aout West died and left him $5000. Everybody was glad, fer every one
likes Seth. I was with him when he got the letter f’om the lawyer
sayin’ it was all in gold, an’ hed be’n expressed to him, thet bein’
one of the terms of the will. Mos’ shif’less way of sendin’ it, I
thought,” declared Silas, compressing his lips. “‘What ye goin’ to do
with it, Seth?’ says I. ‘Put it in the bank?’ ‘Ain’t got it yit,’
says he; ‘an’, what’s more, I never will.’ ‘Why d’ ye think so?’
says I. ‘On gin’al principles,’ says he, a-laafin’.
“Sure ’nough, a few days later it was printed in the paper thet a
train aout in Wisconsin hed be’n held up by robbers. I was in the
post-office when I saw it in the paper, an’ Seth was there too. ‘Bet
ye a cooky thet my $5000 was on thet train,’ says he. ‘Won’t take
ye,’ says I; ‘fer I’ll bet ye five dollars ’twas, myse’f.’ ‘I’ll take
ye,’ says he. B’ George! he lost the five and the $5000 too, fer
_’twas_ on the train, an’ they never could git a trace of it. The
robbers hed took to the woods, an’ they never found ’em.”
“Well, I swan!” ejaculated Jed, chewing hard, and regarding with
ominous look a knot-hole in the platform.
Silas continued: “I says, ‘I’m sorry fer ye, Seth.’ Says he: ‘I ain’t
no poorer ’an I was before I heard he’d left it to me.’”
“He was aout the five dollars he bet, though,” said Jed.
“Wa’n’t, nuther,” said Silas, rather shamefacedly. “I told him thet
the bet was off.”
“Why didn’t he sue the comp’ny?” asked Jed.
“’At’s what I advised him doin’, but he said ’twa’n’t no use.”
“I think I heard ’baout his havin’ a fortin left him at the time, but
I thought it was f’om a cousin down in South America,” Jed went on,
looking inquiringly at Sam.
“Heh, heh! thet was another time,” said Sam, with his dry little
laugh. “Good nation! ef all the luck thet’s threatened to hit him hed
_done_ it, he’d be the richest man in this caounty. I tell ye, good
luck’s allers a-sniffin’ at his heels, but he don’t never git bit.
This time he got a letter f’om his cousin, tellin’ him he’d allers
felt sorry he hed sech poor luck, an’ he’d made him sole heir of
his estate, prob’ly wuth a couple o’ thousand dollars. He hed some
oncurable disease, he wrote, an’ the doctors didn’t give him over
three months to live--”
“S’pose he lived forever,” put in Jed, chuckling.
“No, sir; he died in good shape, an’ in fac’ he bettered his word,
for he didn’t live two months f’om the time he wrote to Seth; but I’m
blessed ef they didn’t find there was some claim against the estate
thet et it all up. Well, sir, I never saw any one laugh so hard ez
Seth when he heard the news. It struck him ez a dretful good joke.”
“He must hev a purty paowerful sense of the ridikerlus,” said Jed,
dryly.
“Well, he hez,” assented Sam, rubbing his knees with his horny hands.
“Ain’t no better comp’ny ’an Seth. Ain’t never daownhearted.”
After a moment’s silence Silas smiled, and, closing his eyes, pinched
them between thumb and forefinger as if calling up some pleasing
recollection. At last he said: “Ye know, Seth allers works by the
day. He gin’ally has enough to do to keep him busy, an’ allers doos
his work up slick, but he never hed stiddy employment, on’y once, an’
then it lasted on’y one day. ’Member that, Sam? Time he went to work
at the Nutmeg State clock-shop?”
“_Yes_, yes,” laughed Sam, driving a loose nail into the platform
with his heel.
“Stiddy employment fer a day, eh?” said Jed, grinning. “Thet’s ’baout
ez stiddy ez my hired man, an’ he ain’t stiddy at all.”
“It was this way,” Silas went on. “Seth allers was purty slick at
han’lin’ tools, an’ Zenas Jordan was foreman of the shop, an’ he
offered Seth a place there at twelve dollars a week, which was
purty good pay an’ more ’n Seth could make outside, ’thout it was
hayin’-time. I met him on his way to work fust mornin’. ‘Well, luck’s
with you this time, Seth,’ says I. ‘Sh!’ says he. ‘Don’t say thet,
or I’ll lose my job sure. It’s jes better ’n nothin’, thet’s all.
_Don’t_ call it good luck’; an’ he laafed an’ went along a-whistlin’.
B’ Gosht! ef the blamed ol’ shop didn’t burn daown thet very night,
an’, ez ye know, they never rebuilt. Seth he come to me nex’ day, an’
he says, kinder reproachful: ‘You’d orter held yer tongue, Silas.
I’d be’n hopin’ thet was a stroke er luck thet hed hit me by mistake,
an’ I wasn’t goin’ to whisper its name for fear it’d reckernize me
an’ leave me, and you hed to go an’ yell it aout when ye met me.’”
And Silas laughed heartily at recollection of the whimsicality.
“Cur’us, ain’t it, what a grudge luck doos hev against some men?”
remarked Jed, rubbing his smooth chin meditatively.
Far down the valley I heard the faint whistle of a locomotive.
“Las’ story they tell ’baout Seth ’s this,” Silas said, rising and
stretching himself, and then leaning against the wall of the station.
“He’s a very good judge o’ poultry, an’, in fac’, he gin’ally judges
at the caounty fair every fall. Well, a man daown in Ansony told him
he’d pay him ten dollars apiece for a couple of fine thoroughbred
Plymouth Rock roosters. Seth knowed a man daown Smithfield way named
Jones thet owned some full-blooded stock, but ez he on’y kep’ ’em
fer home use he didn’t set a fancy price on ’em, an’ Seth knowed
he could git ’em fer seventy-five cents or a dollar apiece. Well,
it happened a day or two later he was engaged to do a day’s work
fer this man Jones, an’ he went daown there. He see two all-fired
fine roosters a-struttin’ raound the place, an’ he cal’lated to buy
them; but fer some reason he didn’t say nothin’ ’baout it jes then to
Jones, but went to work at choppin’ or sawin’ or whatever it was he
was doin’.”
“Said nothin’, did he? _Must_ ha’ sawed wood, then,” interrupted Jed,
looking over at me and winking.
“Sure! Well, when it kem time fer dinner he hed got up a good
appetite, an’ he was glad to set daown to table, fer Jones is a purty
good feeder an’ likes to see people hev enough. Hed stewed chicken
fer dinner, an’ Seth says he never enjoyed any so much in his life.
After dinner he says, ‘By the way, Jones, what’ll ye take fer those
two Plymouth Rock roosters ’t I saw this mornin’?’ Jones bust aout
a-laafin’, an’ he says, ‘Ye kin take what’s left on ’em home in a
basket an’ welcome!’ Blamed ef Seth hedn’t be’n eatin’ a dinner that
cost him nigh on to twenty dollars.”
“Thet _must_ hev riled him some,” remarked Jed.
“No, sir; he never seemed to realize the sitooation.”
XXXII
CUPID ON RUNNERS
Littlewood Phillips had been in love with Mildred Farrington for two
years, ever since he first met her at the Hollowells’ card-party.
He had no good reason to doubt that his love was returned, yet so
fearful was he that he had misread her feelings that he had never
hinted that she was more to him than any of the girls he met at the
church sociables and card-parties in Newington.
So matters stood when a snowfall that brought sleighing in its wake
visited Newington, and Littlewood became conscious of the fact that
he had actually asked Miss Farrington to take a ride with him. Of
course he must perforce bring matters to a crisis now.
The evening was soon at hand. A crescent moon shone in the west, and
the stars were cold and scintillating. He walked to the livery-stable
and asked for the cutter, and a few moments later he was driving a
handsome chestnut to the house where his thought spent most of the
time.
Miss Farrington kept him waiting a good half-hour, but he reflected
that it was the privilege of her glorious sex, and it only made him
love her the more. If she had come out and placed her dainty foot
upon his neck he would have been overcome with rapture.
It was cold waiting, so he got out and hitched his horse and paced in
front of her house, her faithful sentinel until death--if need be.
Not that there was any reason to think that his services would be
required, but it pleased his self-love to imagine himself dying for
this lovely being of whom his tongue stood in such awe that it could
scarce loose itself in her presence.
At last she appears. The restive horse slants his ears at her and
paws the ground in admiration of her beauty, for Mildred was as
pretty as regular features, a fair skin, and melting eyes could make
her.
Littlewood handed her into the sleigh, stepped in himself, tucked in
the robes, and chirruped to the horse.
That intelligent animal did not move. A flush of mortification
overspread the face of the would-be amorous swain. A balky horse,
and at the start! What chance would he have to deliver his precious
message that was to make two hearts happy? He clicked again to the
horse, but again the horse continued to stand still.
“You might unhitch him, Mr. Phillips. That would help,” said Mildred,
in her sweet voice.
“Oh, yes--t-to be sure! I must have tied him. I mean I--er--I di--I
think I did hitch--er--”
“There seems to have been a hitch somewhere,” she answered.
He stepped out of the sleigh and looked over his shoulder at her in
a startled way. Could she mean anything? Was this encouragement? Oh,
no! It was too soon. (Too soon, and he had been in love two years!)
He unhitched the horse and once more placed himself beside his loved
one.
The frosty night seemed to have set a seal upon her lips, for as they
sped over the crunching snow and left the town behind them she was
silent.
“I must have offended her. I’ve probably made a break of some kind,”
said Littlewood to himself. “How unfortunate! But I must tell her
to-night. It is now or never. She knows I never took anybody but my
mother sleigh-riding before.”
Then began a process of nerving himself to the avowal. He ground his
knees together until the bones ached. His breathing was feverish.
Finally he made bold to say: “Mildewed.” And then he stopped. He had
never called her Mildred before. He had never called her Mildewed
either, but that was accidental, and he hoped that she had not
noticed the slip.
[Illustration]
“I have something of the greatest importance to say to you.”
Did he imagine it, or did she nestle closer to him? He must have been
mistaken, and to show that he was quite sure he edged away from her
as much as the somewhat narrow confines of the sleigh would allow.
“What do you wish to say, Mr. Phillips?”
“Mr.” Phillips! Ah, then she was offended. To be sure, she had always
called him that, but after his last remark it must have an added
significance.
“I--er--do you like sleigh-riding?”
“Why, of course, or else I shouldn’t have come.”
Did she mean that as a slap at him? Was it only for the ride, and not
for his company, that she had come? Oh, he could never make an avowal
of love after that! He knew his place. This beautiful girl was not
for a faint-hearted caitiff like himself.
“Nun--nun--no, to be sure not. I--er--thought that was why you came.”
Mildred turned her gazelle-like eyes upon him. “I’m afraid I don’t
understand you.”
That settled it. If she didn’t understand him when he talked of
nothing in particular, he must be very blind in his utterance, and
he could never trust his tongue to carry such a heavy freight as a
declaration of love. No, there was nothing to do but postpone it.
Mildred drank in the beauty of the scenes, and wished that it were
decorous for women to propose.
Under the influence of sweet surroundings, Mildred at last said
pointedly: “Is it so that more people get engaged in winter than in
summer?”
She blushed as she spoke. It was unmaidenly, but he was such a
dear gump. Now he would declare himself. But she did not know the
capabilities for self-repression of her two-year admirer.
He said to himself: “What a slip! What a delightful slip! If I were
unprincipled I would take advantage of it and propose, but I would
bitterly reproach myself forever, whatever her answer was.”
So he said in as matter-of-fact tone as he could master when his
heart was beating his ribs like a frightened cageling: “I really
can’t answer offhand, but I’ll look it up for you.”
“Do. Write a letter to the newspaper.”
Her tones were as musical as ever, but Littlewood thought he detected
a sarcastic ring in them, and he thanked his stars that he had not
yielded to his natural desire to propose at such an inauspicious time.
“What was that important thing you wanted to say?” asked Miss
Farrington, after several minutes of silence, save for the hoofs and
the runners and the bells.
“Oh, it wasn’t of any importance! I mean it will keep. I--er--I was
thinking of something else.”
“I think you have gone far enough,” said she, innocently, looking
over her shoulder in the direction of home. Maybe the return would
loosen his obdurate tongue.
His heart stopped beating and lay a leaden thing in his breast. Had
he, then, gone too far? What had he said? Oh, why had he come out
with this lovely being, the mere sight of whom was enough to make one
cast all restraint to the winds and declare in thunderous tones that
he loved her?
“I think that we’d better go back,” he said, and turned so quickly
that he nearly upset the sleigh. “Your mother will be anxious.”
“Yes; when one is accountable to one’s mother one has to remember
time. I suppose it is different when one is accountable to a--”
“Father?” said Littlewood, asininely.
“No; that wasn’t the word I wanted.”
“A-a-aunt?”
Could Mildred love him if he gave many more such proofs of being an
abject idiot?
“No; husband is what I want.”
Littlewood’s brain swam. He had been tempted once too often. This
naïve girl had innocently played into his hands, and now the Rubicon
must be crossed, even if its angry waters engulfed him.
“Pardon me, Miss--er--Mildred,”--he did not say Mildewed this
time,--“if I twist your words into another meaning, but if
you--er--want a husband--do you think I would do?”
A head nestled on his shoulder, a little hand was in his, and when he
passed the Farrington mansion neither he nor she knew it.
XXXIII
MY TRUTHFUL BURGLAR
I had an experience with a burglar night before last. My family are
all away, and I have been living alone in the house, a detached
villa in New Jersey, for upward of a month. Several burglaries have
occurred in the vicinity.
Night before last I was awakened about four o’clock by a noise made
by a clicking door, and opening my eyes, I saw a smooth-faced,
determined-looking man at my bedside. I did not cry out, nor hide
under the bedclothes, nor do any of the conventional things that one
does when a burglar comes to him.
I looked at him calmly for a moment, and then I said, “How d’ do?”
An expression of surprise passed over his intelligent features, but
he said mechanically, “Pretty well, thank you. And you?”
“Oh, I’m as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Are
you the burglar who has been doing this village?”
“I am,” said he, drawing up a chair and sitting down.
“Why don’t you deny it?” I asked. I wasn’t afraid. He amused me, this
nonchalant burglar.
“Well, because I’m not ashamed of my profession, for one reason, and
mainly because I was brought up by my father to tell the truth.”
“You tell the truth, and yet you are a burglar. How can you reconcile
those facts?”
“They are not irreconcilable,” said he, taking a corn-cob pipe out
of his pocket and filling it. “I am a burglar, and my father was one
before me, but he was a perfectly honorable man. He never lied, and
I never lie. I steal because that is my profession, but I make it a
rule to tell the truth upon all occasions. Why, if the success of my
venture to-night depended upon my lying to you, I’d immediately leave
this place, as innocent of plunder as when I came in. Where’s the
silver?”
“Top drawer of the sideboard.” There was a magnetism, a bonhomie,
about the man that captivated me.
“Are you armed?” asked he, as he puffed at his pipe.
“If I had been I’d have winged you before this,” said I, laughing.
“I believe you, and I honor you for being perfectly frank with me.”
“Why, as to that, I’m not to be outdone in frankness by a thief.”
“That will make my task so much the easier. After I’ve finished this
pipe I want you to give me your word that you’ll lie still until I’ve
taken all I want.”
I admired the man’s nerve, and I said: “For the time being I consider
you my guest, and, Spanish fashion, my house is at your disposal.”
“Don’t put it on that basis, or I will leave at once. This is no time
for aping the Spanish.”
“You are right. But I tell you candidly that I would far rather have
found out that you were a liar than a burglar. Your lies would not be
likely to injure me, but I’ll be out just so much by what you take.
I’d much rather you were a liar.”
“And I would not. If I steal, I do but take something that, to
paraphrase Shakspere, was yours, is mine, and has been slave to
thousands; but to lie would be to ‘lay perjury to my soul,’ and that
I would not do, ‘no, not for Venice’!”
[Illustration]
“I see you know Shakspere,” said I, punching my pillow so that I
could be more comfortable. I was reading this odd fellow, and I
believed that I could dissuade him from his purpose.
“Know Shakspere? I was an actor once.”
I felt that I had him, for I know actors better than he knew
Shakspere.
“Did you ever play Hamlet?” I asked, sitting up in bed.
“I did; and I made such a hit that if it hadn’t been for the venality
of the press and my sense of honor, I would have been adjudged one of
the greatest Hamlets of the day.”
“Give me the soliloquy. I give you my word that ordinarily I’d rather
be robbed than hear it, but I like your voice and I believe that you
can do it justice.”
A self-satisfied smile illuminated his face. He laid down the pipe
and gave me the soliloquy, and it wasn’t bad.
“Bully!” I said, when he had finished. “Why, man, you make an
indifferent thief, else you would have decamped long ago; but the
stage has lost an actor that would have in time compelled the
unwilling admiration of the press.”
And so I jollied him, and he gave me the trial scene from “The
Merchant of Venice,” and other selections, until dawn began to show
in the east, when he picked up his bag and said, “It would be a shame
to rob a white man like you.” Then he bade me good-by and left.
And I congratulated myself upon my knowledge of human nature, until
I began to dress, when I found that the fellow had finished his
burgling before I woke, and he has all my silver.
XXXIV
THE MAN WITHOUT A WATCH
Thomas Morley knew the value of promptitude. He was a young man on
whom ninety-two seasons had poured benefits and adversities, although
many of the latter he took to be the former, his temperament shedding
sorrow as a duck does water, to use a castanean simile.
He was a born and bred New-Yorker, but at the time of which we write
he had been living for the last ten or twelve months in Uxton, up
among the hills of northwestern Connecticut, studying the natives;
for he was a writer.
Having filled a portfolio with material for enough dialect stories to
run one of the great magazines for a year, he determined to seek his
matter in the metropolis, and to that end applied for a reportership
on the New York “Courier-Journal,” in which paper many of his
brightest things had appeared at remunerative rates.
As has been said, he knew the value of promptitude, so when, at eight
o’clock one night, Farmer Phelps’s hired man handed him a letter
from James Fitzgerald, managing editor of the “Courier-Journal,”
asking him to come and see him in regard to a reportership as soon as
possible, he made up his mind to take the train which left Winsonia,
four miles distant, at six o’clock next morning. This would enable
him to reach the office by half-past ten, and probably catch Mr.
Fitzgerald on his arrival at his desk.
Next morning he arose at four, and when he left the house he had
sixty minutes in which to walk four miles downhill--ample time,
surely.
It was so ample that he would have had fifteen minutes to spare if
the home clock had been right. As it was, he arrived at the station
in time to see the train rapidly disappearing around a curve, on its
way to New York. He laughed good-naturedly with the baggageman, and
asked him when the next down train was due.
“Seven-thirty, sharp. You’ll not have to wait long.”
Seven-thirty. That would bring him into the presence of Mr.
Fitzgerald at just about the time he arrived at his sanctum. “Better
than to have to wait in a presumably stuffy room,” said he to
himself, philosophically. He lit a cigar, and, as the air was bracing
and he was fond of walking, he struck out into a five-mile-an-hour
gait down the main street of Winsonia.
His footsteps led him farther than he had intended going, and when
he reached the Baptist church at East Winsonia, he saw by its clock
that it lacked but forty minutes of train-time, and he had four miles
to make. He threw away the stump of his cigar, which had been out
for some time, broke into a jog-trot, and, after covering a mile, he
caught his second wind and mended his pace.
His fleetness would have served its turn had not a malicious breeze
blown his hat over a high iron fence that surrounded a churchyard.
By the time he had climbed the fence and recovered his hat he had
consumed so many precious minutes that, although he sprinted the
last mile, he arrived at the station only in time to see train No. 2
disappearing around that hateful curve.
The baggageman was standing on the platform, and he said:
“Ain’t once enough?”
“More than enough for most people,” said Thomas, whose rare good
nature was proof against even such a remark at such a time.
The next train for New York was due at nine fifty-six. Being somewhat
blown, he walked around the corner to a billiard-room, meaning to sit
down and watch whatever game might be in progress.
“It may be,” soliloquized Thomas, “that Fitzgerald won’t reach the
office until after lunch, and I’ll get there at half-past two, in
time to see him when he’s feeling good.”
He met Ned Halloway at the billiard-room, and when Ned asked him to
take a cue he consented. Billiards was a game in which he was apt to
lose--himself, at any rate; yet to-day his mind was enough on the
alert to enable him, after a time, to glance at the clock over the
bar in the next room. It was forty-five minutes past eight.
They began another game. Later he looked again at the clock. A
quarter of nine. After another game he looked up once more. “Fifteen
minutes to ni--. Say, Ned, what’s the matter with that clock?” Ned
looked at it, then at his watch. “Why, it’s stopped!”
“You settle--see you later.” And Thomas was gone like a shot.
This time he had the rare pleasure of noting how the rear car of a
train grows rapidly smaller as it recedes. In a moment the train
disappeared around the curve before mentioned.
“Say, Mr. Morley, you’ve time to miss the next, easy,” said the
baggageman, dryly.
Thomas was vexed, but he said pleasantly: “When is it due?”
“Half-past two. Better wait here and make sure of it.”
[Illustration]
“Oh, dry up! No; do the other thing; it’s on me.”
After this little duty had been performed, Thomas, with an
irrelevancy of action that might have struck an observer as amusing,
made his way to the Y.M.C.A. rooms to read the magazines.
“Let’s see,” said he; “I’ll get to his desk at seven. He’ll be hard
at work, and, if he engages me, he may send me out on an assignment
at once. Glad I missed the other trains.”
Thus was Thomas wont to soliloquize. At one o’clock he went to
Conley’s Inn, and sat down to one of those dinners that attract
drummers to a hotel. Necessarily, then, it was a good dinner, and one
over which he lingered until nearly two. Then he went into the office
and sat down.
The room was warm, and his dinner had made him drowsy. He decided to
take a little nap. He had the faculty of waking when he pleased, and
he willed to do so at fifteen minutes past two. It would be weakness
for him to get to the station with too much time to spare, but this
would give him a quarter-hour in which to go a half-mile.
His awakening faculty would seem to have been slightly out of order
that day, however, and he did not arouse until twenty-nine minutes
past two by the hotel clock.
Of course he did not make a fool of himself by trying to do a
half-mile in sixty seconds; but he walked leisurely toward the
station, intending to get his ticket and have that off his mind.
He laughed heartily at a corpulent fellow who darted by him, carrying
a grip.
His laughter ceased, however, when, on turning the corner, he
discerned the aforesaid fat man in the act of being assisted on
to the platform of the last car by the brakeman, the train having
acquired considerable momentum. Then he saw it disappear around a
curve which was part of the road at that point. There were three
explanations possible: either the train was behind time, or else his
awakening faculty was in good repair, or the hotel clock was fourteen
minutes fast. The latter proved to be the correct explanation of the
somewhat vexing occurrence.