“You have good nerves?” asked Professor Julius March, with a somewhat
cynical smile.
Annette Grey shrugged her shoulders.
“People who work for their living,” she replied, “cannot afford nerves.”
The Professor nodded.
“There is something in that,” he answered, thoughtfully. “At the same
time, I must make the position clear to you. As you are aware, I am an
Egyptologist, and in my house here I have many queer things. Some people
dislike the idea of working among mummies and——”
Annette interrupted him with a deprecating gesture.
“Believe me,” she said, “that sort of thing does not affect me in the
least. As your secretary, I am prepared to work where and when you like.”
“My former secretary—” the professor began, and paused.
“Your former secretary disappeared,” said the girl. “Of course I know
that; you will remember that I applied for the vacancy after reading
about her in the paper. I do not propose to disappear; the terms you
offer are too good.”
She smiled faintly, and the Egyptologist shrewdly eyed her.
“Well,” he said at last, “your qualifications and education appear to
recommend you for the work I should want you to do. It is secretarial
work in the broadest sense of the term—from typing my notes (when you
have learned to decipher my abominably bad handwriting) to looking up
references in the British Museum, or—should occasion arise—accompanying
me on a flying visit to Egypt. I give you fair warning that I shall work
you hard, but, apart from the salary and board, which I have already
named, you will not find me ungenerous if you prove yourself valuable.”
“Then I may consider myself engaged?”
March bowed.
“Certainly,” he replied. “You will probably learn presently,” he added,
in his cynical way, “that I am regarded as an eccentric person, and
somewhat of a hard taskmaster—”
“I prefer to form my own opinion,” said Annette quietly.
Again he smiled. It was not a pleasant smile.
* * * * *
So Annette Grey took up her residence in the rambling old house on
the outskirts of London in which Professor Julius March had gradually
accumulated relics of ancient Egypt that were regarded with respect by
the curators of some of the greatest museums in the world.
There were those who hinted that the Professor had not always been
scrupulous in the methods he adopted to secure his rarer curios; but
March laughed at such stories when anyone had the hardihood to repeat
them to him, openly attributing them to the jealousy of less fortunate
rivals. Wealthy and profoundly learned, he had become known as one of the
greatest Egyptologists of his day.
Annette studied her new employer with the patience characteristic of her
nature, and she found the study an interesting as well as a useful one.
March, for the most part, was reserved and silent, but he was capable of
bursts of extraordinary excitement. He devoted himself, with an almost
religious fervor, to the pursuit which he had made his life study, and
the few friends he possessed—for he was not a popular man—were almost all
brother archeologists.
Tall and thin, with black eyes peering through large
tortoise-shell-rimmed spectacles, his gray hair tumbled in a shaggy mass
over his broad forehead, he had a habit of thrusting his square chin
aggressively forward when he spoke. His long, graceful fingers moved
in nervous sympathy with what he was saying, and he would spring from
his chair and walk rapidly up and down with catlike steps that reminded
Annette of a panther ceaselessly pacing to and fro behind the bars of its
cage.
Possessed of great endurance, he would sit for hours at a stretch poring
over an ancient papyrus, disdaining food and sleep. Then, plunging into
a cold bath, he would emerge glowing, eat an enormous meal and set off
for a long walk, indifferent as to whether it happened to be day or the
middle of the night.
When March first asked her whether or not she had good nerves, Annette
had supposed him to be referring to the disappearance of Beatrice Vane,
his former assistant. Beatrice, a beautiful girl just budding into the
maturity of womanhood, had vanished utterly, leaving her clothes and
other possessions behind her, but no clue as to where she had gone.
March, with his lawyer, Henry Sturges, had sought the assistance of the
police, and every effort had been made to trace the missing girl, but
without success.
Attorney Sturges, who had recommended Beatrice Vane to Professor March,
had been the girl’s guardian. An orphan, she had been left a small annual
income, the capital of which was under Sturges’ control as trustee. She
had received a good education, and the lawyer had procured her employment
with Julius March in order that she might occupy her time and at the same
time supplement the scanty income which declining financial conditions
had left her.
March spoke highly of her work, and was more affected by her
disappearance than many, who saw only the cynicism of the man, would
have believed. He feared, Annette supposed, that his new secretary would
think it unlucky to step into the shoes of the girl who had vanished so
mysteriously, and she hastened to disabuse his mind of any such idea.
But Annette soon found that there existed an additional reason for his
question. The old house, she found, was divided into two parts. In one,
the smaller of the two, lived March and his staff. A bachelor, he was
looked after by an elderly housekeeper, one or two maids, a chauffeur
and a confidential valet, who had been with him for years. These people
attended to what he called the “domesticities” of the place.
The larger part of the house was consecrated to his hobby, and had
been, indeed, altered and partially reconstructed to suit his unusual
requirements. Into this Egypt in miniature the servants were sternly
forbidden to penetrate. There March would bury himself amid his mummies
and papyri, and sometimes, in his morose moods, even his secretary was
forbidden access.
Annette had a comfortably-furnished sitting-room of her own, and a little
room furnished as an office, but a great part of her work, she found, was
to be done in the room which March grimly called the “Hall of the Dead.”
It was, indeed, an apartment in which only a girl of strong nerves could
have worked without glancing fearfully over her shoulder. Floored with
black-and-white marble, alternated in a curious pattern, it was dimly lit
by a lamp swung from the roof by bronze chains. To afford the stronger
light necessary for the study of ancient inscriptions, a smaller lamp
stood on each of two small tables, the incongruous effect of their
electric wiring being mitigated by their antique shape. These lamps,
however, illuminated only their immediate neighborhood, leaving the
greater part of the huge room in semi-obscurity.
Round the room were placed at regular intervals mummies and mummy-cases,
whose grave immobility seemed but a mask which they could tear off at
will, descending to move about the hall with measured steps and to
converse on topics that had been of living importance to a long-dead
civilization.
In the center of the hall stood a great stone table, curiously grooved
and hollowed, and between the mummies were placed objects of metal and
earthenware, the uses of which Annette could only guess.
In this strange room March would pass hour after hour. Annette soon
learned to understand and accommodate herself to his methods. The sharp
sound of an electric bell in her room would bring her to the Hall of
the Dead, notebook and pencil in hand. The heavy door, controlled by an
automatic mechanism, would roll back as she approached, closing silently
behind her as she entered and took her seat, without a word, at one of
the smaller tables.
Acknowledging her presence only by a gesture, March would stride up
and down the room with his quick tread, pausing now and again to
examine a document or to apply a magnifying glass to the inscription
on a mummy-case, muttering to himself as he resumed his rapid pacing.
Suddenly, without warning, he would commence to dictate, in sharp,
staccato sentences, admirably lucid and without a superfluous word.
He would cease as suddenly as he had begun, and for perhaps half an hour,
or longer, he would remain buried in thought, resuming his dictation as
unexpectedly as he had ceased, but without ever losing the sequence of
his ideas.
Sometimes this would go on for hours. On such occasions he would
recollect himself suddenly, glance at the ancient water-clock on its
carved pedestal, and dismiss Annette with a word of apology for his
forgetfulness.
Once an incident occurred which revealed yet another side of this man’s
complex character.
Annette had received a lengthy piece of dictation, and had been at work
in her office for nearly an hour, transcribing her notes. She was a
competent writer of shorthand, but some of the technical expressions
which March used were quite unfamiliar, and she did not care to interrupt
him, preferring to wait until he had finished before asking him any
questions. On this occasion it had seemed fairly plain sailing, but
toward the end of her notes she came across a sign the significance of
which completely baffled her.
Finding that the context was of no assistance, and not wishing to delay
the work, which she knew the Professor required as quickly as possible,
she resolved to consult him.
It was the first time she had visited the Hall of the Dead unbidden, and
she was uncertain how to attract his attention from outside, for there
was no knocker or bell on the great door. The mechanism which controlled
it, however, either did not depend on the person inside, or could be
so set as to work independently, for as she reached the threshold some
concealed spring was put into operation and the door opened before her as
usual. Still standing on the threshold, she was about to enter, when she
stopped as though turned into stone.
Inside the hall she saw Julius March kneeling before one of the
mummy-cases—the mummy-case of a woman. His head rested against the knees
of the image, and his body was shaken by great sobs.
Amazed, moved by the strange sight, Annette turned and fled to her own
room. Behind her the door of the Hall of the Dead swung noiselessly into
its frame.
* * * * *
A week later, Annette entered the little-used drawing-room of Professor
March’s house shortly before seven o’clock in the evening, and sat down
near the bright fire ready to receive his guests. For March was giving
one of his rare dinner-parties.
A few moments later the door opened, and the servant ushered in Attorney
Sturges and a friend of his, a pleasant, rather simple-looking man named
Sims.
“I fear we are a little early, Miss Grey,” said Sturges, when he had
presented his friend.
“Not at all,” Annette replied easily. “Professor March asked me to make
his excuses to you; he was detained at the British Museum and only
arrived a few minutes ago. He is dressing, and will be down in a few
minutes. Meanwhile, I must play hostess.”
“And most adequately,” murmured Sturges, with old-fashioned courtesy.
Then, as the door closed behind the servant, he spoke rapidly:
“We came a little early on purpose,” he explained. “You are prepared,
Miss Vane?”
“Quite,” said the girl calmly.
“Good. Inspector Sims agrees with me that if we are ever to discover the
mystery of your sister’s disappearance, it will be tonight. Sims has been
practising his part, and does it admirably.”
The Scotland Yard man smiled.
“I think I can play it,” he said. “And I congratulate you, Miss Vane, on
the way you have handled the matter. This idea is an excellent one, and I
admit I should never have thought of it myself. I hope, too,” he went on,
without the slightest alteration in his tone, as a step sounded outside
and the door opened, “that Professor March will not deny me a peep at the
wonderful treasures be keeps here.”
“Why, of course not,” cried March heartily, as he entered the room. “I
caught your last words, Mr. Sims,” he went on, “—for I am sure you are
Sturges’ psychic friend—and I shall be delighted to show you round my
little museum. Well, Sturges, I must apologize to you both for keeping
you waiting like this; but you have been in good hands.”
He bowed courteously to Annette.
“It is very good of you, Mr. Sims,” he went on, “to come and visit a
recluse like this. Sturges has told me of your powers of necromancy, and
I confess I am hoping to see something very wonderful.”
The words were polite and were uttered with perfect civility, but the old
lawyer laughed gently.
“It’s no good, March,” he said; “you cannot quite get the true ring. You
scientific fellows always scoff at the unseen, and decline to believe
anything that cannot be set down in writing, like an algebraic equation.”
“Not at all,” replied the Professor, with sudden gravity. “On the
contrary, my researches have convinced me that there are mysteries to
which, if we only had the clue—but we’ll talk of that later,” he added,
with a sudden change of tone. “My first duty, as your host, is to feed
you; come and help me perform the sacred rite of hospitality.”
Laughing, he opened the door and bowed Annette to the head of the little
procession to the dining-room, where they were presently seated round a
candle-lit table of richly-polished mahogany.
It was a strange dinner-party, at which two, at least, of the diners
found it difficult to appreciate the sallies of the host. Mr. Sims,
however, expanded under the influence of the Professor’s geniality. March
was in unusually high spirits, for he had just succeeded in translating a
hieroglyphic inscription which had defeated the Museum authorities, and
he devoted himself to the sport of drawing out his psychic guest with a
delicate irony which, to do him justice, never passed the bounds of good
taste.
The innocent Mr. Sims responded to this subtle flattery with a readiness
which delighted the Professor, and even Annette and the lawyer could not
refrain from smiling at the naïveté with which Sims played his part.
At last the dinner drew to a close, and March rose.
“I am not going to let you off, Mr. Sims,” he said. “I am eager to learn
something of the methods of the modern spiritualists, for I admit I am
more familiar with those of the past. But I think we ought to have a more
suitable atmosphere for the _seance_,” he added, chuckling. “Miss Grey,
I hope you will not leave us? I think my Egyptian room would form an
admirable background for Mr. Sims’ experiments.”
Annette smiled, with something of an effort, and led the way to the Hall
of the Dead.
Despite himself, Sims could not repress an exclamation of awe at the
sight of the great, gloomy room, with its solemn figures and mysterious
shadows.
The Professor rubbed his hands, well pleased at the effect he had
produced.
“Now, Mr. Sims,” he said, “here is a carved chair on which a Pharaoh once
sat. Enthrone yourself there. We will sit, metaphorically, at your feet,
and listen to what you are pleased to tell us.”
Sims bowed, but did not return the Professor’s smile. Gravely he seated
himself in the heavy wooden chair, rested his elbow on one of the
quaintly-carved arms, and let his head sink onto his hand. The others
grouped themselves near and waited, in a heavy silence.
Sensitive to impressions, the Professor’s gay mood faded gradually into a
tense expectancy that made his long fingers work nervously. He startled
as Sims’ voice broke the silence sharply.
“I am aware, Professor March,” said Sims in a hard, level tone that
startled his hearers, “that you are a skeptic.”
The Professor murmured something, but Sims went on, without heeding him.
“I feel tonight that I am going to prove to you that I can see things
that are hidden....”
He paused, and again the silence was broken only by the sound of heavy
breathing. As suddenly as before, Sims spoke again:
“Listen!” he said. “I see a great room, half lit by a lamp in the roof.
There is a brighter light near a table in the center of the room. It is a
stone table, such as was used in ancient Egypt by the embalmers.”
The Professor drew in his breath with a sharp gasp, but the voice went
steadily on:
“Beside the table I see a man. He is bending over something—something
white. It is the body of a woman—”
“_Stop_, damn you!” screamed the Professor; and Sims, springing from his
chair, took something from the pocket of his dinner-jacket.
The Professor laughed discordantly—the laugh of a madman.
“Put up your pistol,” he cried. “You will not need it. I don’t know who
you are, and, damn you, I don’t care! Do you hear that? _I don’t care!_
Listen, all of you; listen, I say! Today I have completed my task; I have
learned the secret which I have sought so patiently. I am going to join
my Princess, my Hora.”
He ceased, and threw his arms out in a great gesture to the mummy-case in
front of which he had been standing. Huge drops of sweat stood out on his
forehead, and he tore open his linen collar with a madman’s strength. But
it was in a controlled, almost tender voice that he went on:
“Listen to me, and I will tell you a wonderful thing. Countless years
ago I—I who speak to you here tonight—was a priest in Egypt. I was vowed
to the service of Isis. But one day there came to the temple, where I
ministered, a woman. A woman? Nay, a goddess! A being of such beauty that
my heart leaped within me at the sight of her loveliness.
“She was the Princess Hora. We loved. Ten thousand words could say no
more. But an evil fate tore her from me; the Pharaoh had seen her, and
coveted her. Sooner than lie in his foul embrace she plunged a dagger
into her white bosom....”
He paused, and for a few moments covered his face with his hands, his
shoulders quivering. Then he tore his hands away and stretched them once
more toward the painted image that looked so calmly down at him.
“Hora, my Hora!” he cried passionately. “I have sought thee for
centuries, through age after age. And now, at last thou hast come to
me—and gone again. But only for a little while, a few brief moments, for
I follow thee tonight.”
Again he paused, and again he resumed, mastering his emotion:
“She came to me here, here in this house, where I have labored so long,
striving to regain my knowledge of that past which is sometimes so clear,
and sometimes, O Isis, so terribly dark! She came to me, my beautiful
Hora; came clad in the garb of today, bearing the name of Beatrice.”
A low sob broke from Annette, but he went on, unheeding:
“I told you, Hora, I _tried_ to tell you—but your eyes were filmed by
the gods. You could not understand.... You spurned me. Then it was that
I understood that for us there could be only one way. One touch of this
little knife, steeped in a poison so deadly that your soul had flown ere
your body had fallen into my arms.
“Tenderly I bathed you and poured into your veins the secret essences
that keep the flesh firm and fair as in life, and bore you to the tomb
where you sit, waiting for me. But in another world, Hora, you wait for
me, a thousand times more beautiful, and knowing that I, your lover, have
sought you and found you at last. Hora, _I come_!”
With a wild cry, he raised the little dagger which he had drawn from his
pocket. Sims sprang forward, but before he could reach him Professor
Julius March had buried it in his heart. Hardly had the blade touched
his flesh than he swayed, stumbled and crashed down at the feet of the
mummy-case.
For a moment the others gazed at the prostrate form. Then Inspector Sims
sprang forward and fumbled with trembling fingers at the fastenings of
the mummy-case. Suddenly the front fell forward, and Annette uttered a
terrible cry.
In the case, thus revealed, sat the girl who had been Beatrice Vane.
She was nude, the chaste beauty of her lovely form standing out against
the dark interior of the case. So wonderfully had the madman done his
work that no scar marred the grace of the firm bosom, the long, rounded
limbs, the head set proudly on the ivory neck. She sat as might have sat
the Princess Hora, had she so wished, beside the Pharaoh himself on his
Egyptian throne.
Sims drew back and bowed his head reverently as Annette, stumbling
forward, laid her head on her dead sister’s knees in a grief too terrible
for tears.
_The_ Parlor Cemetery
_A Grisly Satire_
_By_ C. E. Howard
“Good morning! I’m getting the information for the new city directory.
May I step in and rest a moment while I’m asking you a few questions?”
“Well, ye—es, I reckon yuh kin come in and set,” conceded the old lady
who had answered my knock, “but I won’t give yuh no order, Mister. I
haint much of a booker.”
“Oh, I don’t sell the books,” I hastened to assure her, as I laid my
sample volume on the floor by my chair and placed my hat on it. “I just
go around from house to house gathering the names for it. The company
publishes and sells the book. I don’t have anything to do with that part
of it.”
“Oh, you jes’ do th’ authorin’? It must take yuh consid’ble time to write
as big a book as that! Do yuh do it all ’lone?”
“No; we have fifty-four men working on it now, and it will take about two
months to get it all. Now may I ask—?”
“How much does it cost?”
“This year they will sell for fifteen dollars—”
“_Apiece!_” she shrilled. “My land o’ livin’! Whoever buys th’ things?”
“All the big stores keep them, especially the drug stores, for the
benefit of the public, you know. Now your name is—?”
“Well, what’s it all ’bout, anyhow?” she insisted. “An’ what’s it fur? Is
it a tillyphone dickshanary?”
“Something like that. It contains the names and addresses of everybody
living in this city, and all the big establishments keep one so that if
anybody wishes to find out where anyone else lives they just go in some
store and look in this directory and there it is. Now, will you give me
your name for the new book, please?”
“_My_ name? W’y, my name is—Now, is this a-goin’ to cost me anything? Yuh
know I said I wouldn’t take none afore I let yuh in.”
“It will not cost you a cent,” I told her earnestly, “and it may do you
some good. See”—running through the leaves of the book in which I entered
the statistics—“how many people I have interviewed this morning, and all
of them gave me the information I asked for. Now you will see all there
is to it; right down here on this top line I write your name—what did you
say it was?”
“I never said yit; but it was Cook.”
“Ah!” We were off at last! “Cook”—I paused at the “k” and asked, “Do you
spell it the short way or with an ‘e’?”
“Which?”
“How do you spell it? ‘C-double-o-k,’ or ‘C-double-o-k-e’?”
“No; not with no ‘e’ on to it! That would be cooky! It was jes’ plain
Cook—C-o-o-k.”
I was willing to let it go at that and wrote it down. “And your first
name now?”
“My fust name? I don’t tell my fust name to no strangers—’specially
_men_!”
“I beg your pardon, but I am not asking that from impertinence, Mrs.
Cook,” I explained carefully. “We do not mean to pry into people’s
personal affairs—such things are of no concern to us—but you see there
are probably a hundred or more Cooks in this city and if we didn’t have
their first names there would be no telling them apart. All the ladies so
far have told me their first names,” I declared, holding my book toward
her with the evidence.
After peering at it intently for some time she relaxed in her chair,
reassured. “Well, ’tain’t no name to be ’shamed of, if _’tis_
old-fashioned. It’s Ann.”
“Ann—‘A-n-n’.” I spelled aloud, to give her the chance to correct me if
necessary. Thinking of the famous query connected with that name and
thankful I didn’t have to ask that, too, I continued:
“You have a husband?”
“No, not now. I’ve had ’em, though.”
“Ah, a widow, then—that is, I presume your husband is not alive, Mrs.
Cook?” I essayed gently, avoiding, as always, the direct interrogation as
to grass-widowship.
“No; they’re all on ’em dead now; but, Mister, my name ain’t Cook—it’s
Hay!”
“What!” I exclaimed. “Why, I understood you to say it was Cook?”
“Well, yuh understood right. It _was_ Cook—that what’s yuh asked me, what
it _was_—but it’s Hay now. ’Bout two years after Cook went up in smoke I
married a feller named Hay, see?”
* * * * *
“Oh yes,” I smiled cheerfully, and, reversing my pencil I endeavored to
rub off the former husband’s name.
Of course the flimsy paper tore. I yanked out the sheet and began again.
“‘H-a-y,’ Hay,” I put down, writing lightly with an eye to more erasures
or corrections. “Just the plain, short Hay, I presume?”
“Yes, jes’ th’ plain Hay—not timothy ner alfalfy ner none o’ them fancy
hoss brekfus foods. My lan’!” she broke out in astonishment, “I sh’uld
think the’ comp’ny’d git men to do this work that c’uld spell!”
“That is one of the things we are told to be most careful about,
Mrs.—ah—Hay. We must always ask everybody’s name and just how they spell
it, even if we think we know. Often people having the same sounding
name spell it differently, and if it goes in the directory wrong they
generally blame us. And now, may I ask,” I said sympathetically,
recalling the peculiar way in which she had spoken of the late Mr. Cook’s
decease, “if your former husband lost his life in a fire?”
“Who, Cook? Oh, yuh mean what’d I mean when I spoke o’ ’im goin’ up
in smoke? No, he was plumb dead—I was sattyfied o’ that, afore he was
burned. That’s th’ way I’ve had ’em all done; kin’ of a habit I got into,
I reckon, but seems to me ’twas a pretty good habit. That’s Cook, second
from th’ right-hand end,” she said calmly, pointing to an object on the
humble mantel as though she were indicating a specimen in a museum.
“_How! What?_” I gasped, as every separate hair on my head arose and
tried to spring from its root-cell.
“W’y, I had all my husban’s’ bodies consoomed by fire—what d’yuh call
it, cremated?—w’en they up an lef’ me, an’ that’s the’ ashes of all on
’em in them dishes there! Seems t’ me that’s th’ bes’ way t’ do with
dead folks—have your own cem’terry right in your house where it’s handy.
It’s ’specially nice when one moves ’round a good deal like I’ve done. I
never c’uld a-forded t’ gone visitin’ here an’ there t’ that many graves
scattered ’bout in dif’rent states. Besides, it saves tumstones an’ th’
’spense o’ takin’ care o’ the lots.”
Gradually, I grasped the woman’s meaning as she continued to rock back
and forth and utter her placid Mrs. Jarley explanation. The men who had
been so unfeelingly abrupt as to “up an’ leave” this poor creature had
evidently, each in his turn, been cremated, and now their ashes, side by
side, served to adorn the mantel and comfort the heart of the faithful
widow. “Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay....” I gazed at the row
of assorted receptacles with awe and back at the woman with feelings
still more curious.
“Some folks thinks them’s odd kin’ o’ coffins,” she continued, “but I
d’know what c’uld be more ’propriate. Yuh see, I’ve tried t’ have each
one sort o’ repasent either th’ man hisself or his trade. Now, for
instance, this here one,” she explained, rising and placing her hand on
a small stone jar at the left end of the line—there were five of these
unique memorials altogether—“this was my fust husban’, John Marmyduke.
Th’ label on th’ crock, yuh’ll notice, is ‘Marmylade’, an’ that’s purt’
near his name, an’ then it almose d’scribes his dispazishun, too. Th’
grocer tol’ me that marmylade was a kin’ o’ English jam, an’ John was
sort o’ sweet-tempered, fer a man, so I thought one o’ them stun things
’ud do fine to keep him in.
“This is William Thompson here,” she continued, tapping a small tea caddy
with her thimble. “He was a teacher, an’ I always called ’im Mr. T. so
w’en he departed I thinks to myself, thinks I, ‘One o’ them little chests
that Chinymens packs tea in is jes’ th’ ticket fer _yuh’_—tea standin’
for both his name an’ his callin’, do you see?”
I expressed my admiration for this delightful idea, and she proceeded
with her cataloguing:
“This third cuhlection, in th’ fruit jar, is Mason. That was his name an’
his trade, an’ he belonged to that lodge an’ that’s the make o’ th’ jar,
so, considerin’ all them facks, I d’know what c’uld be a fitter tum fer
_’im_. Mason fell off a roof one day an’ broke his back, an’ though he
lived six months, somehow, he was never much ’count arter that. He was
a big man—weighed 225 afore breakfus—an’ he made such a pile o’ ashes,
spite o’ their keepin’ him in the oven double time, that it took a gallon
jar to hol’ his leavin’s. I had some quart jars on hand already an’
’spected to put ’im in one of ’em, but I never begrudged buyin’ a bigger
one fer he was always, or purt near always gen’rous with me, an’ then I
knew I was savin’ an undertaker’s bill, anyhow.
“Now, I wa’n’t altogether sattyfied with th’ coffin I fin-ly chose fer
Cook,” she said, looking at me doubtfully, as she motioned toward the
small japanned tin bread-box that was the next mortuary souvenir on
the shelf. “I worried over th’ matter th’ hull time he was sick, but I
never got a mite o’ help from _’im._ Ev’ry time I tried to git that man
to suggest what he thought he’d rest cumft-ble in he’d go on frightful.
Doctor said his temper prob’bly shortened his life.
“Well, at last I _dee_-cided on the bread box as comin’ as near to
repasentin’ him as anything I c’uld think on—his name bein’ Cook an’ him
havin’ occupated as a baker as long’s he was ’live. What’s your ’pinion
’bout it, Mister?”
I declared that if Mr. Cook did not now rest in peace and content he was
certainly a hard man to please.
* * * * *
“Th’ las’ one there, as I tole yuh,” she went on, with something like
animation, “is Mr. Hay, an’ I do feel consid’able proud over _his_
casket—it sure was a happy thought o’ mine. See?” She took down the
object and held it in the sunlight where I could get a plainer view. “He
died jes’ las’ year.”
Mr. Hay’s ashes reposed in one of the large square glass perfume bottles
such as most druggists carry, and the ornate label thereon had become the
painfully true epitaph, “New Mown Hay”!
When I could trust my voice, I inquired, “was he ill long?”
“No; he wa’n’t ill a-tall. He left me kinda on’spectedly. However, he
always _was_ a great man fer doin’ things on th’ impulse o’ th’ moment.
We was livin’ out on a farm then, an’ one day Mr. Hay was cutting grass
in th’ orchard an’ I ’spose he must ’a’ struck a nest o’ bees. Anyhow,
somethin’ started th’ team an’ they run ’way an’ throwed him off in
front o’ th’ knives, an’ th’ horses stepped on him a few times an’ th’
machine finished it up. He cert’inly was most completely dead when we
reached him. Hired man tole me he had to gether him up with a rake an’
wheelbarrer. Only forty-six years ol’, too, he was—mowed down in his
prime!
“Well, this is a funny world, ain’t it? Some women kin take one man an’
keep him ’live an’ whole fer fifty or sixty years, but I sure had bad
luck with my batch o’ husban’s. It’s a comfort to me, though, that I
kin have ’em with me in death, at least. I take down their monnyments
ev’ry mornin’ an’ dust ’em off, an’ w’enever I go on th’ keers vis’tin’
anywheres I pack one in my valeese an’ carry it along. When I git it out
an’ put it up in my room, w’erever I be, I feel right to hum.”
I succeeded in getting answers to the rest of my questions in another
half hour, and I went on my way, dazed. And though, when my day’s work
was over, I had no rarebit for supper, yet a vision came to me sometime
between the dark and the daylight. I thought I saw myself fall ill and
die, and my body was prepared for cremation.
I struggled to escape, to call out, but in vain. They slid me into a
kiln and the inexorable heat dissolved flesh, blood and bone. Then some
brutal, careless wretch came and swept me up on a dustpan, and put me in
a sack and delivered me over to an eager old woman, whose face seemed
strangely familiar.
This ghoulish woman bore me away to her home and went to work trying to
pack me down in a catsup bottle. It was too small. It seemed to press on
my throat. I was choking. I struggled. I shrieked.
And I awoke—to find, thank Heaven, that a large crayon portrait above my
bed had fallen down and was now around my neck, and the man in the next
room was hammering on the wall with his shoe and shouting and swearing at
me.