouble of some
kind would follow. But both Hetty and Netty was strong for it. They
refused to see me or have anything to do with me, they sent me word,
till I give up what they called the insultin' idea of marryin' both of
'em. They set and quarrelled with each other all the time, the Fat
Lady told me, because they was jealous of each other. Bein' where they
couldn't get away from each other even for a minute, that jealousy must
have et into them something unusual. And finally, I knuckled under. I
let myself be overrulled. I seen I would lose both of 'em unless I made
a choice. So I sent 'em word by the Fat Lady that I would choose. But I
knowed deep in my heart all the time that no good would come of it. You
can't go against Scripter and prosper; and the Scripter says: “What God
has joined together, let no man put asunder.”
Well, we fixed it up this way: I was to pay for that there operation,
having money saved up for to do it with, and then I was to make my
choice by chance. The Fat Lady says to toss a penny or something.
But I always been a kind of a romantic feller, and I says to myself I
will make that choice in some kind of a romantic way. So first I tried
one of these ouija boards, but all I get is “Etty, Etty, Etty,” over and
over again, and whether the ouija left off an H or an N there's no way
of telling. The Fat Lady, she says: “Why don't you count 'em out, like
kids do, to find out who is It?”
“How do you mean?” I asks her.
“Why,” says she, “by saying, 'Eeny meeny, miney, mo!' or else 'Monkey,
monkey, bottle of beer, how many monkeys have we here?' or something
like that.”
But that ain't romantic enough to suit me and I remember how you pluck a
daisy and say: “She loves me! She loves me not!” And I think I will
get an American beauty rose and do it that way. Well, they had the
operation, and it was a success. And about a week later I'm to go to the
hospital and tell 'em which one has been elected to the holy bonds of
matrimony. I gets me a rose, one of the most expensive that money can
buy in the town we was in, and when I arrive at the hospital I start up
the front steps pluckin' the leaves off and sayin' to myself: “Hetty she
is! Netty she is! Hetty she is!”--and so on. But I never got that rose
all plucked.
I knowed all along that it was wrong to put asunder what God had joined
together, and I orter stuck to the hunch I had. You can't do anything
to a freak without changing his or her disposition some way. You take
a freak that was born that way and go to operating on him, and if he is
good-natured he'll turn out a grouch, or if he was a grouch he'll turn
out good-natured. I knowed a dog-faced boy one time who was the sunniest
critter you ever seen. But his folks got hold of a lot of money and took
him out of the business and had his features all slicked up and made
over, and what he gained in looks he lost in temper and disposition.
Any tinkering you do around artists of that class will change their
sentiments every time.
I never got that rose all plucked. At the top of the steps I was met by
Hetty and Netty, just cornin' out of the hospital and not expectin' to
see me. With one of them was a young doctor that worked in the hospital
and with the other was a patient that had just got well. They explained
to me that as soon as they had that operation their sentiments toward me
changed. Before, they had both loved me. Afterwards, neither one of
'em did. They was right sorry about it, they said, but they had married
these here fellows that morning in the hospital, with a double wedding,
and was now starting off on their wedding trips, and their husbands
would pay back the operation money as soon as they had earned it and
saved it up.
Well, I was so flabbergasted that my skin stiffened up on me, and it
stayed stiff for the rest of that day. I never said a word, but I turned
away from there a sad man with a broken heart in my bosom. And I quit
bein' an artist. I didn't have the sperrit to be in a show any more.
And through all the years since then I been a saddened man. But as time
went by there come a kind of sweetness into that sadness, too. It is
better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, like
the poet says. I was one of the saddest men in the world, but I sort o'
enjoyed it, after a few years. And all them memories sort o' kept me a
better man.
I orter stuck to that kind of sweet sadness. I orter knowed that if I
went back on all them beautiful memories of them girls something bitter
would come to me.
But I didn't, gentlemen. I went back on all that sentiment and that
tenderness. I betrayed all them beautiful memories. Five days ago, I
went and married. Yes, sir, I abandoned all that sweet recollection.
And I been livin' in hell ever since. I been reproachin' myself day and
night for not provin' true and trustworthy to all that romantic sadness
I had all them years. It was a sweet sadness, and I wasn't faithful to
it. And so long as I live now I will have this here bitter sadness.
The stranger got up and sighed and stretched himself. He took a fresh
chew of tobacco, and began to crank his flivver.
“Well,” said Ben Grevis, “that is a sad story. But I don't know as
you're sadder, at that, than the Widder Watson is.”
The stranger spat colourfully into the road, and again the faint
semblance of a smile, a bitter smile, wreathed itself about his mouth.
“Yes, I be!” he said, “I be a sadder person than the Widder Watson. It
was her I married!”