profanity from his discourses, but common decency requires it. The old
man left the shanty with a lantern and shovel. A few minutes later we
saw his light at the edge of the lake where he was washing the sand
from the outside of his jug. Evidently it had been buried treasure.
“I’ve et an’ drunk so much sand since I been livin’ ’ere on this beach
that my throat’s all wore out an’ full o’ little holes, an’ I ain’t
goin’ to swaller no more’n I c’n help after this,” he remarked, as
he came in and hung the lantern on its hook in the ceiling; “now you
fellers drink hearty.”
At this juncture a wailing sepulchral voice, loud and deep, came out of
the darkness in the distance.
“Beware! Beware! Beware! In the earth have ye found damnation!”
“There ’e is!” yelled Sipes, as he leaped across the floor for his
scatter-gun. He ran out with it and was gone for some time. He returned
with an expression of disgust on his weather-beaten face. “I’ll wing
that cuss some night ’fore the snow falls,” he remarked, as he resumed
his seat. “We’d better soak up all this booze tonight fer it won’t be
safe in any o’ the ground ’round ’ere any more. Gosh! but this is a
fine country to live in!”
The party broke up quite late. Happy Cal had imbibed rather freely.
Catfish John had been more temperate, and thought he had “better
go ’long with Cal,” and it seemed better that he should. As they
went away I could hear Cal entertaining John with snatches of some
old air about “wine, women, an’ song.” They stopped a while at the
margin of the lake, where the wet sand made the walking better, and
Cal affectionately assured John of his eternal devotion. They then
disappeared.
I bade Sipes and his old shipmate good-night, and left them alone with
the demon in the jug. There was very little chance of any of it ever
falling into the hands of “the scourge,” who was evidently lurking in
the vicinity.
The glory of the full moon over the lake caused Sipes to remark that
“ev’rythin’s full tonight,” as he followed me out to bid me another
good-by. After I left I could hear noisy vocalism in the shanty. The
words, which were sung over and over, were:
“_Comrades, comrades, ever since we was boys,--_
_Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys._”
After each repetition there would be boisterous, rhythmic pounding of
heavy boots on the wooden floor.
While the song was in many keys, and was technically open to much
criticism, it was evidently sincere. The old shipmates were happy, and,
after all, besides happiness, how much is there in the world really
worth striving for?
I walked along the beach for a couple of miles to my temporary quarters
in the dunes, and the stirring events of the evening furnished much
food for reflection. I was interested in the advent of Bill Saunders,
concerning whom I had heard so much from Sipes. Bill was a good deal
of a mystery. He had “showed up” a few days before in response to a
letter which Sipes told me he had “put in _pust_office fer ’im.” He may
at some time have lived on the “unknown island in the South Pacific”
that Sipes told me about, where he and Bill had been wrecked, and Bill
had “married into the royal family several times,” but evidently he had
deserted his black and tan household. For at least two years he had
been living over on the river. Sipes explained that he stayed there
“so as to be unbeknown.” For some reason which I did not learn, he
and Sipes considered it advisable for him to “keep dark” for a while.
The trouble, whatever it was, had evidently blown over, and Bill had
returned to the sand-hills.
There was a rudely painted sign on the shanty a few days later, which
read:
[Illustration: $IPE$ & $AUNDER$--FRE$H FI$H]
“It might ’a’ been Saunders & Sipes,” said the old man to me,
confidentially, “but I think Sipes & Saunders sounds more dignified
like, don’t you? We got ‘fresh fish’ on the sign so’s people won’t git
’em mixed up with the kind o’ fish John peddles. Them fish are fresh
w’en John gits ’em ’ere, but after ’e’s ’ad ’em ’round a while there’s
invisible bein’s gits into ’em out o’ the air, an’ you c’n smell ’em
a mile. W’en they git to be candydates fer ’is smoke-house their ol’
friends wouldn’t know ’em, an’ I put them up an’ down lines in them S’s
in them names so’s to make the sign look like cash money.”
Several days later I discovered that my tent had been visited during my
absence. Outside, pinned to the flap, was a piece of paper on which was
written:
“All ye who smoke or chew the filthy weed shall be damned.”
“_The breath of hell, an angry breath,_
_Supplies and fans the fire,_
_When smokers taste the second death_
_And shriek and howl, but can’t expire._”
Inside, on the cot, were several tracts containing extracts from
sermons on hell by an old ranter of early New England days, setting
forth the practical impossibility of anybody ever escaping it.
I examined the literature with interest and amusement. Some of the more
virulent paragraphs were marked for my benefit.
I looked out over the landscape, with its glorious autumn coloring,
to the expanse of turquoise waters beyond, and wondered if, above
the fleecy clouds and the infinite blue of the heavens, there was
an Omnipotent monstrosity Who gloried in the torture of what He
created, and brought forth life that He might wreak vengeance upon
it. Ignorance, fear, and superstition have led men into strange
paths. It may be that our philosophy will finally lead us back to the
beginning, and teach us that we are humble, wondering children who do
not understand, and that there is a border land beyond which we may not
go.
I met the firm of Sipes & Saunders on the beach one morning, on their
way to Catfish John’s place, which was about four miles from their
shanty. John’s abode was on a low bluff, and on the beach near it,
about a hundred feet from the lake, was the little structure in which
he smoked what Sipes called “them much-deceased fish” which he had
failed to sell. His peddling trips were made through the back country
with a queer little wagon and a rheumatic horse, that bore the name
of “Napoleon” with his other troubles. Some of the fish were from
his own nets, but most of his supplies were obtained from Sipes on a
consignment basis.
At the earnest solicitation of the old mariners, I turned back and went
with them to call on John. Sipes said that I “had better come along fer
there’s goin’ to be sump’n doin’.”
We found the old man out on the sand repairing his gill-nets.
“Wot ’ave I done that I should be descended on like this?” he asked
jocularly, as we came up. “You fellers must be lookin’ fer trouble, fer
Zeke’s comin’ ’ere this mornin’ fer a fish that I told ’im ’e could
’ave if I got any.
“I figgered it all out,” said Sipes, “cause Bill heard you tell ’im
you was goin’ to lift the nets Sunday, an’ I seen you out’n the lake
with the spotter, an’ as Bill an’ me’s got some business with Zeke, we
thought we’d drop ’round.”
Sipes’s “spotter” was an old spy glass, which he declared “had been on
salt water.” Through a small hole in the side of his shanty he could
sweep the curving shore for several miles with the rickety instrument.
I walked over to the smoke-house with the party and inspected it with
much interest. The smoke supply came from a dilapidated old stove on
the sand from which a rusty pipe entered the side of the structure. The
smoke escaped slowly through various cracks in the roof, which provided
a light draft for the fire.
“That smoke gits a lot of experience in this place ’fore it goes out
through them cracks,” remarked Sipes, as he opened the door and peered
inside. “I don’t blame it fer leavin’. Can ye lock this door tight,
John?”
I curiously awaited further developments.
It was not long before we saw Zeke plodding toward us on the sand.
“Now don’t you fellers say nothin’. You jest set ’round careless
like, an’ let me do the talkin’,” cautioned Sipes, as he filled his
pipe. With an expressive closing of his single eye, he turned to me
confidentially and said with a chuckle, “We’re goin’ to fumigate Zeke.”
There was a look of quiet determination in his face, and guile in his
smile as he contemplated the approaching visitor.
“Hello, Zeke!” he called out, as soon as that frowsy individual was
within hailing distance, “wot’s the news from hell this fine mornin’?”
We smiled at Sipes’s sally. Zeke looked at us solemnly, and in deep
impressive tones replied: “Verily, them that laughs at sin, laughs
w’en their Maker frowns, laughs with the sword o’ vengeance over their
heads.”
“Oh, come on, Zeke, cut that out,” said Sipes, “an’ let’s go in an’
see the big sturgeon wot John got this mornin’. It’s ’ere in the
smoke-house.” Sipes led the way to the door and opened it. Zeke peeked
in cautiously.
“It’s over in that big box with them other fish near the wall,” said
Sipes. Zeke stepped inside. Sipes instantly closed the door and sprung
the padlock that secured it. He then ran around to the stove and
lighted the fuel with which it was stuffed.
An angry roar came from the interior, as we departed. After we reached
the damp sand on the shore, Sipes joyfully exclaimed, “Verily we’ll now
’ave to git a new scourge, fer this one’s up ag’inst damnation!”
While John had passively acquiesced in the proceedings, I knew that he
did not intend to allow Sipes’s escapade to go too far, so I did not
worry about Zeke.
As we walked down the shore, Sipes and Bill turned frequently to look
at the softly ascending wreaths from the roof with much glee.
“That coop’s never ’ad nothin’ wuss in it than it’s got now,” declared
Sipes. “That ol’ bunch o’ whiskers ’as got wot’s comin’ to ’im this
time, an’ I wish I’d stuck John’s rubber boots in that stove, but,
honest, I fergot it.”
We had gone quite a distance when I turned and discerned a retreating
form far beyond the smoke-house close to the bluff. One side of the
structure was wrecked, and it was evident that the “scourge” had broken
through and escaped. I said nothing, as I did not want to mar the
pleasure of the old shipmates. To them it was “the end of a perfect
day.”
A little further on I left them and turned into the dunes. As they
waved farewell, Sipes called out cheerily, “You c’n travel anywheres
’round ’ere now without git’n’ burnt!”
Later, from far away over the sands, I could faintly hear:
“_Shipmates, shipmates, ever since we was boys--_
_Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys!_”
One night I encased myself in storm-defying raiment and went down to
the shore to contemplate a drama that was being enacted in the skies.
Swiftly moving battalions of stygian clouds were illuminated by almost
continuous flashes of lightning. Heavy peals of thunder rolled through
the convoluted masses, and reverberated along the horizon. The
wind-driven rain came in thin sheets that mingled with the flying spray
from the waves that swept the beach. The sublimity of the storm was
soul stirring and inspiring. I plodded for half a mile or so along the
surf-washed sand to the foot of a bluff on which were a few old pines,
to see the effect of the gnarled branches against the lightning-charged
clouds.
A brilliant flash revealed a silhouetted figure with gesticulating
arms. It was Holy Zeke. His battered plug was jammed down over the back
of his head, and his long coat tails were flapping in the gale. The
apparition was grotesque and startling, but seemed naturally to take
its place in the wild pageant of the elements. It added a note of human
interest that seemed strangely harmonious.
I did not wish to intrude on him, or allow him to interfere with my
enjoyment of the storm, but passed near enough to hear his resonant
voice above the roar of the wind.
He was in his element. He had sought a height from which he could
behold the scourging of the earth, and pour forth imprecations on
imaginary multitudes of heretics and unbelievers. With fanatic fervor
he was calling down curses upon a world of hopeless sin. Hatred of
human kind was exhaled from his poisoned soul amid the fury of the
storm.
To his disordered imagination, any unusual manifestation of nature’s
forces was an expression of Divine wrath. Condemnation was now coming
out of the black vault above him, and the vengeance of an incensed
Diety was being heralded from on high. Unregenerate sinners and
rejectors of Zeke’s creed were in the hands of an angry God. The scroll
of earth’s infamy was being unrolled out of the clouds. “The seventh
vial” was being poured out, and the hour of final damnation was at hand.
In the armor of his infallible orthodoxy, like Ajax, he stood unafraid
before the lurid shafts. Serene in his exclusive holiness he was immune
from the fiery pit and the shambles of the damned, and gloried in the
coming destruction of all those unblessed with his faultless dogma.
The storm was increasing in violence, and I had started to return.
After going some distance I turned for a final view of Zeke, and it was
unexpectedly dramatic.
There was a sudden dazzling glare, and a deafening crash. A tall tree,
not far from where he stood, was shattered into fragments. The shock
was terrific. He was gone when a succeeding flash lighted the scene.
Fearing that the old man might have met fatality, or at least have been
badly injured, I hurried back and climbed the steep path that led to
the top of the promontory from the ravine beyond it. Careful search,
with the aid of an electric pocket light and the lightning flashes,
failed to reveal any traces of the old fanatic, and it was safe to
assume that he had retreated in good order from surroundings that he
had reluctantly decided were untenable.
The bolt that struck the tree was charged with an obvious moral that
was probably lost on the fugitive.
The old shipmates were much interested when they heard the tale of the
night’s adventure.
“That ol’ cuss’ll git his, sometime, good an’ plenty,” observed Sipes.
“Sump’n took a pot shot at Zeke an’ made a bad score. It would ’a’
helped some if the lightnin’ ’ad only got that ol’ hat o’ his. Prob’ly
it’s been hit before. Zeke ’ad better look out. He’s been talkin’ too
much ’bout them things. It’s too bad fer a nice tree like that to git
all busted up. No feller with a two-gallon hat an’ red whiskers ever
oughta buzz ’round in a thunder storm.”
John was quite philosophical about Zeke.
“He ought to learn to stay in w’en it’s wet. His kind o’ relig’n don’t
mix with water, an’ some night ’e’ll go out in a storm like that an’ ’e
won’t come back. He was ’round ’ere this mornin’ tell’n me ’bout the
signs o’ the times an’ heav’nly fires.
“Them ol’ fellers hadn’t ought to fuss so much ’bout ’im. They come up
’ere the day after they smoked ’im, an’ fixed my smoke-house all up fer
me. They said thar was too many cracks ’round in it, an’ the boards
’round the sides was all too thin. They got some heavy boards an’ big
nails an’ they done a good job. They said they’d fixed it so it ’ud
hold a grizzly b’ar if I wanted to keep one, an’ I was glad they come
up.
“When Zeke broke through ’e didn’t fergit ’is fish. He took the biggest
one thar was in the box. When ’e went off ’e was yell’n sump’n ’bout
them that stoned an’ mocked the prophets, an’ sump’n ’bout a feller
named Elijah, that was goin’ up in a big wind in a chair o’ fire, but
I didn’t hear all of it, fer ’e was excited. Zeke’s a poor ol’ feller.
It’s all right fer ’em to cuss ’im, fer ’e gives it to ’em pretty hard
w’en ’e gits down thar, but that don’t do no harm. They ain’t no nearer
hell than they’d be without Zeke tell’n ’em ’bout it all the time. He’s
part o’ the people what’s ’round us, an’ we ought to git ’long with
’im. I’ll alw’ys give ’im a fish when ’e’s hungry, even if ’e does
think I’m goin’ to hell.”
VII
THE LOVE AFFAIR OF HAPPY CAL AND ELVIREY SMETTERS
[Illustration: Mrs Elvirey Smetters]
VII
THE LOVE AFFAIR OF HAPPY CAL AND ELVIREY SMETTERS
“Happy Cal” had been a member of the widely scattered colony of
derelicts along the wild coast for many years; in fact, he was its
beginning, for when he came through the sand-hills and gathered the
driftwood to build his humble dwelling, there were no human neighbors.
The circling gulls, the crows, and the big blue herons that stalked
along the wave-washed beach looked curiously at the intruder into
their solitudes. The blue-jays scolded boisterously, and many pairs of
concealed eyes peered at him slyly from tangled masses of tree roots
that lay denuded upon the slopes of the wind-swept dunes.
Nature’s slow and orderly processes of generation and decay were now
to be disturbed by a new element, for man, who changes, destroys, and
makes ugly the fair world he looks upon, had entered these sanctuaries.
The furred and feathered things instinctively resented the advent
of the despoiler. They heard strange noises as rusty nails were
pounded, and odd pieces of gray, smooth wood were fashioned into the
queer-looking structure that obtruded itself among the undulations of
the sand.
Happy Cal was human wreckage. He had been thrown upon this desolate
shore by the cruel forces of a social system which he was unable to
combat. They had cast him aside and he had sought isolation. As he
expressed it, “there was too much goin’ on.”
Cal’s stories of his early life, and his final escape from a heartless
world, incited derisive comment from his friend Sipes.
On still, cool days the smoke ascended softly from Cal’s shanty, and my
sketching was often neglected for an hour or two with its interesting
occupant.
He sometimes prowled around through the country back of the dunes at
night, and the necessaries for his rude housekeeping were collected
gradually. His age was difficult to guess; perhaps he looked older than
he was. His lustreless eyes, weather-beaten face, grizzled unkempt
beard, and rough hands, carried the story of a struggle on the raw
edges of life.
While he said that he had “been up ag’inst it,” he seemed now
comparatively contented. His interests were few, but they filled his
days, and, as he expressed it, he “didn’t need nothin’ to think about
nights.” Sipes claimed, however, that “Cal done all ’s thinkin’ at
night, if ’e done any, fer ’e don’t never do none in the daytime.”
Sipes and Cal met occasionally. With the exception of a few serious
misunderstandings, which were always eventually patched up, they got
along very well with each other. Sipes’s attitude, while generally
friendly, was not very charitable. He was disposed to comment
caustically upon the many flaws he found in Cal, who, he believed, was
destined for a hot hereafter. It is only fair to Cal to say that Sipes
did not know of anybody in the dune country who would not have a hot
hereafter, except his friend “Catfish John,” and his old shipmate, Bill
Saunders, who lived with him, and with whom, in early life, he had
sailed many stormy seas. He transacted his fish business with John,
and was very fond of him. He once remarked that, “Old John don’t never
wash, an’ ’e smells pretty fishy, but you bet ’e treats me all right,
an’ wot’s the difference? I c’n always stay to wind’ard if I want to.”
Mrs. Elvirey Smetters lived over in the back country, on the road
that led from the sleepy village to the marshy strip, and through it
over into the dunes, where it was finally lost in the sand. It was a
township line road and was seldom used for traffic. Travellers on it
usually walked. The house, which had once been painted white, with
green blinds, was rather shabby. Two tall evergreens stood in the front
yard. In the carefully kept flower-beds along the fence the geraniums,
cockscombs, marigolds, and verbenas bloomed gorgeously. They were
constantly refreshed from the wooden pump near the back door. A smooth
path led from the front gate, flanked with a luxurious growth of myrtle.
I pulled the brown bell handle one morning with a view of buying one of
the young ducks which were waddling and quacking about the yard. I was
going over to visit my old friend Sipes and intended it as a present
for his Sunday dinner.
Mrs. Smetters, whom I had often met, opened the door. She wiped
her face with her apron, and was profuse with her apologies for the
appearance of everything. She explained at length the various causes
that had brought about the disorderly conditions, which I must know
would be different if so and so, and so and so, and so and so.
She was tall, muscular, of many angles, red-headed, and freckled. The
pupils of the piercing eyes behind the brass-rimmed spectacles had a
reddish tinge, and her square, protruding chin suggested anything but
domestic docility. It was such a chin that took Napoleon over the Alps,
and Cæsar into Gaul.
She had buried three husbands. They were resting, as Sipes said, “fer
the fust time in their lives,” in the church-yard beyond the village,
where flowers from the little garden were often laid upon the mounds.
A village gossip had said that Mrs. Smetters would sometimes return to
the mounds, after she had left them, and transfer a bunch of geraniums
from one to another, and once, she had cleaned off two of them and
piled all of the offerings over the one near the tree. Sometimes the
others would have all of the geraniums. The gossips could see these
things, but they could not look into the secret chambers of Elvirey
Smetters’s heart.
On the walls of such chambers are recorded something that is never
told. Thoughtful deeds, tender looks of sympathy and understanding, and
years devoted, leave their traces there. With a thread of gossamer,
memory leads us gently to them, and out into the world again, where
we carry flowers to silent places. The strongest sometimes become the
weakest, but who knows if such weakness is not the strength of the
mighty?
Time had softened the sorrows of Elvirey Smetters. Little wrinkles were
beginning to tell the story of her passing years, for she was nearly
sixty, and a sense of life’s futility was creeping over her. She felt
the need of new environment and new sensations.
“Now before you begin talkin’ about any duck you want to buy,” said
Mrs. Smetters, after the object of the visit was explained, “I want to
know if you’ve seen anythin’ o’ Cal. I ain’t seen ’im fer a month, an’
if you run across ’im, I want you to tell ’im I’m sick, an’ ’e better
come an’ see how I am. I’ll make you a present o’ that duck if you’ll
just walk in on ’im an’ tell ’im sump’n that don’t look like it come
from me, that’ll make ’im come over ’ere. You needn’t let on that I
want to see ’im, but you fix it somehow so’s ’e’ll _come_.”
I solemnly promised to do this, but insisted upon settling for the
duck, which was soon dressed and wrapped in an old copy of _The Weekly
Clarion_, which was published at the county seat.
“Now you be careful an’ not let ’im know I said a word about ’im,” was
her parting injunction at the gate, “but _you git ’im ’ere_, an’ don’t
say nothin’ to Sipes either!”
She was assured that great care would be exercised.
During the walk through the dunes I mused upon the wiles of Mrs.
Smetters’s sex, and reflected upon the futility of any attempt to
escape them, when they are practiced by an adept upon an average man.
It is a world-old story--as old as the Garden of Eden. The lure of the
feminine rules the earth, and it is a part of the scheme of things
that it should be so. The female of all breathing creatures controls
the wooing--from the lady-bug to Elvirey Smetters. However masculine
vanity may seek to disguise it, the wooer is as clay in the hands of
the potter. The meditations of some of the world’s greatest men have
been devoted to the complexities of female human nature, and during
these meditations they have often married.
Along toward noon the duck was turned over to Sipes in front of his
shanty. He was greatly pleased. It varied the monotony of small gifts
of tobacco and cigars which usually reciprocated his many hospitalities.
“Elvirey’s got a lot o’ them birds,” he remarked, “an’ I was goin’ over
some night to persuade one of ’em to come to my shanty. If she wasn’t
a woman, they’d all been gone long ago. I hear ’em spatterin’ in the
ditch ev’ry time I go by, an’ I often think, s’posen them lily-white
ducks b’longed to some o’ them fellers that set ’round the village
store, wot would I do?”
I inquired if he had seen anything of Cal lately.
“Cal’s snoopin’ ’round ’is coop right now. You c’n see ’im with the
spotter,” said the old man, as he brought out his rickety old brass
spy-glass. Through it I could just make out a figure moving about on
the sand near the distant shanty.