times. I could, of course, find out. The Encyclopedia--volume _Aus to
Bis_--would enlighten me. Right now, downstairs in the bookcase--up near
the top where the shabby books are kept--among the old Baedekers--there
is a life of him by Leslie Stephen. No! That is a life of Hobbes. I
don't know anything about Hobbes either. It seems to me that he wrote
the "Leviathan," whatever that was. But there is a Bentham somewhere
around the house. But I have not read it.
In a rough way I know who Bentham was. He lived perhaps a hundred years
ago and he had a theory of utility. Utility was to clean the infected
world. Even the worst of us were to rise out of the tub white and
perfect. It was Bentham who wished to revisit the world in a hundred
years to see how sweet and clean we had become. He was to utility what
Malthus was to population. Malthus! There is another hard one. It is the
kind of name that is cut round the top of a new City Hall to shame
citizens by their ignorance.
I can go downstairs this minute and look up Bentham. Is it worth while?
But then I might be called to dinner in the middle of the article, or I
might be wanted to move the refrigerator. There is a musty smell, it
seems, in the drain pipe, and the stubborn casters are turned sidewise.
It hardly seems worth the chance and effort.
There are a great many things that really do stir my curiosity, and even
those things I don't look up. Or tardily, after my ignorance has been
exposed. The other day the moon arose--as a topic--at the round table of
the club where I eat lunch. It had really never occurred to me that we
had never seen its other side, that we never could--except by a
catastrophe--unless it smashed into a planet and was thrown heels up.
How does it keep itself so balanced that one face is forever hid? Try to
roll an apple around a pumpkin and meanwhile spin the pumpkin. Try this
on your carpet. I take my hat off to the moon.
I have been very ignorant of the moon. All of these years I have
regarded it as a kindly creature that showed itself now and then merely
on a whim. It was just jogging around of an evening, so I supposed, and
looked us up. It was an old neighbor who dropped in after dinner, as it
were, for a bit of gossip and an apple. But even the itinerant
knife-grinder--whose whirling wheel I can hear this minute below me in
the street--even the knife-grinder has a route. He knows at what season
we grow dull. What necessity, then, of ours beckons to the moon? Perhaps
it comes with a silver brush to paint the earth when it grows shabby
with the traffic of the day. Perhaps it shows itself to stir a lover who
halts coldly in his suit. The pink god, they say, shoots a dangerous
arrow when the moon is full.
The extent of my general ignorance is amazing. And yet, I suppose, by
persistence and energy I could mend it. Old Doctor Dwight used to advise
those of us who sat in his classroom to read a hard book for half an
hour each day. How those half hours would mount up through the years!
What a prodigious background of history, of science, of literature, one
would gain as the years revolved! If I had followed his advice I would
today be bursting with knowledge of Jeremy Bentham; I would never have
been tripped upon the moon.
How ignorant most of us are of the times in which we live! We see the
smoke and fires of revolution in Europe. We hear the cries of famine and
disease, but our perception is lost in the general smudge. How are the
Balkans parceled? How is the nest of nationalities along the Danube
disposed? This morning there is revolt in Londonderry. What parties are
opposite in the quarrel? Trouble brews in Chile. Is Tacni-Arica a
district or a mountain range? The Aland Islands breed war in the north.
Today there is a casualty list from Bagdad. The Bolsheviki advance on
Warsaw. Those of us who are cobblers tap our shoes unruffled, tailors
stitch, we bargain in the market--all of us go about on little errands
without excitement when the news is brought.
And then there is mechanics. This is now so preeminently a mechanical
world that no one ought to be entirely ignorant of cylinders and cogs
and carburetors. And yet my own motor is as dark as Africa. I am as
ignorant of a carburetor as of the black stomach of a zebra. Once a
carpenter's bench was given me at Christmas, fitted up with all manner
of tricky tools. The bookshelves I built in my first high enthusiasm
have now gone down to the basement to hold the canned fruit, where they
lean with rickets against the wall. Even the box I made to hold the milk
bottles on the back steps has gone the way of flesh. Any chicken-coop of
mine would topple in the wind. Well-instructed hens would sit around on
fence-posts and cackle at my efforts with a saw. Certainly, if a company
of us were thrown on a desert island, it would not be I who proved the
Admirable Crichton. Not by my shrewdness could we build a hut. Robinson
Crusoe contrived a boat. If I tied a raft together it would be sure to
sink.
Where are the Virgin Islands? What makes a teapot bubble? What forces
bring the rain and tempest?
In cooking I go no farther than an egg. Birds, to me, are either
sparrows or robins. I know an elm and a maple, but hemlocks and pines
and firs mix me up. I am not to be trusted to pull the weeds. Up would
come the hollyhocks. Japanese prints and Chinese vases sit in a world
above me.
I can thump myself in front without knowing whether I jar my stomach or
my liver. I have no notion where my food goes when it disappears. When
once I have tilted my pudding off its spoon my knowledge ceases. It is
as a child of Israel on journey in the wilderness. Does it pass through
my thorax? And where do my lungs branch off?
I know nothing of etchings, and I sit in gloomy silence when friends
toss Whistler and Rembrandt across the table. I know who our mayor is,
but I scratch my head to name our senator. And why does the world
crumple up in hills and mountains?
I could look up Jeremy Bentham and hereafter I would know all about him.
And I could look up the moon. And Hobbes. And Leslie Stephen, who wrote
a book about him. And a man named Maitland who wrote a life of Stephen.
Somebody must have written about Maitland. I could look him up, too. And
I could read about the Balkans and tell my neighbors whether they are
tertiary or triassic. I could pursue the thorax to its lair. Saws and
chicken-coops, no doubt, are an engaging study. I might take a tree-book
to the country, or seek an instructive job in a garage.
But what is the use? Right in front of Jeremy Bentham, in _Aus to Bis_,
is George Bentham, an English botanist. To be thorough I would have to
read about him also. Then following along is Bentivoglio, and Benzene--a
long article on benzene. And Beowulf! No educated person should be quite
ignorant of him. Albrecht Bitzius was a Swiss novelist. Somehow he has
escaped me entirely. And Susanna Blamire, "the muse of Cumberland"! She
sounds engaging. Who is there so incurious that he would not give an
evening to Borneo? And the Bryophyta?--which I am glad to learn include
"the mosses and the liverworts." Dear me! it is quite discouraging.
And then, when I am gaining information on Hobbes, the Hittites, right
in front, take my eye. Hilarius wrote "light verses of the goliardic
type"--whatever that means. And the hippopotamus! "the largest
representative of the non-ruminating artiodactyle ungulate mammals." I
must sit with the hippopotamus and worm his secret.
And after I have learned to use the saw, I would have to take up the
plane. And then the auger. And Whistler. And Japanese prints. And a bird
book.
It is very discouraging.
I stand with Pope. Certainly, unless one is very thirsty and has a great
deal of vacant time, it is best to avoid the Pierian spring.
Jeremy can go and hang himself. I am learning to play golf.
A Chapter for Children.
Once upon a time--for this is the way a story should begin--there lived
in a remote part of the world a family of children whose father was busy
all day making war against his enemies. And so, as their mother, also,
was busy (clubs, my dear, and parties), they were taken care of and had
their noses wiped--but in a most kindly way--by an old man who loved
them very much.
Now this old man had been a jester in his youth. For these were the
children of a king and so, of course, they had a jester, just as you and
I, if we are rich, have a cook. He had been paid wages--I don't know how
many kywatskies--merely to stand in the dining-room and say funny
things, and nobody asked him to jump around for the salt or to hurry up
the waffles. And he didn't even brush up the crumbs afterward.
I do not happen to know the children of any king--there is not a single
king living on our street--yet, except for their clothes, they are much
like other children. Of course they wear shinier clothes. It is not the
shininess that comes from sliding down the stair rail, but a royal
shininess, as though it were always eleven o'clock on Sunday morning and
the second bell of the Methodist church were ringing, with several
deacons on the steps. For if one's father is a king, ambassadors and
generals keep dropping in all the time, and queens, dressed up in
brocade so stiff you can hear them breathe.
One day the children had been sliding down hill in the snow--on Flexible
Flyers, painted red--and their mittens and stockings were wet. So the
old man felt their feet--tickling their toes--and set them, bare-legged,
in a row, in front of the nursery fire. And he told them a story.
"O children of the king!" he began, and with that he wiped their noses
all round, for it had been a cold day, when even the best-mannered
persons snuffle now and then. "O children of the king!" he began again,
and then he stopped to light a taper at the fire. For he was a wise old
man and he knew that when there is excitement in a tale, a light will
keep the bogies off. This old man could tell a story so that your eyes
opened wider and wider, as they do when Annie brings in ice-cream with
raspberry sauce. And once in a while he said Odd Zooks, and God-a-Mercy
when he forgot himself.
"Once upon a time," he began, "there lived a king in a far-off country.
To get to that country, O children of a king, you would have to turn and
turn, and spell out every signpost. And then you climb up the sides of
seventeen mountains, and swim twenty-three streams precisely. Here you
wait till dusk. But just before the lamps are lighted, you get down on
all-fours--if you are a boy (girls, I believe, don't have
all-fours)--and crawl under the sofa. Keep straight on for an hour or so
with the coal-scuttle three points starboard, but be careful not to let
your knees touch the carpet, for that wears holes in them and spoils the
magic. Then get nurse to pull you out by the hind legs--and--_there you
are_.
"Once upon a time, then, there lived a king with a ferocious moustache
and a great sword which rattled when he walked around the house. He made
scratches all over the piano legs, but no one felt like giving him a
paddy-whack. This king had a pretty daughter.
"Now it is a sad fact that there was a war going on. It was between this
king who had the pretty daughter and another king who lived near by, on
an adjoining farm, so to speak. And the first king had sworn by his
halidome--and at this his court turned pale--that he would take his
enemy by his blasted nose.
"Both of these kings lived in castles whose walls were thick and whose
towers were high. And around their tops were curious indentings that
looked as your teeth would look if every other one were pulled. These
castles had moats with lily pads and green water in them, which was not
at all healthful, except that persons in those days did not know about
it and were consequently just as well off. And there were jousting
fields and soup caldrons (with a barrel of animal crackers) and a tun of
lemonade (six glasses to a lemon)--everything to make life comfortable.
"Here's a secret. The other king who lived near by was in love with the
first king's daughter. Here are two kings fighting each other, and one
of them in love with the other's daughter, but not saying a word about
it.
"Now the second king--the one in love--was not very fierce, and his name
was King Muffin--which suggests pleasant thoughts--whereas the first
king with the beautiful daughter was called King Odd Zooks, Zooks the
Sixth, for he was the sixth of his powerful line. And my story is to
show how King Muffin got the better of King Zooks and married his
daughter. It was a clever piece of business, for the walls of the castle
were high, and the window of the Princess was way above the trees. King
Muffin didn't even know which her window was, for it did not have any
lace curtains and it looked no better than the cook's, except that the
cook sometimes on Monday tied her stockings to the curtain cord to dry.
And of course if King Muffin had come openly to the castle, the guards
would have cut him all to bits.
"One day in June King Muffin was out on horseback. He had left his crown
at home and was wearing his third-best clothes, so you would have
thought that he was just an ordinary man. But he was a good horseman;
that is, he wasn't thinking every minute about falling off, but sat
loosely, as one might sit in a rocking-chair.
"The country was beautiful and green, and in the sky there were puffy
clouds that looked the way a pop-over looks before it turns brown--a big
pop-over that would stuff even a hungry giant up to his ears. And there
was a wind that wiggled everything, and the noise of a brook among the
trees. Also, there were birds, but you must not ask me their names, for
I am not good at birds.
"King Muffin, although he was a brave man, loved a pleasant day. So he
turned back his collar at the throat in order that the wind might tickle
his neck and he dropped his reins on his horse's back in a careless way
that wouldn't be possible on a street where there were trolley-cars. In
this fashion he rode on for several miles and sang to himself a great
many songs. Sometimes he knew the words and sometimes he said _tum tum
te tum tum_, but he kept to the tune.
"King Muffin enjoyed his ride so much that before he knew it he was out
of his own kingdom and at least six parasangs in the kingdom of King
Zooks. _My dear, use your handkerchief!_
"And even then King Muffin would not have realized it, except that on
turning a corner he saw a young man lying under a tree in a suit that
was half green and half yellow. King Muffin knew him at once to be a
jester--but whose? King Zooks's jester, of course, his mortal enemy. For
jesters have to go off by themselves once in a while to think up new
jokes, and no other king lived within riding distance. Really, the
jester was thinking of rhymes to _zithern_, which is the name of the
curious musical instrument he carried, and is a little like a mandolin,
only harder to play. It cannot be learned in twelve easy lessons. And
the jester was making a sorry business of it, for it is a difficult
word to find rhymes to, as you would know if you tried. He was terribly
woeful.
"King Muffin said 'Whoa' and stopped his horse. Then he said 'Good
morning, fellow,' in the kind of superior tone that kings use.
"The jester got off the ground and, as he did not know that Muffin was a
king, he sneezed; for the ground was damp. It was a slow sneeze in
coming, for the ground was not very wet, and he stood waiting for it
with his mouth open and his eyes squinting. So King Muffin waited too,
and had a moment to think. And as kings think very fast, very many
thoughts came to him. So, by the time the sneeze had gone off like a
shower bath, and before the pipes filled up for another, some
interesting things had occurred to him. Well! things about the Princess
and how he might get a chance to speak with her. But he said:
"'Ho, ho! Methinks King Zooks's jester has the snuffles.'
"At this, Jeppo--for that was the jester's name--looked up with a wry
face, for he still kept a sneeze inside him which he couldn't dislodge.
"'By my boots and spurs!' the King cried again, 'you are a woeful
jester.'
"Jeppo _was_ woeful. For on this very night King Zooks was to give a
grand dinner--not a simple dinner such as you have at home with Annie
passing dishes and rattling the pie around the pantry--but a dinner for
a hundred persons, generals and ambassadors, all dressed in lace and
eating from gold plates. And of course everyone would look to Jeppo for
something funny--maybe a new song with twenty verses and a
_rol-de-rol-rol chorus_, which everyone could sing even if he didn't
know the words. And Jeppo didn't know a single new thing. He had tried
to write something, but had stuck while trying to think of a rhyme for
_zithern_. So of course he was woeful. And King Muffin knew it.
"All this while King Muffin was thinking hard, although he didn't scowl
once, for some persons can think without scowling. He wished so much to
see the Princess, and yet he knew that if he climbed the tallest tree he
couldn't reach her window. And even if he found a ladder long enough, as
likely as not he would lean it up against the cook's window, not
noticing the stockings on the curtain cord. King Muffin should have
looked glum. But presently he smiled.
"'Jeppo,' he said, 'what would you say if I offered to change places
with you? Here you are fretting about that song of yours and the dinner
only a few hours off. You will be flogged tomorrow, sure, for being so
dull tonight. Just change clothes with me and go off and enjoy yourself.
Sit in a tavern! Spend these kywatskies!' Here King Muffin rattled his
pocket. 'I'll take your place. I know a dozen songs, and they will
tickle your king until, goodness me! he will cry into his soup.' King
Muffin really didn't give King Zooks credit for ordinary manners, but
then he was his mortal enemy, and prej'iced.
"Well, Jeppo _was_ terribly woeful and that word _zithern_ was
bothering him. There was _pithern_ and _dithern_ and _mithern_. He had
tried them all, but none of them seemed to mean anything. So he looked
at King Muffin, who sat very straight on his horse, for he wasn't at all
afraid of him, although he was a tall horse and had nostrils that got
bigger and littler all the time; and back legs that twitched. Meanwhile
King Muffin twirled a gold chain in his fingers. Then Jeppo looked at
King Muffin's clothes and saw that they were fashionable. Then he looked
at his hat and there was a yellow feather in it. And those kywatskies.
King Muffin, just to tease him, twirled his moustache, as kings will.
"So the bargain was made. There was a thicket near, so dense that it
would have done for taking off your clothes when you go swimming. In
this thicket King Muffin and Jeppo exchanged clothes. Of course Jeppo
had trouble with the buttons for he had never dressed in such fine
clothes before, and many of a king's buttons are behind.
"And now, when the exchange was made, Jeppo inquired where he would find
an expensive tavern with brass pull-handles on the lemonade vat, and he
rode off, licking his lips and jingling his kywatskies. But King Muffin,
dressed as a jester, vaulted on his horse and trotted in the direction
of King Zooks's castle, which had indentings around the top like a row
of teeth if every other one were pulled.
"And after a little while it became night. It is my private opinion, my
dear, which I shall whisper in the middle of your ear--the outer flap
being merely ornamental and for 'spection purposes--that the sun is
afraid of the dark, because you never see him around after nightfall.
Bless you, he goes off to bed before twilight and tucks himself to the
chin before you or I would even think of lighting a candle. And, on my
word, he prefers to sleep in the basement. He goes down the back stairs
and cuddles behind the furnace. And he has the bad habit, mercy! of
reading in bed. A good half hour after he should be sound asleep, you
can see the reflection of his candle on the evening clouds."
At this point the old man paused a bit, to see if the children were
still awake. Then he wiped their noses all around, not forgetting the
youngest with the fat legs, and began again.
"During all this time King Zooks had been getting ready for the party,
trying on shiny coats, and getting his silk stockings so that the seams
at the back went straight up and didn't wind around, which is the way
they naturally do unless you are particular. And he put a clean
handkerchief into every pocket, in case he sneezed in a hurry--for King
Zooks was a lavish dresser.
"His wife was dressing in another room, keeping three maids busy with
safety pins and powder-puffs, and getting all of the snarls out of her
hair. And, in still another room of the castle, his daughter was
dressing. Now his wife was a nice-looking woman, like nurse, except that
she wore stiff brocade and didn't jounce. But his daughter was
beautiful and didn't need a powder-puff.
"When they were all dressed they met outside, just to ask questions of
one another about handkerchiefs and noses and behind the ears. The
Queen, also, wished to be very sure that there wasn't a hole in the heel
of her stocking, for she wore black stockings, which makes it worse.
King Zooks was fond of his wife and fond of his daughter, and when he
was with them he did not look so fierce. He kissed both of them, but
when he kissed his daughter--which was the better fun--he took hold of
her nose--but in a most kindly way--so that her face wouldn't slip.
"Then they went down the marble stairs, with flunkies bowing up and
down.
"But how worried King Zooks would have been if he had known that at that
very moment his enemy, King Muffin, was coming into the castle,
disguised as a jester. Nobody stopped King Muffin, for wandering jesters
were common in those days.
"And now the party started with all its might.
"King Zooks offered his arm to the wife of the Ambassador, and Queen
Zooks offered hers to the General of the army. There was a fight around
the Princess, but she said _eenie meenie minie moe, catch a nigger by
the toe_ and counted them all out but one. And so they went down another
marble stairway to the dining-room, where a band was blowing itself red
in the face--the trombonist, in particular, seeming to be in great
distress.
"And where was King Muffin?
"King Muffin came in by the postern--the back stoop, my dear--and he
washed his hands and ears at the kitchen sink and went right up to the
dining-room. And there he was standing behind the King's chair, where
King Zooks couldn't see him but the Princess could. You can see from
this what a crafty person King Muffin was. Queen Zooks, to be sure,
could see him, but she was an unsuspicious person, and was very hungry.
There were waffles for dinner, and when there were waffles she didn't
even talk very much.
"King Muffin was very funny. He told jokes which were old at his own
castle, but were new to King Zooks. And King Zooks, thinking he was a
real jester, laughed until he cried--only his tears did not get into his
soup, for by that time the soup had been cleared away. A few of them,
however--just a splatter--did fall on his fish, but it didn't matter as
it was a salt fish anyway. But all the guests, inasmuch as they were
eating away from home, had to be more particular. And when the
_rol-de-rol-rol_ choruses came, how King Zooks sang, throwing back his
head and forgetting all about his ferocious moustache!
"No one enjoyed the fun more than King Muffin. Whenever things quieted
down a bit he said something even funnier than the last. But during all
this time it had not occurred to King Zooks to inquire for Jeppo, or to
ask why a new fool stood behind his chair. He just laughed and nudged
the wife of the Ambassador with his elbow and ate his waffles and
enjoyed himself.
"So the dinner grew merrier and merrier until at last everyone had had
enough to eat. They would have pushed back a little from the table to be
more comfortable in front, except for their manners. King Zooks was the
last to finish, for the dinner ended with ice-cream and he was fond of
it. He didn't have it ordinary days. In fact he was so eager to get the
last bit that he scraped his spoon round and round upon the dish until
Queen Zooks was ashamed of him. When, finally, he was all through, the
guests folded their napkins and pushed back their chairs until you never
heard such a squeak. A few of them--but these had never been out to
dinner before--had spilled crumbs in their laps and had to brush them
off.
"And now there was a dance.
"So King Zooks offered his arm to the wife of the Ambassador and Queen
Zooks offered hers to the General of the army, and they started up the
marble stairway to the ballroom. But what should King Muffin do but skip
up to the Princess while she was still smoothing out her skirts. (Yellow
organdie, my dear, and it musses when you sit on it.) Muffin made a low
bow and kissed her hand. Then he asked her for the first dance. It was
so preposterous that a jester should ask her to dance at all, that
everyone said it was the funniest thing he had done, and they went into
a gale about it on the marble stairway. Even Queen Zooks, who ordinarily
didn't laugh much at jokes, threw back her head and laughed quite
loud--but in a minute, when everybody else was done. And then to
everyone's surprise the Princess consented to dance with King Muffin,
although the General of the army stood by in a kind of empty fashion.
But everybody was so merry, and in particular King Zooks, that no one
minded.
"King Muffin, when he danced with the Princess, looked at her very hard
and softly, and she looked back at him as if she didn't mind it a bit.
Evidently she knew him despite his disguise. And naturally she knew that
he was in love with her.
"Now King Muffin hadn't had a thing to eat, for jesters are supposed to
eat at a little table afterwards. If they ate at the big table they
would forget and sing sometimes with their mouths full and you know how
that would sound. So he and the Princess went downstairs to the pantry,
where he ate seven cream puffs and three floating islands, one after the
other, never spilling a bit on his blouse. He called them 'floatin'
Irelands,' having learned it that way as a child, his nurse not
correcting him. Then he felt better and they returned to the ballroom,
where the dance was still going on with all its might.
"King Muffin took the Princess out on the balcony, which was the place
where young gentlemen, even in those days, took ladies when they had
something particular to say. He shut the door carefully and looked all
around to make sure that there were no spies about, under the chairs,
inside the vases. He even wiggled the rug for fear that there might be
a trapdoor beneath.
"Did the Princess love King Muffin? Of course she did. But she wasn't
going to let him know it all at once. Ladies never do things like that.
So she looked indifferent, as though she might yawn at any moment.
Despite that, King Muffin told her what was on his mind, and when he was
finished, he looked for an answer. But she didn't say anything, but just
sat quiet and pretended there was a button off her dress. So King Muffin
told it again, and moved up a bit. And this time her head nodded ever so
little. But he saw it. So he reached down in his side pocket, so far
that he had to straighten out his leg to get to the bottom. He brought
up a ring. Then he slipped it on her finger, the next to the longest one
on her left hand. After that he kissed her in a most affectionate way.
"This was all very well, but of course King Zooks would never consent to
their marriage. And if he discovered that the new jester was King
Muffin, his guards would cut him all to slivers. For a minute they were
woeful. Then a bright idea came to King Muffin--
"Meanwhile the dance had been going on with all its might. First the
General of the army danced with Queen Zooks. He was a very manly dancer
and was quite stiff from the waist up, and she bounced around on
tip-toe. Then the Ambassador danced with her, but his sword kept getting
in her way. Then both of them, having done their duty, looked around
for the Princess. They went to the lemonade room, for that was the first
place naturally to look. Then they went to the cardroom, where the older
persons were playing casino, and were sitting very solemn, as if it were
not a party at all.
"Then they went to King Zooks, who was jiggling on his toes, with his
back to the fire, full and happy. 'Where is your daughter, Majestical
Majesty?' they asked. But as King Zooks didn't know he joined the
search, and Queen Zooks, too. But she wasn't much good at it, for she
had a long train and she couldn't turn a corner sharp, although her
maids trotted after her and whisked it about as fast as possible.
"But they couldn't find the Princess anywhere inside the castle.
"After a while it occurred to King Zooks that the cook might know. She
had gone to bed--leaving her dishes until morning--so up they climbed.
She answered from under the covers, 'Whajuwant?' which shows that she
didn't talk English and was probably a Spanish cook or an Indian
princess captured very young. So she got up, all excited. My! how she
scuffed around, looking for her slippers, trying to find her clothes and
getting one or two things on wrong side out! She was so confused that
she thought it was morning and brushed her teeth.
"By this time an hour had passed and King Zooks was fidgety. He told his
red-faced band to lean their trombones and other things up against the
wall, so that he could think. Then he stroked his chin, while the court
stood by and tried to think also. Finally the King sent a herald to
proclaim around the castle how fidgety he was and that his daughter must
be brought to him. But the Princess was not found. Meantime the band ate
ice-cream and cocoanut macaroons, and appeared to enjoy itself.
"In a tall tower that stands high above the trees there was a great
clock, and, by and by, it began to strike the hour. It did not stop
until it had struck ten times. So you see it was growing late and the
King had the right to be getting fidgety. When the clock had done, those
guests who were not in the habit of sitting up so late, began to grow
sleepy; only, of course, they did not yawn out loud, but behind fans and
things.
"Meanwhile King Muffin had gone downstairs to the stable. He brought out
his horse with the flaring nostrils and another horse also. He took them
around to the Princess, who sat waiting for him on a marble bench in the
shadow of a tree.
"'Climb up, beautiful Princess,' he said.
"She hopped into her saddle and he into his. They were off like the
wind.
"They heard the clock strike ten and they saw the great tower rising
above the castle with the silver moon upon it, but they galloped on and
on. Through the forest they galloped, over bridges and streams. And the
moon climbed off the tower and kept with them--as it does with all good
folk--plunging through the clouds like a ship upon the ocean. And still
they galloped on. Presently they met Jeppo returning from the tavern
with the brass pull-handles. 'Yo, ho!' called out the King, and they
passed him in a flash. _Clackety-clack-clack, clackety-clack-clack,
clack-clack, clackety-clack!_
"And peasants, who usually slept right through the night, awoke at the
sound of their hoofs and although they were very sleepy, they ran and
looked out of their windows--being careful to put on slippers so as not
to get the snuffles. And King Muffin and the Princess galloped by with
the moonlight upon them, and the peasants wondered who they were. But as
they were very sleepy, presently they went back to bed without finding
out. One of them did, however, stumble against a chair, right on the
toe, and had to light a candle to see if it were worth mending.
"But in the morning the peasants found a bauble near the lodge-gate, a
cap and bells on the ravine bridge, and on the long road to the border
of King Muffin's land they found a jester's coat.
"And to this day, although many years have passed, their children and
their children's children, on the way from school, gather the lilies of
the valley which flourish in the woods and along the roads. And they
think that they are jesters' bells which were scattered in the flight."
Whereupon the old man, having finished his story, wiped the noses of the
children, not forgetting the youngest one with the fat legs, and sent
them off to bed.
[Illustration]
The Crowded Curb.
Recently I came on an urchin in the crowded city, pitching pennies by
himself, in the angle of an abutment. Three feet from his patched
seat--a gay pattern which he tilted upward now and then--there moved a
thick stream of shoppers. He was in solitary contest with himself, his
evening papers neglected in a heap, wrapped in his score, unconscious of
the throng that pressed against him. He was resting from labor, as a
greater merchant takes to golf for his refreshment. The curb was his
club. He had fetched his recreation down to business, to the vacancy
between editions. Presently he will scoop his earnings to his pocket and
will bawl out to his advantage our latest murder.
How mad--how delightful our streets would be if all of us followed as
unreservedly, with so little self-consciousness or respect of small
convention, our innocent desires!
Who of us even whistles in a crowd?--or in the spring goes with a skip
and leap?
A lady of my acquaintance--who grows plump in her early forties--tells
me that she has always wanted to run after an ice-wagon and ride up
town, bouncing on the tail-board. It is doubtless an inheritance from a
childhood which was stifled and kept in starch. A singer, also, of
bellowing bass, has confided to me that he would like above all things
to roar his tunes down town on a crowded crossing. The trolley-cars, he
feels, the motors and all the shrill instruments of traffic, are no more
than a sufficient orchestra for his lusty upper register. An old lady,
too, in the daintiest of lace caps, with whom I lately sat at dinner,
confessed that whenever she has seen hop-scotch chalked in an eddy of
the crowded city, she has been tempted to gather up her skirts and join
the play.
But none of these folk obey their instinct. Opinion chills them. They
plod the streets with gray exterior. Once, on Fifth Avenue, to be sure,
when it was barely twilight, I observed a man, suddenly, without
warning, perform a cart-wheel, heels over head. He was dressed in the
common fashion. Surely he was not an advertisement. He bore no placard
on his hat. Nor was it apparent that he practiced for a circus. Rather,
I think, he was resolved for once to let the stiff, censorious world go
by unheeded, and be himself alone.
On a night of carnival how greedily the crowd assumes the pantaloon! A
day that was prim and solemn at the start now dresses in cap and bells.
How recklessly it stretches its charter for the broadest jest! Observe
those men in women's bonnets! With what delight they swing their merry
bladders at the crowd! They are hard on forty. All week they have bent
to their heavy desks, but tonight they take their pay of life. The years
are a sullen garment, but on a night of carnival they toss it off. Blood
that was cold and temperate at noon now feels the fire. Scratch a man
and you find a clown inside. It was at the celebration of the Armistice
that I followed a sober fellow for a mile, who beat incessantly with a
long iron spoon on an ash-can top. Almost solemnly he advanced among the
throng. Was it joy entirely for the ending of the war? Or rather was he
not yielding at last to an old desire to parade and be a band? The glad
occasion merely loosed him from convention. That lady friend of mine, in
the circumstance, would have bounced on ice-wagons up to midnight.
For it is convention, rather than our years--it is the respect and fear
of our neighbors that restrains us on an ordinary occasion. If we
followed our innocent desires at the noon hour, without waiting for a
carnival, how mad our streets would seem! The bellowing bass would pitch
back his head and lament the fair Isolde. The old lady in lace cap would
tuck up her skirts for hop-scotch and score her goal at last.
Is it not the French who set aside a special night for foolery, when
everyone appears in fancy costume? They should set the celebration
forward in the day, and let the blazing sun stare upon their mirth.
Merriment should not wait upon the owl.
The Dickey Club at Harvard, I think, was fashioned with some such
purpose of release. Its initiation occurs always in the spring, when the
blood of an undergraduate is hottest against restraint. It is a vent
placed where it is needed most. Zealously the candidates perform their
pranks. They exceed the letter of their instruction. The streets of
Boston are a silly spectacle. Young men wear their trousers inside out
and their coats reversed. They greet strangers with preposterous speech.
I once came on a merry fellow eating a whole pie with great mouthfuls on
the Court House steps, explaining meantime to the crowd that he was the
youngest son of Little Jack Horner. And, of course, with such a hardened
gourmand for an ancestor, he was not embarrassed by his ridiculous
posture.
But it is not youth which needs the stirring most. Nor need one
necessarily play an absurd antic to be natural. And therefore, here at
home, on our own Soldiers' Monument--on its steps and pediment that
mount above the street--I offer a few suggestions to the throng.
Ladies and gentlemen! I invite you to a carnival. Here! Now! At noon! I
bid you to throw off your solemn pretense. And be yourself! That sober
manner is a cloak. Your dignity scarcely reaches to your skin. Does no
one desire to play leap-frog across those posts? Do none of you care to
skip and leap? What! Will no one accept my invitation?
You, my dear sirs, I know you. You play chess together every afternoon
in your club. One of you carries at this moment a small board in his
waistcoat pocket. Why hurry to your club, gentlemen? Here on this step
is a place to play your game. Surely your concentration is proof against
the legs that swing around you. And you, my dear sir! I see that you
are a scholar by your bag of books. You chafe for your golden studies.
Come, sit alongside! Here is a shady spot for the pursuit of knowledge.
Did not Socrates ply his book in the public concourse?
My dear young lady, it is evident that a desire has seized you to
practice your soprano voice. Why do you wait for your solitary piano to
pitch the tune? On these steps you can throw your trills up heaven-ward.
An ice-wagon! With a tail-board! Is there no lady in her forties, prim
in youth, who will take her fling? Or does no gentleman in silk hat wish
a piece of ice to suck?
Observe that good-natured father with his son! They have shopped for
toys. He carries a bundle beneath his arm. It is doubtless a mechanical
bear--a creature that roars and walks on the turning of a key. After
supper these two will squat together on the parlor carpet and wind it up
for a trial performance. But must such an honest pleasure sit for the
coming of the twilight? Break the string! Insert the key! Let the
fearful creature stride boldly among the shoppers.
Here is an iron balustrade along the steps. A dozen of you desire,
secretly, to slide down its slippery length.
My dear madam, it is plain that the heir is naughty. Rightfully you have
withdrawn his lollypop. And now he resists your advance, stiff-legged
and spunky. Your stern eye already has passed its sentence. You merely
wait to get him home. I offer you these steps in lieu of nursery or
woodshed. You have only to tip him up. Surely the flat of your hand
gains no cunning by delay.
And you, my dear sir--you who twirl a silk moustache--you with the young
lady on your arm! If I am not mistaken you will woo your fair companion
on this summer evening beneath the moon. Must so good a deed await the
night? Shall a lover's arms hang idle all the day? On these steps, my
dear sir, a kiss, at least, may be given as a prelude.
Hop-scotch! Where is my old friend of the lace cap? The game is already
chalked upon the stones.
Is there no one in the passing throng who desires to dance? Are there no
toes that wriggle for release? My dear lady, the rhythmic swish of your
skirt betrays you. A tune for a merry waltz runs through your head.
Come! we'll find you a partner in the crowd. Those silk stockings of
yours must not be wasted in a mincing gait.
Have lawyers, walking sourly on their business, any sweeter nature to
display to us? Our larger merchants seem covered with restraint and
thought of profit. That physician with his bag of pellets seems not to
know that laughter is a panacea. Has Labor no desire to play leap-frog
on its pick and go shouting home to supper? Housewives follow their
unfaltering noses from groceries to meats. Will neither gingham nor
brocade romp and cut a caper for us?
Ladies and gentlemen! Why wait for a night of carnival? Does not the
blood flow red, also, at the noon hour? Must the moon point a silly
finger before you start your merriment? I offer you these steps.
Is there no one who will whistle in the crowd? Will none of you, even in
the spring, go with a skip and leap upon your business?
[Illustration]
A Corner for Echoes.
Sometimes in a quiet hour I see in the memory of my childhood a frame
house across a wide lawn from a pleasant street. There are no trees
about the yard, in itself a defect, yet in its circumstance, as the
house arises in my view, the barrenness denotes no more than a breadth
of sunlight across those endless days.
There was, indeed, in contrast and by way of shadowy admonishment, a
church near by, whose sober bell, grieving lest our joy should romp too
long, recalled us to fearful introspection on Sunday evening, and it
moved me chiefly to the thought of eternity--eternity everlasting.
Reward or punishment mattered not. It was Time itself that plagued me,
Time that rolled like a wheel forever until the imagination reeled and
sickened. And on Thursday evening also--another bad intrusion on the
happy week--again the sexton tugged at the rope for prayer and the
dismal clapper answered from above. It is strange that a man in friendly
red suspenders, pipe in mouth as he pushed his lawn-mower through the
week, should spread such desolation. But presently, when our better
neighbors were stiffly gathered in and had composed their skirts, a
brisker hymn arose. Tenor and soprano assured one another vigorously
from pew to pew that they were Christian soldiers marching as to war.
When they were off at last for the fair Jerusalem, the fret of eternity
passed from me. And yet, for the most part, we played in sunlight all
the week, and our thoughts dwelt happily on wide horizons.
There was another church, far off across the housetops, seen only from
an attic window, whose bells in contrast were of a pleasant jangle.
Exactly where this church stood I never knew. Its towers arose above a
neighbor's barn and acknowledged no base or local habitation. Indeed,
its glittering and unsubstantial spire offered a hint that it was but an
imaginary creature of the attic, a pageant that mustered only to the
view of him who looked out through these narrow, cobwebbed windows. For
here, as in a kind of magic, the twilight flourished at the noon and its
shadows practiced beforehand for the night. Through these windows
children saw the unfamiliar, distant marvels of the world--towers and
kingdoms unseen by older eyes that were grown dusty with common sights.
Yet regularly, out of a noonday stillness--except for the cries of the
butcher boy upon the steps--a dozen clappers of the tower struck their
sudden din across the city. It appeared that at the very moment of the
noon, having lagged to the utmost second, the frantic clappers had
bolted up the belfry stairs to call the town to dinner. Or perhaps to an
older ear their discordant and heterodox tongue hinted that Roman
infallibility had here fallen into argument and that various and
contrary doctrine was laboring in warm dispute. Certainly the clappers
were brawling in the tower and had come to blows. But a half mile off it
was an agreeable racket and did not rouse up eternity to tease me.
Across from our house, but at the rear, with only an alley entrance,
there was a building in which pies were baked--a horrid factory in our
very midst!--and insolent smoke curled off the chimney and flaunted our
imperfection. Respectable ladies, long resident, wearing black poke
bonnets and camel's-hair shawls, lifted their patrician eyebrows with
disapproval. Scorn sat on their gentle up-turned noses. They held their
skirts close, in passing, from contamination. These pies could not count
upon their patronage. They were contraband even in a pinch, with
unexpected guests arrived. It were better to buy of Cobey, the grocer on
the Circle. And the building did smell heavily of its commodity. But
despite detraction, as one came from school, when the wind was north,
an agreeable whiff of lard and cooking touched the nostrils as a happy
prologue to one's dinner. Sometimes a cart issued to the street, boarded
close, full of pies on shelves, and rattled cityward.
The fire station was around the corner and down a hill. We marveled at
the polished engine, the harness that hung ready from the ceiling, the
poles down which the firemen slid from their rooms above. It was at the
fire station that we got the baseball score, inning by inning, and other
news, if it was worthy, from the outside world. But perhaps we dozed in
a hammock or were lost with Oliver Optic in a jungle when the fire-bell
rang. If spry, we caught a glimpse of the hook-and-ladder from the top
of the hill, or the horses galloping up the slope. But would none of our
neighbors ever burn? we thought. Must all candles be overturned far off?
Near the school-house was the reservoir, a mound and pond covering all
the block. Round about the top there was a gravel path that commanded
the city--the belching chimneys on the river, the ships upon the lake,
and to the south a horizon of wooded hills. The world lay across that
tumbled ridge and there our thoughts went searching for adventure.
Perhaps these were the foothills of the Himalaya and from the top were
seen the towers of Babylon. Perhaps there was an ocean, with white sails
which were blown from the Spanish coast. On a summer afternoon clouds
drifted across the sky, like mountains on a journey--emigrants, they
seemed, from a loftier range, seeking a fresh plain on which to erect
their fortunes.
But the chief use of this reservoir, except for its wholly subsidiary
supply of water, was its grassy slope. It was usual in the noon
recess--when we were cramped with learning--to slide down on a barrel
stave and be wrecked and spilled midway. In default of stave a geography
served as sled, for by noon the most sedentary geography itched for
action. Of what profit--so it complained--is a knowledge of the world if
one is cooped always with stupid primers in a desk? Of what account are
the boundaries of Hindostan, if one is housed all day beneath a lid with
slate and pencils? But the geography required an exact balance, with
feet lifted forward into space, and with fingers gripped behind. Our
present geographies, alas, are of smaller surface, and, unless students
have shrunk and shriveled, their more profitable use upon a hill is
past. Some children descended without stave or book, and their
preference was marked upon their shining seats.
It was Hoppy who marred this sport. Hoppy was the keeper of the
reservoir, a one-legged Irishman with a crutch. His superfluous
trouser-leg was folded and pinned across, and it was a general quarry
for patches. When his elbow or his knees came through, here was a remedy
at hand. Here his wife clipped, also, for her crazy quilt. And all the
little Hoppies--for I fancy him to have been a family man--were
reinforced from this extra cloth. But when Hoppy's bad profile appeared
at the top of the hill we grabbed our staves and scurried off. The cry
of warning--"Peg-leg's a-comin'"--still haunts my memory. It was Hoppy's
reward to lead one of us smaller fry roughly by the ear. Or he gripped
us by the wrist and snapped his stinging finger at our nose. Then he
pitched us through the fence where a wooden slat was gone.
Hoppy's crutch was none of your elaborate affairs, curved and glossy.
Instead, it was only a stout, unvarnished stick, with a padded
cross-piece at the top. But the varlet could run, leaping forward upon
us with long, uneven strides. And I have wondered whether Stevenson, by
any chance, while he was still pondering the plot of "Treasure Island,"
may not have visited our city and, seeing Hoppy on our heels, have
contrived John Silver out of him. He must have built him anew above the
waist, shearing him at his suspender buttons, scrapping his common upper
parts; but the wooden stump and breeches were a precious salvage. His
crutch, at the least, became John Silver's very timber.
The Circle was down the street. In the center of this sunny park there
arose an artificial mountain, with a waterfall that trickled off the
rocks pleasantly on hot days. Ruins and blasted towers, battlements and
cement grottoes, were still the fashion. In those days masons built
stony belvederes and laid pipes which burst forth into mountain pools a
good ten feet above the sidewalk. The cliff upon our Circle, with its
path winding upward among the fern, its tiny castle on the peak and its
tinkle of little water, sprang from this romantic period. From the
terrace on top one could spit over the balustrade on the unsuspecting
folk who walked below. Later the town had a mechanical ship that sailed
around the pond. As often as this ship neared the cliffs the mechanical
captain on the bridge lifted his glasses with a startled jerk and gave
orders for the changing of the course.
Tinkey's shop was on the Circle. One side of Tinkey's window was a
bakery with jelly-cakes and angel-food. This, as I recall, was my
earliest theology. Heaven, certainly, was worth the effort. The other
window unbent to peppermint sticks and grab-bags to catch our dirtier
pennies. But this meaner produce was a concession to the trade, and the
Tinkey fingers, from father down to youngest daughter, touched it with
scorn. Mrs. Tinkey, in particular, who, we thought, was above her place,
lifted a grab-bag at arm's length, and her nostrils quivered as if she
held a dead mouse by the tail.
But in the essence Tinkey was a caterer and his handiwork was shown in
the persons of a frosted bride and groom who waited before a sugar altar
for the word that would make them man and wife. Her nose in time was
bruised--a careless lifting of the glass by the youngest Miss
Tinkey--but he, like a faithful suitor, stood to his youthful pledge.
Beyond the shop was a room with blazing red wall paper and a fiery
carpet. In this hot furnace, out-rivaling the boasts of Abednego, the
neighborhood perspired pleasantly on August nights, and ate ice-cream.
If we arose to the price of a Tinkey layer-cake thick with chocolate,
the night stood out in splendor above its fellows.
Around the corner was Conrad's bookstore. Conrad was a dumpy fellow with
unending good humor and a fat, soft hand. He sometimes called lady
customers, _My dear_, but it was only in his eagerness to press a sale.
I do not recall that he was a scholar. If you asked to be shown the
newest books, he might offer you the "Vicar of Wakefield" as a work just
off the press, and tell you that Goldsmith was a man to watch. A young
woman assistant read The Duchess between customers. In her fancy she
eloped daily with a duke, but actually she kept company with a grocer's
clerk. They ate sodas together at Tinkey's. How could he know, poor
fellow, when their fingers met beneath the table, that he was but a
substitute in her high romance? At the very moment, in her thoughts, she
was off with the duke beneath the moon. Conrad had also an errand boy
with a dirty face, who spent the day on a packing case at the rear of
the shop, where he ate an endless succession of apples. An orchard went
through him in the season.
Conrad's shop was only moderate in books, but it spread itself in fancy
goods--crackers for the Fourth--marbles and tops in their season--and
for Saint Valentine's Day a range of sentiment that distanced his
competitors. A lover, though he sighed like furnace, found here mottoes
for his passion. Also there were "comics"--base insulting valentines of
suitable greeting from man to man. These were three for a nickel just as
they came off the pile, but two for a nickel with selection.
At Christmas, Conrad displayed china inkstands. There was one of these
which, although often near a sale, still stuck to the shelves year after
year. The beauty of its device dwelt in a little negro who perched at
the rear on a rustic fence that held the penholders. But suddenly, when
choice was wavering in his favor, off he would pitch into the inkwell.
At this mischance Conrad would regularly be astonished, and he would
sell instead a china camel whose back was hollowed out for ink. Then he
laved the negro for the twentieth time and set him back upon the fence,
where he sat like an interrupted suicide with his dark eye again upon
the pool.
Nor must I forget a line of Catholic saints. There was one jolly bit of
crockery--Saint Patrick, I believe--that had lost an arm. This defect
should have been considered a further mark of piety--a martyrdom
unrecorded by the church--a special flagellation--but although the price
in successive years sunk to thirty-nine and at last to the wholly
ridiculous sum of twenty-three cents--less than one third the price of
his unbroken but really inferior mates (Saint Aloysius and Saint
Anthony)--yet he lingered on.
Nowhere was there a larger assortment of odd and unmatched letter paper.
No box was full and many were soiled. If pink envelopes were needed,
Conrad, unabashed, laid out a blue, or with his fat thumb he fumbled two
boxes into one to complete the count. Initialed paper once had been the
fashion--G for Gladys--and there was still a remnant of several letters
toward the end of the alphabet. If one of these chanced to fit a
customer, with what zest Conrad blew upon the box and slapped it! But
until Xenophon and Xerxes shall come to buy, these final letters must
rest unsold upon his shelves.
Conrad was a dear good fellow (Bless me! he is still alive--just as fat
and bow-legged, with the same soft hand, just as friendly!) and when he
retired at last from business the street lost half its mirth and humor.
Near Conrad's shop and the Circle was our house. By it a horse-car
jangled, one way only, cityward, at intervals of twelve minutes. In
winter there was straw on the floor. In front was a fare-box with
sliding shelves down which the nickels rattled, or, if one's memory
lagged, the thin driver rapped his whip-handle on the glass. He sat on a
high stool which was padded to eke out nature.
Once before, as I have read, there was a corner for echoes. The
buildings were set so that the quiet folk who dwelt near by could hear
the sound of coming steps--steps far off, then nearer until they tramped
beneath the windows. Then, as they listened, the sounds faded. And it
seemed to him who chronicled the place that he heard the persons of his
drama coming--little steps that would grow to manhood, steps that
faltered already toward their final curtain. But there is no plot to
thicken around our corner. Or rather, there are a hundred plots. And
when I listen in fancy to the echoes, I hear the general tapping of our
neighbors--beloved feet that have gone into darkness for a while.
I hear the footsteps of an old man. When he trod our street he was of
gloomy temper. The world was awry for him. He was sunk in despair at
politics, yet I recall that he relished an apple. As often as he stopped
to see us, he told us that the country had gone to the demnition
bow-wows, and he snapped at his apple as if it had been a Democrat. His
little dog ran a full block ahead of him on their evening stroll, and
always trotted into our gateway. He sat on the lowest step with his eyes
down the street. "Master," he seemed to say, "here we all are, waiting
for you."
John Smith cut the grass on the Circle. He was a friend of children,
and, for his nod and greeting, I drove down street my span of tin horses
on a wheel. Hand in hand we climbed his rocky mountain to see where the
waterfall spurted from a pipe. Below, the neighbors' bonnets, with
baskets, went to shop at Cobey's. I still hear the click of his
lawn-mower of a summer afternoon.
Darky Dan beat our carpets. He was a merry fellow and he sang upon the
street. Wild melodies they were, with head thrown back and crazy
laughter. He was a harmless, good-natured fellow, but nurse-maids
huddled us close until his song had turned the corner.
I recall a crippled child--maybe of half wit only--who dragged a broken
foot. To our shame he seemed a comic creature and we pelted him with
snowballs and ran from his piteous anger.
A match-boy with red hair came by on winter nights and was warmed beside
the fire. My father questioned him--as one merchant to another--about
his business, and mother kept him in mittens. In payment for bread and
jam he loosed his muffler and played the mouth-organ. In turn we blew
upon the vents, but as music it was naught. Gone is that melody. The
house is dark.
There was an old lady lived near by in almost feudal state. Her steps
were the broadest on the street, her walnut doors were carved in the
deepest pattern, her fence was the highest. Her furniture, the year
around, was covered in linen cloths, and the great chairs with their
claw feet resembled the horses in panoply that draw the chariot of the
Nubian Queen in the circus parade. With this old lady there lived an old
cook, an old second-maid, an old laundress and an old coachman. The
second-maid thrust a platter at you as you sat at table and nudged you
in the ribs--if you were a child--"Eat it," she said, "it's good!" The
coachman nodded on his box, the laundress in her tubs, but the cook was
spry despite her years. In the yard there was a fountain--all yards had
fountains then--and I used to wonder whether this were the font of
Ponce de Leon that restored the aged to their youth. Here, surely, was
the very house to test the cure. And when the ancient laundress came by
I speculated whether, after a sudden splash, she would emerge a dazzling
princess.
With this old lady there dwelt a niece, or a daughter, or a younger
sister--relationship was vague--and this niece owned a little black dog.
But the old lady was dull of sight and in the dark passages of her house
she waved her arm and kept saying, "Whisk, Nigger! Whisk, Nigger!" for
she had stepped once on the creature's tail. Every year she gave a
children's party, and we youngsters looked for magic in a mirror and
went to Jerusalem around her solemn chairs. She had bought toys and
trinkets from Europe for all of us.
Then there was an old neighbor, a justice of the peace, who, being
devoid of much knowledge of the law, put his cases to my grandfather.
When he had been advised, he stroked his beard and said it was an
opinion to which he had come himself. He went down the steps mumbling
the judgment to keep it in his memory.
It was my grandfather's custom in the late afternoon of summer, when the
sun had slanted, to pull a chair off the veranda and sit sprinkling the
lawn with his crutch beside him. Toward supper Mr. Hodge, a building
contractor and our neighbor, went by. His wagon usually rattled with
some bit of salvage--perhaps an iron bath-tub plucked from a building
before he wrecked it, or a kitchen sink. His yard was piled with the
fruitage of his profession. Mr. Hodge was of sociable turn and he cried
_whoa_ to his jogging horse.
Now ensued a half-hour's gossip. It was the comedy of the occasion that
the horse, after having made several attempts to start and been stopped
by a jerking of the reins, took to craftiness. He put forward a hoof,
quite carelessly it seemed. If there was no protest, in time he tried a
diagonal hoof behind. It was then but a shifting of the weight to swing
forward a step. "Whoa!" yelled Mr. Hodge. "Yes, yes," the old horse
seemed to answer, "certainly, of course, yes, yes! But can't a fellow
shift his legs?" In this way the sly brute inched toward supper. My
grandfather enjoyed this comedy, and once, if I am not mistaken, I
caught him exchanging a wink with the horse. Certainly the beast was
glancing round to find a partner for his jest. A conversation, begun at
the standpipe, progressed to the telegraph pole, and at last came
opposite the kitchen. As my grandfather did not move his chair, Mr.
Hodge lifted his voice until the neighborhood knew the price of brick
and the unworthiness of plumbers. Mr. Hodge was a Republican and he
spoke in favor of the tariff. To clinch an argument he had a usual
formula. "It's neither here nor there," and he brought his fist against
the dashboard, _"it's right here."_ But finally the hungry horse
prevailed, Mr. Hodge slapped the reins in consent and they rattled home
to supper.
Around this corner, also, there are echoes of children's feet--racing
feet upon the grass--feet that lag in the morning on the way to school
and run back at four o'clock--feet that leap the hitching posts or avoid
the sidewalk cracks. Girls' feet rustle in the fallen leaves, and they
think their skirts are silk. And I hear dimly the cries of hide-and-seek
and pull-away and the merriment of blindman's buff. One lad rises in my
memory who won our marbles. Another excelled us all when he threw his
top. His father was a grocer and we envied him his easy access to the
candy counter.
And particularly I remember a little girl with yellow curls and blue
eyes. She was the Sleeping Beauty in a Christmas play. I had known her
before in daytime gingham and I had judged her to be as other
girls--creatures that tag along and spoil the fun. But now, as she
rested in laces for the picture, she dazzled my imagination; for I was
the silken Prince to awaken her. For a week I wished to run to sea, sink
a pirate ship, and be worthy of her love. But then a sewer was dug along
the street and I was a miner instead--recusant to love--digging in the
yellow sand for the center of the earth.
But chiefly it is the echo of older steps I hear--steps whose sound is
long since stilled--feet that have crossed the horizon and have gone on
journey for a while. And when I listen I hear echoes that are fading
into silence.