"I'll jest take a little dry to put on the top," he said, as he
deliberately filled the pipe. "We want a little `dry on the top' to
start us, but if there's nothin' deown below, why, it's a puff and out
it goes. Yo'll never get a crop from that bottom land o' yours until
you put some dry on the top in the shape of manure. See!"
Now, of all the laziest, shiftless beings there was no one who could
start level with old Abe Pike, and this advice from him was rasping, but
still he had his points.
"I've heard say there's a powerful heap o' money in portents," he
ventured presently.
"It depends on how you interpret them."
"Well, that's so. I've got a portent here in this very coat; that's
some small pumpkins, I tell you. It'll kill any sort o' vermin, rats,
skeeters, wild-cats, jackals, quicker'n winkin'. See! I found it out
myself come next Friday fortnight."
"You mean you interpreted the portent."
"Well, now, is that so? I tole you I got it in my pocket, and ef I
didn't find it, how did it get there? That's what I want to know."
"All right, Uncle, what is it?"
"That's my portent. I diskivered it, and I'm gwine to work it under my
name--Abe Pike's Sure Killer."
"Is it a patent medicine you're talking of?"
"Of course; that's what I said. There it is," and out of his pocket he
produced a strip of bark.
"Sneeze-wood bark, isn't it?"
"Looks like it, don't it? But there's bark and there's bark. This is
Abe Pike's Bark, possessing properties which will alleviate the
sufferings of the human race by putting a lightning end to the enemies
of the human kind. That's what I've studied out to put in the papers in
big letters. There's money in it, now; ain't there?"
"I don't see it, Uncle."
"Ah! the limitations of knowledge, my boy, is accountable for a pot of
ignorance. You think that's plain ordinary bark, but that's where your
limitations run dry. I'll jes' tell you how I diskivered this great and
marvellous killer of the centry. Come Friday fortnight I sot out with
the axe to chop out a pole for the cowshed--t'other on' been eaten thro'
by those plaguy ants. Well, I knew of a tree way down in the kloof that
had been growin' for that shed o' mine ever since the seed dropped on
the 'xact spot where nature had provided a bed for it. When you come to
think of it, everything has got its purpose all smoothed out from the
start, and that little seed spread itself out from the beginnin' to
build up a pole for ole Abe Pike's cowshed. I sot down on a fallen tree
and thought that all out, while the trees round about made a whisperin'
with their leaves over the head o' that there sneeze 'ood that was
doomed so to speak, by reason o' my cows, and the necessity of keepin'
'em out o' the rain in the winter. Well, I sot there thinking all these
thoughts until it was too dark, and I went away home 'thout having cut
the tree. Next mornin' I took up my axe and went down into the kloof
and took off my coat. I gave two blows and stopped."
"Too much work?"
"Jes' you wait. I tole you there was a fallen tree; well, in that tree
was a snake. The first blow of the axe woke him, and he popped his head
out. The second blow sent a chip that hit him square between the eyes.
Out he came biling with rage, and hissin' like a kettle o' water, and I
just had time to dodge behind the tree when he let out. His fangs stuck
right in the wood, and with a clip I cut his head off. I stood away
back looking at his writhing body and at his wicked head sticking there
in the tree jes' where I had made the wedge. As I looked in, there came
to pass a remarkable circumstance."
"Yes?"
"Yes; that tree began to lose colour. It was a healthy tree, sound as a
bell, with a heart o' iron and a crown o' green leaves; but as I stood
there in the space o' maybe one minit, or a minit and a half, it begun
to turn pale and sickly."
"Turn pale!"
"Yes, sir, that's what I said. First the leaves shuddered and rustled,
and grew moist; then they slowly turned yeller, curling up as if they'd
been frost-bitten, only sadder. It s'prised me, that did, for there was
somethin' in the way the leaves went that struck a shudder through me,
'twas so human like in the manner o' it. But that was nothing--the bark
suddenly cracked and peeled off--then the white trunk itself standin'
there, exposed in its nakedness began to swell--until it split with a
groan--ay, a groan, a moaning shivery gasp o' pain. 'Twas so like life,
I turned and ran, thinkin' that dead snakes was after me--so that as I
ran the fear grew upon me till I came out inter the open. After looking
around keerfully I sat on a stone an' steadied my thinking machine.
When I got the fear out o' me I went back and there was that tree dead
as tho' it had been struck by lightnin' and bleached by the rain an'
sun."
"Well?"
"That tree was pisened! It died o' snakebite--its system chock full o'
pisen. I cut it down and took it home, where I planted it under the
shed."
"And your portent?"
"I'm comin' to that, if you'll give me time. That night I couldn't
sleep for a procession of ants. They came out of a hole in the floor,
crept over my bed--which you may know is on the floor for convenience--
and marched out thro' the crack under the door. All the ants in the
country were there--red ants, black ants, working ants, soldier ants,
and the soldier ants nipped me whenever I moved. In the morning, when
they had passed away, I went outside, and in the shed there was
thousands an' thousands o' dead ants, not to speak o' flies."
"All dead?"
"They had been nipping that pisened pole, and those that didn't bite got
the news and moved off for other scenes. I tell you, you may speak o'
telegraph wires, but lor' bless you, news travels faster among the
creatures. Why I've knowed--"
"Yes; but you've not told me about your discovery."
"Well, now, the limitations of your knowledge is great. I've told you
enough to put two and two together. If not, I'll just make the plain
plainer. Seeing what the tree had done, I though o' the bark an' the
leaves left there behind in the kloof, and went for 'em. It was jus' as
I thought. They was deadly pisen, and when I laid some leaves about the
house they killed all the flies, and a piece o' bark laid in a rat-hole
brought all the rats out corpses.
"Yes sir, that's ole Abe Pike's Vermin Destroyer, and if you're setting
pills for jackals, why, don't you forget to come to my shop."
"Are you opening a shop?"
"That's what I said. Abe Pike's vermin pisen poles, warrented to stand
the ravages o' time an' insects, and Pike's bark; no other genuine. So
long!"
"Well, so long!"