disappeared; and he hurried out of the swamp as fast as his shaky legs
would take him, splashing himself with mire and water to his eyebrows.
Mucked with mud, breathing in great gulps, trembling, a suspicious
figure to any eye, he burst through the weed curtain and staggered into
the open, his caution all gone and a vast desperation fairly choking
him--but the gray road was empty and the field beyond the road was
empty; and, except for him, the whole world seemed empty and silent.
As he crossed the field Squire Gathers composed himself. With plucked
handfuls of grass he cleaned himself of much of the swamp mire that
coated him over; but the little white worm that gnawed at his nerves
had become a cold snake that was coiled about his heart, squeezing it
tighter and tighter!
* * * * *
This episode of the attempt to kill the Belled Buzzard occurred in the
afternoon of the third day. In the forenoon of the fourth, the weather
being still hot, with cloudless skies and no air stirring, there was a
rattle of warped wheels in the squire's lane and a hail at his yard
fence. Coming out upon his gallery from the innermost darkened room of
his house, where he had been stretched upon a bed, the squire shaded
his eyes from the glare and saw the constable of his own magisterial
district sitting in a buggy at the gate waiting for some one.
The old man came down the dirtpath slowly, almost reluctantly, with
his head twisted up sidewise, listening, watching; but the constable
sensed nothing strange about the other's gait and posture; the
constable was full of the news he brought. He began to unload the
burden of it without preamble.
"Mornin', Squire Gathers. There's been a dead man found in Little
Niggerwool--and you're wanted."
He did not notice that the squire was holding on with both hands to
the gate; but he did notice that the squire had a sick look out of his
eyes and a dead, pasty color in his face; and he noticed--but attached
no meaning to it--that when the Squire spoke his voice seemed flat and
hollow.
"Wanted--fur--whut?" The squire forced the words out of his throat.
"Why, to hold the inquest," explained the constable. "The coroner's
sick abed, and he said you bein' the nearest jestice of the peace
should serve."
"Oh," said the squire with more ease. "Well, where is it--the body?"
"They taken it to Bristow's place and put it in his stable for the
present. They brought it out over on that side and his place was the
nearest. If you'll hop in here with me, squire, I'll ride you right
over there now. There's enough men already gathered to make up a jury,
I reckin."
"I--I ain't well," demurred the squire. "I've been sleepin' porely
these last few nights. It's the heat," he added quickly.
"Well, such, you don't look very brash, and that's a fact," said the
constable; "but this here job ain't goin' to keep you long. You see
it's in such shape--the body is--that there ain't no way of makin' out
who the feller was, nor whut killed him. There ain't nobody reported
missin' in this county as we know of, either; so I jedge a verdict of
a unknown person dead from unknown causes would be about the correct
thing. And we kin git it all over mighty quick and put him underground
right away, suh--if you'll go along now."
"I'll go," agreed the squire, almost quivering in his newborn
eagerness. "I'll go right now." He did not wait to get his coat or to
notify his wife of the errand that was taking him. In his shirtsleeves
he climbed into the buggy, and the constable turned his horse and
clucked him into a trot. And now the squire asked the question that
knocked at his lips demanding to be asked--the question the answer to
which he yearned for and yet dreaded.
"How did they come to find--it?"
"Well, suh, that's a funny thing," said the constable. "Early this
mornin' Bristow's oldest boy--that one they call Buddy--he heared a
cowbell over in the swamp and so he went to look; Bristow's got cows,
as you know, and one or two of 'em is belled. And he kept on followin'
after the sound of it till he got way down into the thickest part of
them cypress slashes that's near the middle there; and right there he
run acrost it--this body.
"But, suh, squire, it wasn't no cow at all. No, suh; it was a buzzard
with a cowbell on his neck--that's whut it was. Yes, suh; that there
same old Belled Buzzard he's come back agin and is hangin' round. They
tell me he ain't been seen round here sence the year of the yellow
fever--I don't remember myself, but that's whut they tell me. The
niggers over on the other side are right smartly worked up over it.
They say--the niggers do--that when the Belled Buzzard comes it's a
sign of bad luck for somebody, shore!"
The constable drove on, talking on, garrulous as a guinea-hen. The
squire didn't heed him. Hunched back in the buggy he harkened only to
those busy inner voices filling his mind with thundering portents.
Even so, his ear was first to catch above the rattle of the buggy
wheels the faraway, faint tonk-tonk! They were about halfway to
Bristow's place then. He gave no sign, and it was perhaps half a
minute before the constable heard it too.
The constable jerked the horse to a standstill and craned his neck
over his shoulder.
"Well, by doctors!" he cried, "if there ain't the old scoundrel now,
right here behind us! I kin see him plain as day--he's got an old
cowbell hitched to his neck; and he's shy a couple of feathers out of
one wing. By doctors, that's somethin' you won't see every day! In all
my born days I ain't never seen the beat of that!"
Squire Gathers did not look; he only cowered back farther under the
buggy-top. In the pleasing excitement of the moment his companion took
no heed, though, of anything except the Belled Buzzard.
"Is he followin' us?" asked the squire in a curiously flat voice.
"Which--him?" answered the constable, still stretching his neck. "No,
he's gone now--gone off to the left--jest a-zoonin', like he'd forgot
somethin'."
And Bristow's place was to the left! But there might still be time. To
get the inquest over and the body underground--those were the main
things. Ordinarily humane in his treatment of stock, Squire Gathers
urged the constable to greater speed. The horse was lathered and his
sides heaved wearily as they pounded across the bridge over the creek
which was the outlet to the swamp and emerged from a patch of woods in
sight of Bristow's farm buildings.
The house was set on a little hill among cleared fields, and was in
other respects much like the squire's own house, except that it was
smaller and not so well painted. There was a wide yard in front with
shade trees and a lye-hopper and a well-box, and a paling fence with a
stile in it instead of a gate. At the rear, behind a clutter of
outbuildings--a barn, a smokehouse and a corncrib--was a little peach
orchard; and flanking the house on the right there was a good-sized
cowyard, empty of stock at this hour, with feeding racks ranged in a
row against the fence. A two-year-old negro child, bareheaded and
barefooted, and wearing but a single garment, was grubbing busily in
the dirt under one of these feedracks.
To the front fence a dozen or more riding horses were hitched, flicking
their tails at the flies; and on the gallery men in their shirtsleeves
were grouped. An old negro woman, with her head tied in a bandanna and a
man's old slouch hat perched upon the bandanna, peeped out from behind a
corner. There were hound dogs wandering about, sniffing uneasily.
Before the constable had the horse hitched the squire was out of the
buggy and on his way up the footpath, going at a brisker step than the
squire usually traveled. The men on the porch hailed him gravely and
ceremoniously, as befitting an occasion of solemnity. Afterward some
of them recalled the look in his eye; but at the moment they noted
it--if they noted it at all--subconsciously.
For all his haste the squire, as was also remembered later, was almost
the last to enter the door; and before he did enter he halted and
searched the flawless sky as though for signs of rain. Then he hurried
on after the others, who clumped single file along a narrow little hall,
the bare, uncarpeted floor creaking loudly under their heavy farm shoes,
and entered a good-sized room that had in it, among other things, a
high-piled feather bed and a cottage organ--Bristow's best room, now to
be placed at the disposal of the law's representatives for the inquest.
The squire took the largest chair and drew it to the very center of the
room, in front of a fireplace, where the grate was banked with withering
asparagus ferns. The constable took his place formally at one side of
the presiding official. The others sat or stood about where they could
find room--all but six of them, whom the squire picked for his coroner's
jury, and who backed themselves against the wall.
The squire showed haste. He drove the preliminaries forward with a
sort of tremulous insistence. Bristow's wife brought a bucket of fresh
drinking water and a gourd, and almost before she was out of the room
and the door closed behind her the squire had sworn his jurors and was
calling the first witness, who it seemed likely would also be the only
witness--Bristow's oldest boy. The boy wriggled in confusion as he sat
on a cane-bottomed chair facing the old magistrate. All there, barring
one or two, had heard his story a dozen times already, but now it was
to be repeated under oath; and so they bent their heads, listening as
though it were a brand-new tale. All eyes were on him; none were
fastened on the squire as he, too, gravely bent his head,
listening--listening.
The witness began--but had no more than started when the squire gave a
great, screeching howl and sprang from his chair and staggered
backward, his eyes popped and the pouch under his chin quivering as
though it had a separate life all its own. Startled, the constable
made toward him and they struck together heavily and went down--both
on all fours--right in front of the fireplace.
The constable scrambled free and got upon his feet, in a squat of
astonishment, with his head craned; but the squire stayed upon the
floor, face downward, his feet flopping among the rustling asparagus
greens--a picture of slavering animal fear. And now his gagging
screech resolved itself into articulate speech.
"I done it!" they made out his shrieked words. "I done it! I own up--I
killed him! He aimed fur to break up my home and I tolled him off into
Niggerwool and killed him! There's a hole in his back if you'll look
fur it. I done it--oh, I done it--and I'll tell everything jest like
it happened if you'll jest keep that thing away from me! Oh, my Lawdy!
Don't you hear it? It's a-comin' clos'ter and clos'ter--it's a-comin'
after me! Keep it away----" His voice gave out and he buried his head
in his hands and rolled upon the gaudy carpet.
And now they heard what he had heard first--they heard the
tonk-tonk-tonk of a cowbell, coming near and nearer toward them along
the hallway without. It was as though the sound floated along. There was
no creak of footsteps upon the loose, bare boards--and the bell jangled
faster than it would dangling from a cow's neck. The sound came right to
the door and Squire Gathers wallowed among the chairlegs.
The door swung open. In the doorway stood a negro child, barefooted and
naked except for a single garment, eying them with serious, rolling
eyes--and, with all the strength of his two puny arms, proudly but
solemnly tolling a small, rusty cowbell he had found in the cowyard.
FOOTNOTE:
[86] Copyright, 1912, by the Curtis Publishing Company.
ISAAC F. MARCOSSON
Isaac Frederick Marcosson, editor and author, was born at Louisville,
Kentucky, September 13, 1876, of Jewish ancestry. He was educated in the
public schools of Louisville, and attended High School for a year. In
1894 he entered journalism, joining the staff of the Louisville _Times_,
of which he was subsequently literary and city editor. In 1903 Mr.
Marcosson went to New York, and became associate editor of _The World's
Work_; and in connection with this work he served its publishers,
Doubleday, Page and Company, as literary adviser. While with _The
World's Work_ he wrote many articles on topics of vital interest. From
March, 1907, to 1910, Mr. Marcosson was financial editor of _The
Saturday Evening Post_ of Philadelphia. For _The Post_ he conducted
three popular departments: "Your Savings"; "Literary Folks"; and "Wall
Street Men." Every other week he had a signed article upon some subject
of general interest. Some of his articles upon "Your Savings" have been
collected and published in a small book, called _How to Invest Your
Savings_ (Philadelphia, 1907). Mr. Marcosson's latest book, _The
Autobiography of a Clown_ (New York, 1910), written upon an unusual
subject, attracted wide attention. A part of it was originally published
anonymously as a serial in _The Post_, and the response it evoked
encouraged Mr. Marcosson to make a little book of his hero, who was none
other than Jules Turnour, the famous Ringling clown. Jules furnished the
facts, or part of them, perhaps, but Mr. Marcosson made him more
attractive in cold type than he had ever been under the big tent. _The
Autobiography of a Clown_ deserved all the kind things that were said
about it. Since 1910 Mr. Marcosson has been associate editor of
_Munsey's Magazine_ and the other periodicals that are owned by Mr.
Munsey. His articles usually lead the magazine.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Bookman_ (April; June; December, 1910).
THE WAGON CIRCUS[87]
[From _The Autobiography of a Clown_ (New York, 1910)]
All the circuses then were wagon shows. They traveled from town to
town in wagons. The performers went ahead to the hotel in 'buses or
snatched what sleep they could in specially built vans. The start for
the next town was usually made about three o'clock in the morning. No
"run" from town to town was more than twenty miles, and more often it
was considerably less. At the head of the cavalcade rode the leader,
on horseback, with a lantern. Torches flickered from most of the
wagons, and cast big shadows. The procession of creaking vehicles,
neighing horses, and sometimes roaring beasts was an odd picture as it
wound through the night. Many of the drivers slept on their seats. The
elephant always walked majestically, with a sleepy groom alongside.
The route was indicated by flaming torches left at points where the
roads turned. Sometimes these torches went out, and the show got lost.
More than once a farmer was rudely aroused from his slumbers, and
nearly lost his wits when he poked his head out of his window and saw
the black bulk of an elephant in his front yard. It was, indeed, the
picturesque day of the circus.
My first engagement was with the Burr Robbins circus, which was a big
wagon show. The night traveling in the wagons was new to me, and at
first strange. But I got to like it very much. It was a great relief to
lie in the wagons, out under the stars, and feel the sweet breath of the
country. Often the nights were so still that the only sounds were the
creaking of the wagons, and occasionally the words, "Mile up," that the
elephant driver always used to urge his patient, plodding beast.
The circus arrangement then was much different from now. Then the whole
outfit halted outside the town, which was never reached until after
daylight. The canvas men would hurry to the "lot" to put up the tents
while we remained behind to spruce up for the parade. Gay flags were
hoisted over the dusty wagons; the tired and sleepy performers turned
out of tousled beds to put on the finery of the Orient. A gorgeous
howdah was placed on the elephant's back, and a dark-eyed beauty,
usually from some eastern city, was hoisted aloft to ride in state, and
to be the envy and admiration of every village maiden. No matter how
long, wet, or dusty had been our journey from the last town, everybody,
man and beast, always braced up for the parade. Of course, by this time
we were surrounded by a crowd of gaping countrymen. Often the triumphant
parade of the town was made on empty stomachs, for there was to be no
let-up until the people of the community had had every bit of "free
doing" that the circus could supply. The clowns always drove mules in
the parade. When the parade reached the grounds, the performers changed
clothes, hastened back to the village hotel, and ate heartily. If there
was time, we snatched a few hours of sleep. But sleep and the circus man
are strangers during the season. Ask any circus man when he sleeps, and
he will say, "In the winter time."
FOOTNOTE:
[87] Copyright, 1910, by Moffat, Yard and Company.
GERTRUDE KING TUFTS
Mrs. Gertrude King Tufts, author of _The Landlubbers_, was born in
Boone county, Kentucky, in 1877, the daughter of Col. William S. King.
She was educated in Kentucky and at private schools in Philadelphia,
after which she took a library course and went to New York to work.
The property she had inherited had been squandered, so she was
compelled to seek her own fortune. For a while she did well, but her
struggle for success was most severe. For nearly two years Miss King
knew "physical pain and the utter want of money." Finally, however, in
1907, she became editor of the educational department of the Macmillan
Company, and then she set to work upon her novel, _The Landlubbers_
(New York, 1909), which was first conceived as a short story, and was
finished in the hot summer of 1908. Polly, heroine, is a school
teacher out West, who hates her job, saves her money, and decides to
see the world. On the trip across the Atlantic, she falls in with
Flossie, confidence queen, and she is soon "broke." Suicide seems to
be the only way out of her predicament and, at midnight, she quits her
state-room to silently slip into the ocean. She is no sooner on deck,
however, than she is confronted with cries from the crew and captain
that the ship has struck an iceberg and is sinking. The next day Polly
finds herself and Dick, hero-lover, on the old battered ship and
alone. They, then, are "the landlubbers," and their experiences on the
drifting, water-soaked craft, is the story. Miss King dramatized her
novel, as she is anxious to become famous as a playwright, "not as a
mere yarn-spinner." She also prepared a wonderful human document of
her struggles in New York that was most interesting as an excellent
piece of writing, and as an advertisement for her book. At the present
time Miss King is said to be engaged upon a "long novel----a
leisurely, picturesque thing into which I want to put a good deal of
life." Miss King was married on February 26, 1912, to Mr. Walter B.
Tufts, a New York business man. She is a kinswoman of Mr. Credo
Harris, the Kentucky novelist.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. _The Bookman_ (May, 1909); _Lexington Leader_ (May
16, 1909).
SHIPWRECKED[88]
[From _The Landlubbers_ (New York, 1909)]
I woke, not roused by any unusual sound or motion, but disturbed by a
sense of hovering evil, a horror imminent and unescapable. I sat up,
looked at my watch--for I had not turned off the light--and saw that
it was toward half-past eleven o'clock. The great ship was silent,
save for the throbbing of her iron pulses. As I listened, the fog-horn
moaned out its warning, and as the deep note died away seven bells
rang faintly from above. My watch, then, was right--and it was time!
I remembered what I had to do, and obeyed the decision of my more
wakeful self, though I was far more influenced by the sense of vague,
impersonal fear. Still muffled in the stupor of sleep, and shaken from
head to foot by a nervous trembling, I rose, put on my long cloak, and
flung a scarf over my disordered hair, for if I were to meet anyone I
must seem merely a restless passenger seeking a breath of fresh air. I
moved rapidly as I grew more wakeful, and tried not to think. From
habit I folded my rugs neatly, and plumped up the pillow on which I
had been lying. My throat and lips were dry, and I drank a glass of
water before I unlocked my door and stepped out into the passage.
There rose above me a long, horrible cry, a shout blent discordantly
of the voices of two-score men, a fearful sound as of the essence of
brute fear. Many feet pattered upon the deck. There were wordless
shouts, shrieked oaths, sharp commands, the boatswain's whistle
piercing through the whole mass of confused sound. The great horn
boomed just once more--I heard it through my hands upon my ears as I
cowered against the wall.
Then the deck quivered under my feet as a horrible, grinding, rending
crash shut out every other sound, and the great ship trembled
throughout her length, and began to reel drunkenly from side to side,
settling over, with every swing, further and further to port.
A new, more deafening clamour arose all about me, as the sleepers were
aroused, and in half a minute the corridor was filled with whitefaced
people in all sorts of dress and undress, carrying all kinds of queer
treasures, weeping, shrieking, cursing; there was even laughter,
hysterical and uncontrollable, and strange stammered words of
blasphemy, prayer, reassurance, were shaken out between chattering
teeth. A fat steward ran by, shoving rudely aside those whom till now
he had lovingly tended as the source of tips. Now he struck away the
trembling hands which clutched at his white jacket, ignoring the
shivering inquiries as to "What was the matter?" The rapid passage of
him gave the excited crowd the impulse it needed, and as one man they
surged toward the stair--I with the rest.
But at the foot of the stair reason returned to me, and I reflected
that it was absurd for me to join in the struggle for that life which
I had just prepared to renounce. Here was death held out to me in the
cold hand of Fate, as I could not doubt--and here was I pitiably
trying to thrust away the gift!
I wrenched myself out of that frantic crowd, and made my way back to
my stateroom with some difficulty, owing to the ship's unusual motion
and the increasing list to port. She quivered no longer, indeed, but
there passed through her from time to time a long, waving shudder,
like the throe of a dying thing, unspeakably fearful and very
sickening. As I passed beyond the close-packed crowd the sounds of
their terror became more awful. I could discern the cries of little
children, the quavering clamour of the very old. The pity of it
overcame me, and I staggered into my stateroom and closed the door
upon it all. But overhead there was still the swift tramp of feet, the
harsh sound of voices--steadier now, and less multiplied, the tokens
of a brave and awful preparation.
The next quarter of an hour--for I am sure that the time could not
have been as much as twenty minutes, though it seemed that I sat with
clenched hands for several days--was spent in a struggle with myself
which devoured all my strength. I had heard much, and, in the folly of
my peaceful, untempted youth, had often spoken of the cowardice of
suicide. But now it required more courage and strength of will than I
had ever believed myself capable of just to sit upon that divan,
passively waiting to give back my warm, vigorous life to the infinity
whence it came. Several times I gave in, and rose and laid my hand
upon the doorknob--and conquered myself and went back to the divan and
sat down again. Meanwhile, the noise went on above and about me; the
fat steward, his face green with fear, flung my door open without
knocking. "To the boats, Miss--captain's orders--no luggage----" He
went on to the next room: "To the boats, sir!" The room was empty, and
he passed to the next: "To the boats----" His teeth knocked against
each other, tears of fright glittered down his broad face, but I
heard him open doors faithfully the length of the starboard passage.
It was, I suppose, his great hour.
I went to close the door, and found myself confronted by a man,
barefooted, clad in shirt and trousers. It was Champion. "You awake,
miss? I came to call you--All right? I'm going to get Mr. Darragh on
deck," and he vanished.