J. LEDYARD SYMINGTON
A lonely abode near the opening of a ravine, about four miles from
Sipes’s hut, bore the scars of many winters. It was not over twelve feet
square. It had two small windows, a narrow door and a “lean to” roof. On
the door was the roughly carved inscription--“J. Ledyard Symington,
Tuesdays and Thursdays.” Near this was nailed an old cigar box, with a
slit in the cover. Lettered on the box was a request to “Please leave
card.”
I often passed this mysterious dwelling without seeing any indications
of life, but one chilly rainy day I saw smoke issuing from the bent
piece of stove-pipe, protruding through the roof. The fact that it
happened to be Thursday helped to overcome my reluctance to disturb the
occupant.
A cordial and cheery call to “come in” was the response to my gentle
knock.
I found a rather tall, pleasant faced, watery eyed old man, with a gray
beard, aquiline nose, and shaggy eyebrows, who rose from a box on which
he had been sitting before a small table. There was an unmistakable air
of _noblesse oblige_ in his polite offer of another box. His clothes
bespoke the “shabby genteel,” which was accentuated by a somewhat
battered and much worn plug hat, that hung on a peg near the window back
of the table.
I apologized for my intrusion, told him that I had had rather a long
walk, and would be glad to rest awhile before his fire. He seemed
interested in some sketches made during the morning, which he asked to
see. His courtly air did not desert him when he confessed that he
“hadn’t had a smoke for a week.” I handed him some tobacco. He fished a
disreputable looking big black pipe out of some rubbish on a shelf, and
was soon enveloped in the comforting fumes.
I was made to feel much at home, and his conversation soon lost its
tinge of formality. He looked at me curiously and asked where I was
from. When I told him, his eyes brightened, and he wanted to know what
the principal society events had been during the winter. He said he had
only seen half a dozen papers in five or six months, and had lost all
track of what had been going on.
Along one of the shelves at the end of the room were ranged several
books on etiquette, and thirty or forty much worn novels, of the variety
usually absorbed by very young ladies in hammocks, scattered around the
shaded lawns of white flannel summer resorts, where the most intense
intellectual occupations are tennis and dancing--books in which are
recorded the “dashing devilish beauty of Cyril,” With his “corking and
perfectly ripping” ideas, and the bewildering charms of willowy
Geraldine, the violet eyed heiress, with the long lashes, her many
stunning costumes and clinging gowns. Flashing glances, nonchalantly
twirled canes, faintly perfumed stationery, and softly tearful moods
adorn the pages.
The limousine of the “Soap King” goes whirling by, which is placed at
the service of the duke, when he arrives, incognito, to annex,
matrimonially, the anxious millions that await him. The story takes us
up wondrously carved staircases, among many palms, and into marble
halls, through which faint voluptuous music flows. The walls are lined
with long rows of priceless old masters. Modern society novelists have
found and given to the world many more Rembrandts and Van Dykes than
those two humble toilers at the lower end of the social scale could have
painted in a geological era. The duke eventually fails to produce his
coronet, and the true love match is off. Cupid disappears through a
stained glass casement. Dare Devil Cyril rescues the lovely Geraldine
from under a fallen horse, or a purple touring car, and bravely carries
her to another; her warm breath touches his cheek, and the wedding
chimes come just in time to enable the fair reader to dress for dinner.
Oh, noble Cyril, and bewitching Geraldine!--your names may change on
different pages, but ever and anon you flit through the countless
cylinders of unnumbered presses. Like the lilies of the field, you toil
not, neither do you spin. The triumphs and the failures of a thinking,
striving world are not for you; its problems and its tears are not
within your charmed circle, but He who marks the sparrow’s fall, may
gather even you, with the rest of the created things, if there are
other worlds to come.
Noticing my glance at the book-shelf, my host said, rather
apologetically, “my library is not as large as I would like to have it.
The fact is that I take a great deal of interest in social matters. I am
unfortunately placed in a very peculiar and humiliating position. A
great many years ago I fell heir to a large fortune, on the death of my
uncle, and expected to devote my time entirely to society, and the
pleasures of a gentleman of leisure. A lot of contesting relatives came
on the scene, and for over twenty years the case has been in the courts.
Several times I almost got cheated out of my inheritance, but it looks
now as though I might get it.
“I keep in touch with everything that may be of use to me when I go into
the world in the way that my uncle intended that I should. As social
novelists generally reflect their own periods quite accurately, I feel
that these books give me a very good idea of what is going on, and I get
a great deal of pleasure out of them.
“I had a pretty good education, when I was young, but I don’t care so
much about that, as I do for the ability to do things in proper form
when I get what is coming to me. This enforced residence in these
miserable hills, is just to make certain people think that I am dead. I
am going to be alive at just the right time, and when I show up there
will be a lot of surprises.
“As a matter of fact my ancestry is very ancient. I looked it up in
Burke’s Peerage when my uncle died, and found that I came from two of
the very best families. On the other side I would be a baronet, but I
don’t want to go over there until I get my money. When I walk into my
estates, I will do so unknown. I will suddenly reveal myself, and there
will be a scattering of a lot of upstarts and false nobility who have
been enjoying what rightfully belongs to me.
“I don’t associate with these loafers that live around in these sand
hills at all. They are low fellows, and I have no use for them. Every
three months I go to a certain post-office, and get a money order for a
certain amount, from a certain party who knows where I am, and is
keeping track of things for me. It isn’t as big a money order as I
would like, but I assure you that these conditions are only temporary,
and when the proper time comes, you will find me gone.”
I listened to the old man’s story, which occupied most of the afternoon,
with some suspicion, but with much interest. Some mysterious tea and a
couple of damp soda crackers were served at this impromptu reception. He
expressed much pleasure that I had called, and said that he hoped I
would come again.
The impressions of my visit were really very pleasant, until, a few days
later, they came under the fire of the withering sarcasm and barbed
satire of Sipes, who from his lonely eyrie four miles away, across a
bend in the shore, could observe the home of J. Ledyard Symington
through his little spy-glass.
“That feller down there makes me tired. When ’e fust come in the hills,
about six years ago, ’e put up a sign that said ‘J. Simons.’ He used to
go ’way oncet in a while, an’ ev’ry time ’e’d come back with a lot o’
red an’ green books that ’e’d set out on the sand an’ read. He’s got the
society bug, an’ ’e thinks ’e’s cut out fer to shine in new clothes all
the time.
“Some day ’e says ’e’s goin to live in a big house. He comes ’ere
sometimes to see if I’ve got any newspapers. I got some oncet, to see if
them Japs ’ad got them fellers in Port Arthur yet, an’ Simons set down
an’ studied ’em all through to see wot the society push was doin’.
“He’s got a box out in front that says to drop in cards. Oncet, just to
show ’im that I was polite, I stuck a seven spot into it. I wouldn’t
hand nothin’ above a seven to a guy like ’im. After that I laid out a
lot o’ games o’ sollytare that I couldn’t make work, an’ I seen sumpen
was the matter with my deck, an’ then I recollected that cussed seven
spot, an’ I skipped back there when that ol’ goat was snoozin’ one night
an’ fished it out of ’is box. He’s plumb nutty, an’ ’e don’t amuse me a
bit. You fellers may like ’im, but I’ll bet that when ’e gits ’is big
house, you an’ me won’t be asked to it. Nothin’ like him goes with me.
“He never has no whisky, an’ I don’t never see ’im out on the lake. He
don’t fish ner hunt, an’ Hell! I don’t know where ’e gits ’is money.
After ’e’d bin down there a couple o’ years, ’e changed the name on ’is
door to ‘J. L. Simons’, an’ after that ’e had it ‘J. Ledward Simons’ an’
now its ‘J. Ledyard Symington--Tuesdays & Thursdays’. I s’pose ’e’ll
’ave ‘Tuesdays & Thursdays’ fer a part o’ that name ’e’s grad’ally
constructin’ if ’e keeps it up. Mebbe ’e means that on them days ’e’s
always out, but I ain’t goin’ to keep track o’ the days o’ the week fer
_him_, and ’e and ’is ol’ hard-boiled hat can go to the devil.
“If ’e has ‘J. Ledyard Symington Tuesdays & Thursdays’ fer a name ’ere,
wot d’ye s’pose ’e’ll ’ave it when ’e gits in ’is big house, that ’e’s
always tellin’ about? I’ll bet ’e’ll ’ave a name that ye can’t git
through the yard. His plug hat makes me sick. Wot d’ye s’pose Dewey at
Maniller would ’av said to a man with a lid like that? He’d a said
‘_Bingo!_’ an’ smashed it. After that ’e’d a told Gridley to begin’ on
’im any time ’e was ready.”
At this point the old man’s comments began to be mingled with so much
ornate profanity that it seems futile to attempt properly to expurgate
his remarks. He declared that Simons was certainly “bunk.” “A name like
wot ’e’d built out o’ nothin’ would finish anybody.” He thought that
something “ought to happen to everybody that got stuck on themselves,
an’ usually it did. All o’ them geezers that live ’ere an’ there on the
shore, are prob’ly ’ere an’ there ’cause it’s better so fer them. With
me its different. I’m ’ere ’cause I want to be ’ere. Simons ’ll prob’ly
light out some day, the same way Cal did. I’m goin’ down there some
night an’ slip the whole darn deck in ’is card box, just to show my
heart’s in the right place.”
Sipes was a captious critic, and to him the “mantle of charity” was an
unknown fabric. It was evident that the social strata in the dunes had
some humps that would never be leveled.
I passed the shanty some months later, but there was no smoke or other
sign of habitation. The disappointed old occupant had evidently “lit
out.” The sad-looking “plug” was stuck over the top of the rusty section
of stovepipe that had served as the chimney. It was now literally a
“stovepipe hat”--that crown of absurdity among the follies of mankind,
against which both art and nature have vainly protested through blinding
tears.
I suspected the subtle facetiousness of Sipes in the apt decoration of
the protruding piece of stove pipe with this melancholy emblem of
departed gentility. Its top was ripped around the edge, and it moved
languidly up and down in the varying winds, as if in mockery of
inconstant fashion, which is regulated by custom instead of artistic
taste.
[Illustration:
The Home of
“J. Ledyard Symington”]
The building of the distinguished name had, however, been continued,
and the legend on the door was now, “J. Ledyard Symington-Symington,
Bart.” The reception days had been effaced. The old man may have
achieved that point in his social aspirations when he “didn’t care to
know anybody who wasn’t anybody.” Like Don Quixote, he may have departed
to battle with hostile windmills, or he may have walked into his estates
“unknown,” to mingle in phantom social functions in ghostly halls and
silent chambers in the Great Beyond.
Perhaps there are no “Tuesdays and Thursdays” there, and calling cards
and stovepipe hats are unnecessary. His blighted hopes, and those that
may have ended in fruition, concern the widely distributed gossips along
the coast no more.
While we may be interested and amused with the petty gossip, the rude
philosophy, the quaint humor, the little antagonisms, and the child-like
foibles of these lonely dwellers in the dune country, the pathos that
overshadows them must touch our hearts.
They have brought their life scars into the desolate sands, where the
twilight has come upon them. The roar of a mighty world goes on beyond
them. Unable to navigate the great currents of life, they have drifted
into stagnant waters.
Happy Cal’s unwelcome guests and his blighted affections--Catfish John’s
rheumatism and his pork that “them fellers” stole--Old Sipes’s lost
“kittle”--Doc Looney’s unappreciative wives--J. Ledyard Symington’s
“humiliations,” and all the other troubles of the old outcasts, will
disappear into the oblivion of the years, with the rest of the affairs
and happenings of this life.
If they have not been ambitious, their rapacity has not destroyed
empires, or deluged the earth with blood. If they have not been learned,
they have not used knowledge to devise means for the destruction of
human life. If they have not been powerful, their greed has not
oppressed and impoverished their fellow-beings.
Let us hope that the storms from the lake, and civilization on the
shore, will deal gently with these poor derelicts, as they peacefully
fade away into the elements from which they came.
[Illustration: (_From the Author’s Etching_)
“RESUMING THEIR MIGRATIONS”]
[Illustration] CHAPTER XI
THE BACK COUNTRY
Behind the ranges of the sand hills, lie stretches of broken waste
country. It is diversified with patches of woods, tangled thickets,
swamps, little ponds, stagnant pools covered with green microscopic
vegetation, and small areas of productive soil. There are long, low
elevations, covered sparsely with gnarled pines, spruces, poplars, and
sumacs. Tall elms, many willows, and an occasional silvery barked
sycamore, lend variety to the scene.
Here and there, just back of the big hills, are deep secluded tarns,
which have no visible outlets or inlets. One looks cautiously down from
the surrounding edges. In the obscurity of the deep shadows there is
tangled dead vegetation, a few decayed tree-trunks, and an uncanny
stillness. Unseen stagnant water is there, and the mysterious depths
seem to be without life. They are fit abodes for gnomes, and evil
spirits may haunt their silences. There is an instinctive creepy
feeling, and an undefined dread in the atmosphere around them.
Swamps of tamarack, which are impenetrable, contribute their masses of
deep green to the charm of the landscape. The ravagers of the wet places
hide in them, and the timid, hunted wild life finds refuge in their
still labyrinths. In the winter countless tracks and trails on the snow
lead into them and are lost.
Among the most interesting of the marsh dwellers is the muskrat. This
active little animal is an ever-present element in the life of the
sloughs, and he is the most industrious live thing in the back country.
His numerous families thrive and increase, in spite of vigilant enemies
that besiege them. The larger owls, the foxes, minks, and steel traps
are their principal foes.
[Illustration:
A MARSH DWELLER]
The houses, irregular in shape and size, dot the surfaces of the ponds
and swamps. They are built of lumps of sod and mud, mixed with
bulrushes and heavy grass. They usually contain two rooms, one above
the other, and little tunnels lead out from them, under ground,
providing channels of escape in case of danger, and safe routes of
approach to the houses from the burrows in the higher ground along the
banks.
The upper cavity of the little adobe structure is usually lined with
moss and fine grass. Lily roots, freshwater clams, and other food are
carried up into it from under the ice in the winter. In these cosy
retreats the little colonies live during the cold months, oblivious to
the cares and dangers of the outside world.
There is a network of thoroughfares and burrows in the soft earth among
the roots of the willows on the neighboring banks. The devious secret
passages and runways are in constant use during the summer.
The muskrats are great travelers, and roam over the meadows, through the
ravines, up and down the creeks, and around on the sand hills, in search
of food and adventure. They run along the lake shore at night, and their
tracks are found all over the beach. Their well-beaten paths radiate in
all directions from their homes. They are not entirely lovable, but the
back country would be desolate indeed without them.
[Illustration:
A SENTINEL IN THE MARSH]
The herons stand solemnly, like sentinels, among the thick grasses, and
out in the open places, watching for unwary frogs, minnows, and other
small life with which nature has bountifully peopled the sloughs. The
crows and hawks drop quickly behind clumps of weeds on deadly errands in
the day time, and at night the owls, foxes, and minks haunt the margins
of the wet places. The enemies of the Little Things are legion. Violent
death is their destiny. With the exception of the turtles, they are all
eaten by something larger and more powerful than themselves.
[Illustration: (_From the Author’s Etching_)
THEY “DROP INTO
THE PONDS AND MARSHES”]
In the fall and early spring the wild ducks and geese drop into the
ponds and marshes, and rest for days at a time, before resuming their
migrations. They come in from over the lake during the storms to find
shelter for the night, and are reluctant to leave the abundant food in
these nooks behind the hills. A flat-bottomed boat among the bulrushes,
and a few artificially arranged thick bunches of brush and long grass,
which have been used as shooting blinds, usually explain why they have
not stayed longer.
A few of the ducks remain during the summer, build their nests on
secluded boggy spots, and rear their young; but the minks, snapping
turtles, and other enemies besides man, generally see that few of them
live to fly away in the fall.
Occasionally a small weather-beaten frame house, and a tumble-down old
barn, project their gables into the landscape. Around them is usually a
piece of cleared land that represents years of toil and combat with the
reluctant soil, obstinate stumps, and tough roots.
Nature has begrudgingly yielded a scanty livelihood to the brave and
simple ones who have spent their youth and middle age in wresting away
the barriers which have stood between them and the comforts of life. The
broken-spirited animals that stand still, with lowered heads, in the
little fields and around the barn, are mute testimonies of the years of
drudgery and hardship.
On approaching the house we encounter a few ducks that splash into the
ditch along the muddy road, and disappear in great trepidation among the
weeds and bulrushes beyond the fence. The loud barking of a mongrel dog
is heard, a lot of chickens scatter, and several children with touseled
heads and frightened faces appear. Behind them a lean-faced woman in a
faded calico dress looks out with a reserved and kindly welcome. The dog
is rebuked sharply, and finally quieted. The scared children hastily
retreat into the house, and peek out through the curtained windows. We
explain that we came to ask for a drink of water. The woman disappears
for a moment, brings a cup, and some rain water in a broken pitcher,
with which to prime the pump in the yard.
This wheezy piece of hardware, after much teasing, and encouragement
from the broken pitcher, finally yields, and one object of the visit is
accomplished. The children begin cautiously to reappear, their curiosity
having got the better of their alarm.
A few commonplace remarks about the weather, a complimentary reference
to a flower bed near the fence, an inquiry as to the ages of the
children, soon establish a friendly footing, and we are asked to sit
down on the bench near the pump and rest awhile.
“Don’t you sometimes feel lonely out here, with no neighbors?” I asked.
“No, indeed,” she replied. “We’ve got all the neighbors we want. Nobody
lives very near here, but there isn’t a day passes that I don’t see
somebody drivin’ by out on the road. I ride to town every two or three
weeks, an’ that’s enough for anybody.”
A man of perhaps forty, but who looks to be fifty, rather tall and
spare, with bent shoulders and shambling step, appears after a few
minutes. His shaved upper lip and long chin whiskers strictly conform to
the established customs of the back country.
It is a land of the chin whiskers, and they are met with everywhere in
the by-paths of civilization. Their picturesque quality is the delight
of him who uses the lead pencil and pen to portray the oddities of his
race.
He has come from over near the edge of the timber, where he has been
repairing a decayed rail fence. His greeting is kindly, and we are made
to feel quite at home. Some fresh buttermilk from an old-fashioned churn
near the back door adds to the pleasant hospitality, and the loud
cackling of a proud and energetic rooster, adorned with brilliant
plumage, who takes credit for the warm egg which a dignified old hen has
just left in the corner of the corn crib, lends an air of cheerfulness
and animation to the scene. He has just learned of the achievement, and
the glory is his.
Out in the yard is a covered box with a circular hole in its front. A
small chain leads into it, which is attached to the outside by a staple.
After a few minutes the furtive wild eyes of a captive coon peer out
fearfully from the inner darkness of the box. He was extracted from the
cosy interior of a hollow tree, over near the edge of the swamp, during
his infancy, and was the sole survivor of a moonlight attack on his home
tree, after the dogs had located the happy family. The tree was cut
down, the little furry things mangled by savage teeth, and their house
made desolate. The little fellow was carried into a hopeless captivity,
where his days and nights are passed in terror. He is a prisoner and not
a pet.
It is mankind that does these things--not the brutes--and yet we cry out
in denunciation when humanity is thus outraged. We chain and cage the
wild things, and shriek for freedom of thought and action. Verily this
is a strange world!
I talked with one of the little girls about the coon. She told me his
story and said they called him “Tip.” My heart went out to him, and I
longed to take him under my coat, carry him into the deep woods, and bid
him God speed. He probably would have bitten me had I attempted it, but
in this he would have been justified from his point of view, for he had
never had a chance in his despoiled life to learn that there could be
sympathy in a human touch. In this poor Tip is not alone in the world.
Time slumbers in the back country. The weekly paper is the only printed
source of news from the outside, and, with the addition of a monthly
farm magazine, with its woman’s department, constitutes the literature
of the home. These periodicals are read by the light of the big kerosene
lamp on the table in the middle of the room, and the facts and opinions
found in them become gospel.
The country village is perhaps a couple of miles farther inland. There
is a water-mill on the little river, and bags of wheat and corn are
taken to it to be ground. The miller--sleepy-eyed and white--comes out
and helps to unload the incoming grain, or deposit the flour or meal in
the back part of the wagon.
The general store and post-office is on the main road, near the mill.
The proprietor is the oracle of the community, and a fountain of wit and
wisdom. The store is the clearing-house for the news and gossip of the
passing days.
A weather-beaten sign across the front of the building reads, “THE
CENTER OF THE WORLD.” The owner declares that “this must be so, fer the
edges of it are just the same distance off from the store, no matter
which way ye look.”
There is much unconscious philosophy in the quaintly humorous sign, for,
after all, how little we realize the immensity of the material and
intellectual world that is beyond our own horizon. The homely wit
touches incisively one of the foibles of human kind.
Elihu Baxter Brown, the storekeeper, is well
[Illustration:
THE “GENERAL STORE”]
along in years. He is tall, somewhat stoop-shouldered, and his eyes look
quizzically out of narrow slits. His heavy gray mustache dominates his
face, the cumbersome ornament suggesting a pair of frayed lambrequins.
He lives in a little old-fashioned house that sets back in a yard next
his store. A quiet gray-haired woman, with a kindly face, sits sewing in
the shade near the back door. They walked to the home of the minister
fifteen miles away, to be married, over fifty years ago. They trudged
back in the afternoon and began their lives together in the humble frame
house that now shows the touch of decay and the scars of winter storms.
[Illustration:
THE STOREKEEPER]
The small trees that they planted around it have grown tall enough
almost to hide the quiet home among their shadows. Little patches of
sunlight that have stolen through the leaves are scattered over the
roof on bright days, like happy hours in solemn lives.
In a sealed glass jar on a “what-not” in a corner of the front room is a
hard queer-looking lump, encrusted with dry mold, a fragment of the
wedding cake of half a century ago, which has been faithfully kept and
cherished through the years. To the world outside it is meaningless;
here it is sacred.
The little things to which sentiment can cling are the anchorages of our
hearts. They keep us from drifting too far away, and they call to us
when we have wandered. The small piece of wedding cake--gray like the
heads of those who reverence it--has helped to prolong the echoes of the
chimes of years ago. It was a rough gnarled hand which carefully put the
glass jar back into its place after it was shown, but it was a tender
and beautiful thought that kept it there.
The old man is now seventy-six. He says that sometimes he is only about
thirty, and at other times he is over a hundred--it all depends on the
weather and the condition of his rheumatism.
“When I git up in the mornin’,” said he, “I first find out how my
rheumatism is, then I take a look at the weather, an’ figger out what
kind of a day it’s goin’ to be. If it’s goin’ to rain I let ’er rain,
an’ if it ain’t, all well an’ good. Business is pretty slow when it
rains, an’ when its ten or fifteen below in the winter, they ain’t no
business at all. When it gits like that I hole up like a woodchuck, an’
set in the back part o’ the store in my high-chair, an’ make poetry an’
read. I don’t like to do too much readin’, fer readin’ rots the mind,
an’ I’d rather be waitin’ on people comin’ in. Most gen’rally a lot o’
the old cods that live ’round ’ere drop in an’ we talk things over.
“This rheumatism o’ mine is a queer thing. I’ll tell ye sumpen
confidential. You prob’ly won’t believe it, an’ I wouldn’t want what I
say to git out ’cause its so improb’le, an’ it might hurt my credit, but
I’ve bin cured o’ my rheumatism twice by carryin’ a petrified potato in
my pocket. An old friend of mine, Catfish John’s got it now, an’ I don’t
want to take it away from ’im as long as it’s helpin’ ’im, but when ’e
gits through with it, I’m goin’ to have it back on the job, an’ you bet
I’ll be hoppin’ ’round ’ere as lively as a cricket. The potato ’ll
prob’ly be ’ere next week. I’ve had it fer ten years, an’ it beats
everything I’ve ever tried.”
I asked the old man to allow me to see some of the poetry he had “made,”
and thereby opened up a literary mine. The request touched a tender
chord and I was ushered back to a worn desk of antique pattern in the
rear of the store. He raised the lid and extracted the treasure. A book
had been removed from its binding, and the covers converted into a
portfolio. He gently removed about a hundred sheets of paper of various
shapes and sizes, covered with closely written matter. Some of the
spelling would have shocked the shade of Lindley Murray, and made it
glad that he had passed away, and some of it would have made a champion
of spelling reform quite happy. It was _vers libre_ of the most
malignant type. Rhymes were freely distributed at picturesque random,
and while the ideas, rhythm, and meter were quite lame at times, much of
the verse was better than some recently published imagist poetry, which
contains none of these things. Humor and pathos were intermingled.
Sometimes there was much humor where pathos was intended, and often real
pathos lurked among the lighter lines.
There are many singers who are never heard. Melodies in impenetrable
forests and trills that float on desert air are for those who sing, and
not for those who listen. A happy soul may pour forth impassioned song
in solitude, for the joy of the singing, and a solitary bard may distil
his fancy upon pages that are for him alone.
The verse of Elihu Baxter Brown is its own and only excuse for being. It
has solaced the still hours, and if its creator has been its only
reader, he has been most appreciative.
A touching lay depicts his elation upon the departure of his wife “in a
autobeel” on a long visit to distant relatives, but the joy prevails
only during the first six lines. The remaining thirty are devoted to
sorrow and “lonely misery as I walketh the street,” and end with “when
will she be back I wonder?” He falls into a “reverree” and from under
its gentle spell the virile lines, “The brite moon makes a strong
impress on me,” and “I’ve named my pet hen after thee,” float into the
world. With “eyes full of weep” he reflects that “sometimes she’s cold
as all git out,” and further on he wishes that his “loved one was a
pie,” so as to facilitate immediate and affectionate assimilation.
He bids the world to “go on with its music and kink it another note
higher.” In later lines he naïvely admits that “of all the poets I love
myself the best.” Alas, he has much company! This effusion ends with
“Gosh, I can’t finish this poetry till I pull myself together.”
War, love, spring, and beautiful snow flow through the limping measures.
There are odes to the sun, the rain, and to his old bob-tailed gray cat,
“Tobunkus,” who drowses peacefully on the counter near the scales.
The inspection of the poems led to the exhibition of his box of relics
and curios, which he greatly valued. Among the carefully ticketed and
labeled items, which we spread out on the counter, was a small chip from
Libby Prison, a fragment of stone picked up near the National Capitol, a
shark’s tooth, some Indian arrow-heads, an iron ring from a slave
auction pen of ante-bellum days, a chip from the pilot house of a
steamboat that was wrecked sixty years ago on the Atlantic coast, the
dried stump of a cigar which had been given to him when he visited a
Russian man-of-war in Boston harbor in 1859, and many other odds and
ends that were of priceless value to him.
I picked up a small, round piece of wood, which he told me was the most
remarkable and interesting relic of the whole lot. “That,” said he, “is
a piece of the first shaving brush I ever shaved with”--a fact fully as
important as most things, seemingly significant at present, will be a
century hence. This wonderful object completed the exhibition, and the
collection was carefully put away.
The interior of the store was rather gloomy, badly ventilated, and was
pervaded with numberless and commingled odors. I could distinguish
kerosene, dead tobacco-smoke, stale vegetables, damp dry-goods, and
smoked herrings, but the rest of the indescribable medley of smells
baffled analysis.
The stock of merchandise was varied, but there was very little of any
one kind, except plug tobacco. Over a case containing several large
boxes of this necessity of life in the back country was a strip of
cardboard, on which was inscribed, “Don’t use the nasty stuff.” Under a
wall-lamp was another placard, “This flue don’t smoke, neither should
you.” Other examples of the proprietor’s wit were scattered along the
edges of the shelves, and on the walls, and helped to impart an
individual character to the place. Among them were, “Don’t be bashful.
You can have anything you can pay for.” “This store is not run by a
trust.” “No setting on the counter--this means _you_!” “Credit given
only on Sundies, when the store is closed.” “Don’t talk about the
war--it makes me sick.”
A large portion of the stock was in cans. Some of them had evidently
been on the shelves for many years. There were cove oysters, sardines,
and tinned meats of various kinds, with badly fly-specked labels. The
old man remarked that “some o’ them air-tights has bin on hand since the
early eighties.”
The humble tin can has been one of the important factors in the progress
of the human race. With the theodolite, the sextant, and the rifle, it
has been carried to the waste places of the earth, and because of it
they have bloomed. Tin cans have lined the trails to unknown lands, and
they have been left at both of the poles. The invader has flung them
along his remorseless path when he has gone to murder quiet distant
peoples whose religion differed from his own, and they have thus been
made “instruments of the Lord’s mercy.” They lie on ghastly
battlefields, mingled with splintered bones, where a civilization, of
which we have boasted, has left them.
They are scattered over the bottom of the sea, float languidly in the
currents of uncharted rivers, and rust on the sands of the deserts. They
are hiding-places for tropical reptiles in tangled morasses, and
prowling beasts sniff at them curiously in deserted camps along the
outer rims of the world.
They symbolize the ingenuity of the white man, and in them has reposed
the remains of every kind of fish, reptile, bird and beast that he has
used for food. The aged bull, the scrawny family cow, the venerable
rooster, the faithful superannuated hen, the senile billy goat, and
other obsolete domestic animals, have found a temporary tomb within
mysterious walls of tin, and have helped to feed others than those who
canned them. They enclose fruit and vegetables that could not be sold
fresh, and in them they go to the uttermost parts of the earth.
It was indeed strange destiny that took the sardine, flashing his bright
sides in the blue Mediterranean, and left him immured on a musty shelf
in a store in the back country. If he, with the contents of the cans
around him, could return to life, there would be a motley company.
Perhaps, in quiet midnight hours, wraiths come out of the tins and play
in the moonbeams that filter through the dusty windows. They may all
have been there so long that social caste has been established. The
fish, lobsters, cove oysters and clams, being sea people, probably hold
aloof. This they may well do, as they are on the upper shelves.
The elderly domestic animals may have a dignified stratum of their own,
in which the affairs of the old families can be discussed, while those
who were feathered in life possibly form another pale group that
devotes itself entirely to questions of personal adornment.
Behind the red labels on the lower shelves are the devilled ham and the
pig’s feet. The goblins from these may hold high carnival in the silvery
light--the frolics of the indigestibles--and their antics may last until
the gray of the morning comes.
Nameless elfs may appear in the little throng. They are from the soups,
and have so many component parts that they know not what they are.
Naturally they may precede the others, but if they are in the ghostly
circle, they are not of it.
Probably the specters from the canned hash are at the lower end of the
scale.
I suggested to the old man that all these things might be happening
while he slumbered, but he declared that I was mistaken. “There’s never
bin any doin’s like that goin’ on ’round the store,” said he.
Figuratively, it might be said that many of us obtain most of our
intellectual food from cans. The diet may be varied occasionally by
fresh nutrients, but too often we rely upon products bearing established
trade-marks for our mental sustenance. The rows of labels, honored by
time and dimmed by dust, stand like tiers of skulls, with their eyeless
caverns gravely still--mute symbols of the eternal hours--as if staring
in dull mockery out of a vanished past. Living currents flow around us
unheeded. We absorb predigested thought to repletion, and neglect
vibrant mental forces, that through disuse become depleted, instead of
enriching them with the study of the green and growing things that have
not been put in cans.
“About ev’ry third year,” said the old man, “business gits worse’n ever,
an’ that’s when a hoss trader named Than Gandy comes ’round. He lives
some’rs in the eastern part o’ the state, an’ after ’e’s bin through
’ere ’e waits long enough fer most of ’em to fergit ’im before ’e comes
agin. He starts out from where ’e lives with a sulky, an’ a crow bait
hoss, an’ about five dollars. He spends a couple o’ months on ’is
travels among the little places away from the railroads, an’ when ’e
gits through with ’is trip, ’e has a string o’ seven er eight hosses,
an’ four er five little wagons an’ buggies, an’ a lot o’ harnesses an’
whips an’ calves an’ sheep, an’ a big wad o’ money. He’s got all them
things to boot in trades ’e keeps makin’. He beats ev’rybody ’e runs up
ag’inst, an’ when ’e quits ’round ’ere nobody’s got any money left to
buy things with. They don’t know what’s happened to ’em till ’e’s away
off. When ’e stops at the store, he gen’rally trades me sumpen fer what
’e wants.
“Once Jedge Blossom traded hosses with ’im when ’e was piped, an’ gave
’im ten dollars to boot. He got a bum animal shifted on ’im, an’ when ’e
sobered up, ’e sent Gandy a bill fer fifteen dollars fer legal advice,
an’ the advice was not to come into this part o’ the country any more.”
The old man told me that he was born in a small town in Massachusetts.
“I was named after the preacher of our church. He was a great man an’
’is eloquence was wonderful. His name was the Reverend Elihu Baxter, an’
’e used to go up into the pulpit, an’ lean ’is stummick ’way out over
it, an’ say, _‘Now you listen to me’!_--an’ that’s the way ’e drawed ’em
to ’im. When ’e’d first begin, the church ’ud be so still that you could
hear the flies buzz, an’ ’is voice would sound all hollow, like ’e was
talkin’ into a big dish-pan. We don’t have no more preachers like ’im
now days, an’ people don’t go to church no more like they did then. We
don’t have no more old-fashioned Sundays. There’s too many newspapers,
an’ what they have to say takes the place o’ what we used to hear in the
pulpit. What the preachers say now days ain’t interestin’ any more.
People rest an’ play on Sunday now, instid o’ bein’ solemn an’ sad an’
settin’ ’round an’ listenin’ over an’ over to somebody tellin’ about
them three fellers that was in the fiery furnace.”
He felt deeply his responsibility as a representative of the national
government. The post-office department, with its rows of glass-fronted
mail boxes, numbered from 1 to 40, was located at the right of the store
entrance. The mail bag was brought daily from the railroad station, five
miles away, by a fat-faced young man in blue overalls and a hickory
shirt. His elbows flopped madly up and down as his horse galloped along
the highway with the precious burden across the pommel. He made another
trip at night with the out-going mail, and when the hoof-beats were
heard on the road, there would be many glances at the clocks in the
houses along his route, and the fact approvingly noted, that “Bill’s on
time to-night, all right.”
There are many people in the world who win lasting laurels by being “on
time.” Some do it quietly, and others by flopping their arms violently,
to the accompaniment of resonant hoof-beats, as “Bill” does, but being
“on time” is essential to success in life. “Bill” may have no other
argument to present for his eventual redemption than the fact that he
was always “on time,” but it cannot fail to be powerful and convincing.
“I would like this postmaster business,” said the old man, “if it wasn’t
fer all the books I have to write in an’ the blanks I have to fill out.
It keeps people comin’ in, but sometimes I have to set up pretty near
all night writin’ out things fer the gov’ament. I don’t keep no books
fer the store, fer I never sell nothin’ ’cept fer cash, or fer sumpen
that’s brought in, an’ I keep my expense account in my hat. If the
sheriff ever comes ’round ’ere to close me up, ’e won’t find no books to
go by. I spend all the money that gits in the drawer, an’ if what’s in
the store should burn up, I’d be ahead ’cause I’ve got insurance, an’
I’d git it all at once; so I guess I’m all right. I ain’t got much to
show fer my life, ’cept a grin, but that’s sumpen. Some day I’ll have
all the poetry I’ve made printed into a volume that’ll be put on sale,
an’ I’ll have a reg’lar income an’ I won’t have to work no more.
“I’m keepin’ a first class place here. There’s a lot o’ this new-fangled
stuff that I’ve stopped carryin’. People always buy it out when they
come in, an’ I have to keep gittin’ more all the time. If I don’t have
them things they ask fer, they’ll prob’ly buy sumpen that’s already on
hand. I can’t please ev’rybody all the time, or I’d be worked to death.
I don’t keep no likker, but anybody can git most anything else here
that’ll make ’em smell like a man, an’ I don’t sell no cigarettes. A
feller come in ’ere with one once, an’ when ’e went out ’e left ’is punk
on the edge of a pile o’ paper. After a while some o’ the bunch out in
front noticed some fire, an’ it pretty near burnt up the store, an’
besides they smell like a burnt offering, an’ I don’t like ’em.”
I asked him if he ever went over to the lake.
“Not fer about fifteen years. We all drove over there fer a bath, an’ I
took a bad cold an’ I haven’t bin there since. This talk o’ washin’ all
the time is nonsence. Jedge Blossom’s got a big tin bath tub up to his
place, that’s painted green, an’ ’e gits in it an’ sloshes ’round ev’ry
Saturday night when ’e’s home, but when Monday mornin’ comes ’e don’t
look no better’n anybody else.”
During one afternoon that I spent with him in the rear of the store, he
showed me some of the literature which he had taken down from the stock
on one of the upper shelves, and had been reading during the winter. The
pile consisted of old-fashioned dime novels of years ago, with their
multicolored illustrated paper covers. Among the titles, and on the
blood-curdling, well-thumbed pages, I found names that were once
familiar and much beloved. “Lantern-Jawed Bob,” “Snake Eye,” “Deadwood
Dick,” “Iron Hand,” “Navajo Bill,” “Shadow Bill,” “The Forest Avenger,”
“Eagle-Eyed Zeke,” “The War Tiger of the Modocs,” “The Mountain Demon,”
and many other forgotten heroes of boyhood days, “advanced coolly and
stealthily” out of the mists of the dim past, and once more they
scalped, robbed, trailed, circumvented bloodthirsty pursuers, had
hair-breadth escapes, mocked death, rescued peerless maidens from savage
redskins in the wilderness, and finally married them, as of yore.
The romance in the pile was irretrievably bad, but it recalled happy
memories. It was not surprising that the old man was impressed with the
idea that “too much readin’ rots the mind,” when spring came, and he had
finished the stack.
Around the big stove, on chilly days, the owners of the chin whiskers
congregate, with cob pipes and juicy plug. They contribute liberally to
the square boxes filled with sawdust that serve as cuspidors. In this
solemn circle the great political problems of the nation are considered
and solved.
The gossip of the township is exchanged, and the personal frailties of
absent ones discussed. The local Munchausen tells wondrous tales of his
cow, that stands out in the river and is milked by hungry fish that wait
among the lilies, and of hailstorms he has seen that have demolished
brickyards.
A projected barn, the sale of a horse or cow, the repairs on a wagon,
the prospects of frost or rain, the crops, the price of hogs, the
tariff, the trusts, the rascality of the railroads, and many other
subjects, are mingled with the gossip of the neighborhood. These matters
are all deeply pondered over. They talk about their rheumatism, the
“cricks” in their backs, their coughs, their aches and pains, and the
foolish vagaries of the “women folks.” They buy patent medicines, and
they bathe only when they get caught in the rain.
[Illustration: THE PESSIMISTS]
A slatternly looking woman comes in, buys some calico, thread, two
yards of ribbon, and some hooks and eyes. When she departs some one
remarks, “Wonder wot she’s goin’ to make now!” From that the
conversation drifts to “the feller that left ’er about two years ago.”
The proprietors of the chin whiskers all knew “when ’e fust come ’round,
’e wasn’t any good,” and the sage prophecies of by-gone days are now
fully verified. The demerits of a certain horse, which he had once sold
to one of the prophets, are again recounted, and the general opinion is
that after the delinquent “got through with the lawsuit ’e was mixed up
in, ’e went out west som’ers with the money ’is lawyer didn’t git.
Anyhow, ’e was no good.” Nobody is “any good.”
When the time comes to “git home to supper,” the dilapidated vehicles
begin to crawl out into the fading light and disappear. They carry the
pessimists and the few necessaries which they have bought at the
store--some molasses, sugar, tea and coffee, possibly a new shovel, some
nails, and always a plentiful supply of plug tobacco, a great deal of
which is filtered into the soil of the back country. Some eggs, butter,
vegetables, and other produce of the little farm has been left in
payment.
[Illustration: THEY “CRAWL OUT INTO THE FADING LIGHT”]
After the tired horses are unhitched and fed, the exciting gossip is
retold at the supper table. A few chores are done, an hour or so is
spent around the big lamp, and another eventful day has closed. A week
may pass before another trip is made to the sleepy village.
Those who are gone are under the tall grasses and wild flowers on the
hill near the woods, beyond the little weather-beaten country church.
The iron bell has tolled for them as they were laid away, and now that
it is all over, it is the same with them as if they had been monarchs or
millionaires.
A touching, if crude, epitaph can be deciphered on one of the gray mossy
stones through the crumbling fence. After the name and the final date
are the lines,
“Shed not for me the bitter tears
Nor fill the heart with vain regrets.
’Tis but the casket that lies here,
The gems that filled them sparkles yet.”
and lower, under a pair of clasped hands, “We will meet again,” and it
may be that a mighty truth is on the stone.
[Illustration: The “Jedge”.]