Cal’s place sometime during the afternoon, being really anxious to
accommodate Mrs. Smetters.
In the course of time I reached Cal’s shanty and found him sharpening
a knife near the door. We shook hands and, after discussing various
matters of mutual interest, I mentioned the call on Mrs. Smetters for
the purpose of buying a duck for Sipes.
“W’y didn’t you git me a duck too if you was git’n one fer him?”
he asked rather peevishly. He was placated with a cigar and the
explanation that I had not expected to see him on this trip. He
betrayed no curiosity at the mention of Mrs. Smetters. I tried again,
and told him that I had had a long talk with her and she did not look
as though she was very well; she appeared sad, and seemed ill. At this
he began to show interest.
“Wot d’ye s’pose is the matter with ’er? W’y don’t she eat some catnip
if she’s sick?”
I replied that probably she found it rather lonely since her last
husband died.
“Say, d’ye know wot I think I’ll do? I’ll go over there tomorrer an’
take ’er some fresh fish, an’ mebbe she’ll gimme a duck. I ain’t seen
’er fer a long time.”
Having approved of his suggestion, and realizing that the mission had
been accomplished, I departed after we had talked of other things for a
while. Visits to Cal were always enjoyable, although his reminiscences
were to be accepted with a grain of salt. His logic, morals, and
language were bad, but his narratives had the charm of originality, and
he never failed to be entertaining. Naturally, I was curious as to the
outcome of the projected call on Mrs. Smetters, but not being concerned
in further developments, I dismissed it from my mind. Interest was
quickly revived on meeting Sipes a month later.
“Say, wot d’ye think’s happened?” exclaimed the old man. “Elvirey’s
snared Cal good an’ plenty. That ol’ cuss has been up to see ’er a
dozen times in the last two weeks. Bill an’ me’s been watchin’ ’em with
the spotter from up yonder in them trees on top o’ that big dune where
we c’n see ’er house. Say, you’d laugh yerself sick. Gener’ly ’e sneaks
’round an’ goes along the edge o’ the marsh over back o’ here, so’s
’e won’t ’ave to go by our place. Last night ’e come by with a collar
on. His whiskers was combed an’ so was ’is hair. He was all lit up
an’ reminded Bill an’ me o’ that hiker we found walkin’ on the beach
once’t that we piloted off a couple o’ miles to show ’im where we told
’im ’e could cetch some mock-turtles. Bill’s up there with the spotter
watchin’ now. We call that place the masthead.”
Far away I could see the glint of the spy-glass, and could dimly make
out the figure of the lone sentinel in his eyry upon the height. He was
ensconced in a mass of gnarled and tangled roots which the wind-blown
sand had left bare on the distant hilltop.
“We got a little place among them roots,” said the old man, “that jest
fits the spotter w’en it’s trained on Elvirey’s place, an’ all ye have
to do is jest set down an’ look. Bill takes the fust watch w’en we
can’t see nothin’ ’round Cal’s shanty, an’ I go aloft in the afternoon.
We seen ’im twice yisterd’y. Him an’ Elvirey was out in the yard
waterin’ the flowers. I s’pose she wants to keep ’em growin’ nice so’s
she c’n lay ’em over Cal like she does the others.
“If there’s sump’n doin’ at Elvirey’s, Bill’ll hang a rag on that big
dead limb ye see stickin’ out, an’ it’s there now!” The fluttering
signal of “sump’n doin’” was faintly visible.
“That rag’s jest to show he’s seen Cal over there, an’ if ’e thinks I
oughta come up, ’e’ll put out another in a minute. That ’ud mean that
they was set’n out in the yard, er goin’ off som’er’s together, mebbe
to the village.” We kept our eyes on the summit for some time, but the
second signal did not appear.
A week later I found Cal at the home of the old shipmates. He looked
rather crestfallen. An air of embarrassment and restraint seemed to
pervade the place. I feared that I had intruded, and was going away,
when Sipes insisted that I remain and go out on the lake with him. He
thought that a recent storm might have damaged his gill-nets and wanted
to look them over. After Cal’s departure we shoved the row-boat into
the water. On the way out to the nets the old man told me the thrilling
tale of the love of Happy Cal and Elvirey Smetters.
“This Elvirey’s a queer ol’ girl,” he began. “Them husbands she’s been
git’n a c’lection of over in the cemetery was a bum lot. Before she
begun git’n married ’er name was Prokop. Fust she married a feller
named Swisher, an’ she was livin’ with ’im w’en I fust come in the
hills. He was no good, an’ I never liked ’is name. It sounded kind o’
fishy an’ whistley to me. After a while Swisher commenced git’n thin
an’ all yellow, an’ one day ’e skipped. She lit out after ’im an’
brought ’im back from over to the county seat. He died about a month
later of sump’n the doctor said ’ad busted up ’is liver. He left ’er
that little place, where she lives.
“The next feller’s name was Smythe, an’ ’e was a funny lookin’ gink. He
was runnin’ a little circus wot went ’round the country in the summer.
He used to wear high brown boots with ’is trowsies stuck in ’em, an’
a velvet vest, with a watch chain that weighed about a pound. He had
a wide gray hat, an’ a red neck-tie with a hunk o’ glass on it, an’ a
long moustache that looked like a feather duster. He looked fierce, but
Elvirey fell fer ’im w’en she seen ’im out in front of ’is tent on a
box doin’ a lot o’ funny tricks with cards fer the crowd. The circus
busted up an’ ’e moved over to Elvirey’s place. The circus posters
said ’is name was Blondini, but ’is real name was Smith. He wrote it
Smythe, so’s to make folks think ’e had money an’ was a society bug.
He died o’ sump’n, I don’t know wot it was, an’ then poor ol’ Smetters
come along. He was a fat feller. He painted the house, an’ fussed
’round on the place fer a year, an’ then ’ad fits. His conniptions
would come on most any time, an’ Elvirey let ol’ Doc Looney in on to
’im one night, an’ the next mornin’ ’e was dead. The Doc ’ad given ’im
some horse medicine, an’ it finished ’im.
“Them three are all layin’ side by side, wait’n fer Cal, fer ’e told us
this mornin’ that ’im an’ Elvirey’s goin’ to git married.
“Bill an’ me seen ’em from the masthead yisterd’y, walkin’ down the
road. They set down on the grass, an’ we sneaked over an’ got behind
some bushes, an’ we heard ’im callin’ ’er ‘kitten’ an’ she was callin’
’im a duck. Bill says, ‘Look at them columbines!’ an’ we busted out
laughin’. Then they both roasted us fer listenin’. Cal was dead sore,
but ’e didn’t say very much. Elvirey pretty near killed Bill with a big
stick, an’ knocked ’im into the bushes. He got up an’ lit out, an’ so
did I, fer after Bill was down she started fer me. I didn’t need no
clubbin’ an’ scooted. She chased me a ways, but I got home all right. I
wonder w’y them that gits love-sick always calls each other animals an’
birds?”
During Sipes’s narrative I felt a pang of regret that I had not spent
the day at “the masthead,” for evidently it would have been worth while.
“Cal come over today an’ we had a long talk,” continued the old man.
“He said ’e hoped they wasn’t no hard feelin’s, ’cause ’e hadn’t
started nothin’ an’ it was us fellers’ fault that Elvirey got to goin’.
Bill ’ad a bump on ’is head as big as an aig, but we all shook hands
an’ agreed to call it off. An’ now comes this damn wedd’n they’re goin’
to have. Cal says they’re goin’ to be married by Holy Zeke, an’ wot
d’ye think? they want to have the wedd’n in our shanty, ’cause Elvirey
says she won’t let Bill an’ me come to her house, an’ Cal won’t be
married ’less ’e c’n ’ave ’is friends with ’im. His shanty ain’t big
enough fer the bunch, an’ ours is halfway between, so they’ve fixed on
that, an’ we’re in fer it.
“I don’t know wot Cal’s goin’ to do about ’is last name that ’e’s got
to be married with. He says ’e’s been livin’ alone so long ’e’s fergot
wot it is, an’ we got to pick out a new one fer ’im. I told ’im ’e
better call it Mud, but ’e didn’t cetch on to no joke. Wouldn’t that
make a fine soundin’ lot o’ names fer Elvirey’s lot in the church-yard?
Swisher, Smythe, Smetters, an’ Mud! Ev’rybody’d stop to look at ’em.
“Cal’s gone to tell John, an’ Saturd’y night him an’ Holy Zeke’ll
come down, an’ Cal’s kitten’s going to fetch a cake. Cal said you was
invited, an’ if you got any business to close up ’fore you come, you’d
better ’tend to it, fer mebbe hell’ll be to pay ’fore it’s over. I’ll
bet Elvirey won’t stand fer me an’ Bill w’en she sees wot we’re goin’
to do to the shanty fer the wedd’n.”
After inspecting the nets we returned, and I promised to be on hand
Saturday evening. Sipes requested me to come early, “so as to think o’
sump’n us fellers might fergit.”
I looked forward to Saturday with eager anticipation, and arrived at
the shanty just before dusk. Evidently the old shipmates had been very
busy. They were in high spirits.
A couple of old fish-nets were stretched from each side of the door,
in parallel lines, to a point about fifty feet away on the sand.
Boards, obtained from among the driftwood on the beach, had been laid
along between them. “Bill’s a big help about them things,” said the old
man. “He says it’s ’is habit w’en ’e gits married to have sump’n like
that stretched out fer the bride to walk between so’s nobody’ll try to
steal ’er at the last minute.”
The roof of the shanty was thickly covered with dead leaves, held in
place by more nets which were laid over them and weighted with stones.
“We could ’a’ got green ones,” said Sipes, “but them old leaves looks
more fit like. They wasn’t neither of ’em born yisterd’y.
The rusty stove-pipe, which served as a chimney, had been carefully
wrapped in white cloth, at least it had once been white, and a long
strip of bright red material had been tied to it, which fluttered in
the breeze. Sipes said that this was the danger signal. A large bunch
of bulrushes and cat-tails was stuffed into the top of the stove-pipe.
The sign on the shanty--
[Illustration: $IPE$ & $AUNDER$--FRE$H FI$H]
had been covered with a strip of rotten canvas, on which was painted,
[Illustration: Many HAPPy ReTURNS]
The conspirators had gathered a lot of thistle blossoms, with plenty
of the leaves, with which they had festooned the interior. An old
beer-keg, mounted on a box, which stood at one end of the single room,
was to serve as the altar. On it were two lemons, with which time had
not dealt very gently. Their significance was not explained.
All over the shanty, where the decorations did not interfere, were
groups of four vertical chalk-lines. “Them marks is Elvirey’s score,”
explained the old man.
A nail keg, with one end knocked out, hung endwise above the altar, and
in the opening a large ripe tomato was suspended from the inside by
a string. On the keg was painted a large figure 4. “That there’s the
marriage bell,” said Sipes.
A lantern on a hook in the ceiling, and a dozen candle stubs were
to furnish illumination. The music was also provided for. There was
a covered box near the wall, with gimlet holes all over it, that
evidently contained something alive.
“That’s full o’ hummin’ locusts that me an’ Bill caught,” said Sipes,
“an’ when Zeke says it’s all over, I’ll hammer on the box an’ them
little singers’ll git busy. We tried ’em this mornin’ an’ it works
fine.”
The stove was stuffed with stray pieces of old leather and rubber
boots, mixed with oiled rags. “W’en we light that fire, with the
chimbly stopped up with them cat-tails, it’ll show that the party’s
over,” chuckled the old man.
The arrangements seemed quite complete, and I had no suggestions to
offer. The wedding party was to assemble around a drift-wood fire
on the sand, some distance away, and proceed to the shanty at eight
o’clock. A huge pile of material for the bonfire had been gathered.
The flames soon crackled merrily and lit up the beach. The red light
touched the crests of the little waves that lapped the shore, and
bathed the side of the sandy bluff with a mellow glow. It illuminated
the shanty which, with its grotesque decorations, relieved against the
dark green of the ravine beyond, resembled a stage setting for a comic
opera.
The wedding guests soon began to arrive. “Catfish John,” with a large
package under his arm, accompanied by Holy Zeke, were the first comers,
after the fire was lighted. They had walked a long distance, and sat
down wearily on the sand, after the conventional greetings. John’s
package probably contained some smoked fish which he intended as a
present for the bride. Sipes sniffed at it with evident approval.
In a few minutes Mrs. Smetters arrived with her friend Mrs. McCafferty,
who carried the cake in a basket. Mrs. McCafferty lived in the sleepy
village, several miles away. She was to act as bridesmaid, and was
to “give the bride away,” which Sipes declared she would “do anyhow
afterwards if she didn’t do it now.” She was a buxom Irish widow, with
a fighting record, and a mind of her own. She had brought Mrs. Smetters
to the wedding with her buggy and gray horse, which had been left where
the sloping road ended in the beach sand. It was her custom to attend
all of Elvirey’s weddings in the same capacity. She was her bosom
friend and confidante.
Mrs. Smetters was attired in a new white muslin dress, with a bountiful
corsage bouquet of white peonies. She was bareheaded, and lilies of
the valley accented the bricky red of her hair. As at all weddings,
“the bride was very beautiful.”
We rose and greeted the ladies cordially. Mrs. Smetters looked
inquiringly around for Cal, but he had not yet arrived. She then seated
herself on the shawl which Mrs. McCafferty carefully spread out on the
sand. No reference was made to the stormy scene of the interrupted
wooing of a few days before. Bill was still nursing his sore head, but
made no unpleasant allusions.
The hour had arrived, but the party was still incomplete. Happy Cal was
conspicuously absent.
“Mebbe he’s doin’ a lot o’ fixin’ up an’ can’t find ’is perfumery, er
mebbe he’s fergot about the wedd’n,” observed Sipes.
An angry glance from Mrs. Smetters was the only response to this sally.
The ladies looked curiously at the shanty, and Sipes had much
difficulty in keeping them away from it. He announced that “they wasn’t
goin’ to be no rubberin’ ’round the place ’till the wedd’n.” They
started several times, but were persuaded to wait until Cal came.
An hour slipped by, and the delinquent did not appear.
“Lo, the bridegroom cometh not,” said Holy Zeke, solemnly.
Clouds of feminine wrath were gathering on the other side of the fire.
“We’re goin’ over to see them fixin’s,” announced Mrs. Smetters, with
determination. “This is wot I git fer wearin’ my heart on my sleeve!”
I walked along the beach in the hope that I might meet Cal. Sipes went
to the shanty and lit the lantern and the candles. The two females led
the rest of the party along between the nets. After they entered it
took them but a few seconds to fully comprehend the _tout ensemble_,
and then came the event of the evening.
Mrs. McCafferty started to swoon, but suddenly revived when Mrs.
Smetters hurled a stove-lid at Sipes, followed by the keg from the
altar. The male members of the party beat a rapid retreat through the
door into the welcome shadows. Sipes ran in my direction. We stood
about a hundred yards away in the darkness, and surveyed the scene.
With the fury of a woman scorned, Elvirey was smashing up the place.
With the able help of her bosom friend, every movable breakable thing
was being destroyed and thrown out. The window was demolished early
in the proceedings, and through the broken sash went wrecked cooking
utensils, blankets, guns, cards, bottles, boxes, pieces of the table,
and other things, too numerous to mention. Amid loud blows of an axe,
the side of the shanty began to give way.
Suddenly we heard piercing shrieks, and the two maddened women fled
wildly from the shanty in the direction of the buggy.
“I’ll bet they’ve busted open them insects!” exclaimed Sipes.
We waited a while, and looked for the other members of the party. We
called repeatedly, but no answer came out of the gloom. They had been
swallowed in the blackness of the night.
We then went to inspect the wreck. All of the old shipmates’ efforts
to make the wedding a success had been “love’s labor lost.” The
decorations were mingled with fragments of the stove and the splintered
bunks. There seemed to be nothing in the place that was breakable
that had not been attended to. The “hummin’ locusts” were innocently
crawling about the floor and walls.
“We might as well c’lect this music an’ put it out,” said Sipes,
ruefully, as he began picking up the locusts. “We wouldn’t ’a’ had no
shanty left if it hadn’t been fer them. I guess I must ’a’ started
sump’n. After this I’m goin to let ev’ry feller run ’is own business,
an’ me an’ Bill’ll flock by ourselves. Look wot I git fer tryin’ to
please ev’rybody all the time! Somebody’s always butt’n in an’ spoilin’
ev’rythin’ I try to do. I got hit with too damn many things out o’ the
air tonight to be happy. Wot d’ye ’spose become o’ Cal? He’d ’a’ got a
lemon if ’e’d ’a’ married that ol’ swivel-eyed sliver-cat. I’m goin’
up in the ravine to sleep, an’ mebbe Bill’ll show up in the mornin’.
Say, wot do _you_ think o’ matrimony, anyway? Gosh! but this is rough
work. Bill an’ me was in a hurricane once’t out’n the Pacific--the
ship’s rudder got busted off an’ we was spun along on the equator fer a
thousand miles, but that wasn’t nothin’ ’side o’ this.”
The old man stood disconsolate among his ruins. There was gloom on his
face as I bade him good-night, and there was a pressure in his hand
grasp, as of one who did not want to be left alone. From a distance
down the shore I could see the flickering light of the expiring
bonfire, playing upon the scene of the recent drama, as fate toys with
the destinies of human lives.
Cal’s failure to appear at his wedding was never accounted for. The
following week we found his shanty deserted. Its simple furnishings and
Cal’s boat were gone.
“That ol’ skeesicks ’as got more sense than I ever thought, an’ ’e’s
skipped. He’ll be number four in that cemetery lot all right if ’e ever
shows up,” declared Sipes as we parted. “She rough-housed me when I
didn’t do nothin’, an’ I wouldn’t like to see Cal’s finish if she ever
gits to ’im. The feller that ought to marry Hellfirey Smetters is Holy
Zeke.”
Perhaps from somewhere out in the darkness, Cal may have studied the
group around the fire on the sand. Its light may have reflected the
quiet gleam of tigerish ferocity that creeps into the eyes of a woman
who is made to wait. He may have been appalled by the prospect of the
loss of his much-loved freedom, and recoiled from further contact with
a social system which had discarded him, or he may have seen his
“kitten” in a new light that dissipated illusion.
Anyway, as Sipes declared, “Elvirey’s duck” had “lit out.”
During a visit to Mrs. Smetters late in the fall, she gloomily
remarked, “Now if _you_ will tell _me_ wot’s the _use o’ livin’_, I’d
be _very grateful_!”
VIII
THE RESURRECTION OF BILL SAUNDERS
[Illustration: Bill Saunders]
VIII
THE RESURRECTION OF BILL SAUNDERS
Sipes and Saunders had acquired a detachable motor for their boat.
Catfish John had obtained it on one of his various trips to the
little village at the mouth of the river about fifteen miles away.
The disgusted owner had traded it in on his fish account with John,
and had thrown in, as a bonus, some gasoline, mixing oil, a lot of
damaged small tools, a much-worn book of instructions, and a great
deal of conversation. He was careful to impress on John that he wanted
no “come back,” and was not responsible in any way for what the
contraption might or might not do after it left him. He had just had it
“overhauled” by the makers for the third time, and he never wanted to
see it again.
John, knowing the great persistence and ingenuity of his friends, and
feeling that he was in the way of doing them a favor, put the despised
machine in his wagon and departed.
The following morning he drove up the beach to the fish shanty for his
supplies.
“Wot’s all this iron fickits?” asked Sipes, as he peered curiously into
the wagon.
“That’s a gas motor wot ye stick on the back o’ yer boat. You fill up
the tin thing with gasoline an’ some kind of oil, an’ then whirl that
wheel wot’s got the little wooden handle on it, an’ ’way she goes an’
runs yer boat, an’ ye don’t ’ave to row, an’ ye c’n go anywheres whar
it’s wet. I traded wot a feller owed me fer ’bout fifty pounds o’ fish
fer it, an’ if you fellers want it, ye c’n ’ave it if ye gimme the
fish.”
“Bill, come ’ere!” yelled Sipes.
The tousled gray head of Bill Saunders appeared in the doorway of the
shanty.
“Wot’s doin’?” he asked sleepily.
“Never you mind; you put on yer trowsies an’ come on out ’ere an’ see
wot our ol’ friend an’ feller-citizen ’as fetched in.”
Without following Sipes’s instructions implicitly, the disturbed
occupant of the shanty came out to the wagon.
“This ’ere little book wot the feller gave me,” continued John, “has
got it all in, with pitchers of all the little things in the machine,
an’ how to grease it, an’ run it, an’ ev’rythin’ about it. Thar’s a
lot o’ figgers in it wot tells wot ye pay fer all the things that gits
busted.”
On the cover of the worn book, which the old man produced, was a highly
colored picture of a slender youth, gay and debonair, with one of the
machines in a canvas carrying bag. He swung it lightly and merrily in
his hand as he tripped along toward his boat, which floated in the
distance, where soft ripples laved its polished sides with pink water.
His derby hat was tilted to a careless angle. On his face was a smile
of joyful anticipation. There was no more suggestion of exertion than
if the bag contained toy balloons instead of a motor. Nevertheless it
required the united efforts of the three weather-buffeted old fishermen
to get the machine out of the wagon on to the beach. Such is the
contrast between exuberant youth and seasoned maturity.
“I bet that feller with the hard-boiled hat ain’t got the machine in
that bag at all,” remarked Saunders, as he studied the scene on the
cover. “They’s prob’ly some fellers follerin’ ’im with it that don’t
show in the pitcher. I don’t like that cigarette moustache on ’im;
I’ll bet ’e knows durned little ’bout navigation ’ceptin’ with crackers
on soup. You leave this thing ’ere an’ me an’ Sipes’ll try ’er out, an’
if it works, we’ll keep ’er. Anyhow we’ll make up the fish yer out an’
you won’t lose nothin’.”
The fish for John’s peddling trip were carefully sorted out and
recorded by Sipes, with a stubby pencil, on the inside of the shanty
door where the accounts were kept. The nets had been lifted in the
early morning and the supply was abundant. When John had sold the fish
the proceeds were to be divided equally.
After John and his aged horse “Napoleon” had left with the slimy
merchandise, the old shipmates sat down and considered the apparatus.
To this primitive coast, torn by the storms and yellowed by the suns
of thousands of years, where elemental forces had ruled since the
beginning, had come a strange and misfitting thing. It seemed an
unhallowed and discordant intrusion into the Great Harmonies. Somehow
we can, in a measure, be reconciled, poetically, to the use of steam,
without great violence to our worship of the grandeur of nature’s
forces, but there is no poetry in a gasoline engine. It is a fiend
that wars upon things spiritual. Its dissonant soul-offending clatter
on the rivers that flow gently through venerable woods, and out in the
solitudes of wide and quiet waters is profanation.
Utilitarianism and ideality clashed when the motor touched the beach,
but these things did not disturb Sipes and Saunders, engaged in the
contemplation of the machine, as bewildered savages might gaze upon a
fragment of a meteor that had dropped out of the sky from another world.
After a while they lugged it to the shanty. “I could ’a’ carried it
alone if I’d ’a’ had one o’ them darby hats on!” declared Sipes.
They spent long hours over the book of instructions, and the light in
the shanty burned far into the night. They carefully and repeatedly
examined the various parts in connection with the text. There were some
words which they did not understand, but they finally felt that they
had mastered the problem.