in the sweat of his face was peculiarly marked. He was the eldest of
seven sons, ranging in age from eleven to twenty years, including one
pair of twins. The parents had been greatly pitied for the exorbitant
exactions of rearing this large family during its immaturity, but now,
the labor of farm, barnyard and woodpile, distributed among so many
stalwart fellows of the same home and interest was light and the result
ample. Perhaps none of them realized how little of this abundance was
compassed by Brent's exertions--how many days he spent dawdling on the
river bank idly experimenting with the echoes--how often, even when he
affected to work, he left the plow in the furrow while he followed till
sunset the flight of successive birds through the adjacent pastures,
imitating as he went the fresh mid-air cry, whistling in so vibrant a
bird-voice, so signally clear and dulcet, yet so keen despite its
sweetness, that his brothers at the plow-handles sought in vain to
distinguish between the calls of the earthling and the winged voyager of
the empyreal air. None of them had ever heard of ventriloquism, so
limited had been their education and experience, so sequestered was
their home amidst the wilderness of the mountains. Only very gradually
to Brent himself came the consciousness of his unique gift, as from
imitation he progressed to causing a silent bird to seem to sing. The
strangeness of the experience frightened him at first, but with each
experiment he had grown more confident, more skilled, until at length he
found that he could throw a singularly articulate voice into the jaws of
the old plow-horse, while his brothers, accustomed to his queer vocal
tricks, were convulsed with laughter at the bizarre quadrupedal views of
life thus elicited. This development of proficiency, however, was
recent, and until the incident at the bran dance it had not been
exercised beyond the limits of their secluded home. It had revealed new
possibilities to the young ventriloquist and he looked at once agitated,
excited, and triumphant when late that afternoon he appeared suddenly at
the rail fence about the door-yard of Valeria Clee's home on one of the
spurs of Chilhowee Mountain.
It was no such home as his--lacking all the evidence of rude comfort and
coarse plenty that reigned there--and in its tumble-down disrepair it
had an aspect of dispirited helplessness. Here Valeria, an orphan from
her infancy, dwelt with her father's parents, who always of small means
had become yearly a more precarious support. The ancient grandmother was
sunken in many infirmities, and the household tasks had all fallen to
the lot of Valeria. Latterly a stroke of paralysis had given old man
Clee an awful annotation on the chapter of age and poverty upon which he
was entering, and his little farm was fast growing up in brambles.
"But 't ain't no differ, gran'dad," Valeria often sought to reassure
him. "_I'll_ work some way out."
And when he would irritably flout the possibility that she could do
aught to materially avert disaster she was wont to protest: "You jes'
watch _me_. _I'll_ find out some way. I be ez knowin' ez any old
_owel_."
Despite her slender physique and her recurrent heavy tasks the drear
doom of poverty with its multiform menace had cast no shadow on her
ethereal face, and her pensive dark gray eyes were full of serene light
as she met the visitor at the bars. A glimmer of mirth began to
scintillate beneath her long brown lashes, and she spoke first. "The
folks in the mountings air mighty nigh skeered out'n thar boots by yer
foolishness, Brent"--she sought to conserve a mien of reproof. "They
'low ez it war a manifestation of the Evil One."
Brent laughed delightedly. "Warn't it prime?" he said. "But I never
expected ter work sech a scatteration of the crowd. Thar skeer plumb
tarrified _me_. I jes' set out with the nimblest, an' run from the devil
myself."
"Won't them candidates fur office be mighty mad if they find out what it
war sure enough?" she queried anxiously. "They gin the crowd a barbecue
an' bran dance, an' arter all, the folks got quit of hevin' ter hear
them speak an' jaw about thar old politics an' sech."
"Them candidates air hoppin' mad fur true," he admitted. "I been down
yander at Gilfillan's store in the Cove an' I hearn the loafers thar
talkin' powerful 'bout the strange happening. An' them candidates war
thar gittin' ready ter start out fur town in thar buggy. An' that thar
gay one--though now he seems ez sober ez that sour one--he said 't
warn't no devil. 'Twar jes' a ventriloquisk from somewhar--that's jes'
what that town man called it. But _I_ never said nuthin'. I kep'
powerful quiet."
Brent Kayle was as vain a man as ever stood in shoe leather--even in the
midst of his absorption in his disclosure he could not refrain from a
pause to reflect on the signal success of his prank and laugh and plume
himself.
"But old Gilfillan he loves ter believe ez the devil air hotfoot arter
other folks with a pitchfork, an' he axed how then did sech a man happen
ter be in the mountings 'thout none knowin' of it. An' that candidate,
the gay one, he say he reckon the feller kem from that circus what is
goin' ter show in Shaftesville ter-morrer--mebbe he hearn 'bout the bran
dance an' wanted ter hev some fun out'n the country folks. That
candidate say he hed hearn dozens o' ventriloquisks in shows in the big
towns--though this war about the bes' one he could remember. He said he
hed no doubt this feller is paid good money in the show, fur jes' sech
fool tricks with his voice--_good money_!"
Valeria had listened in motionless amazement. But he had now paused,
almost choking with his rush of emotion, his excitement, his sense of
triumph, and straight ensued a certain reluctance, a dull negation, a
prophetic recoil from responsibility that clogged his resolve. His eyes
roved uncertainly about the familiar domestic scene, darkening now,
duskily purple beneath the luminous pearly and roseate tints of the
twilight sky. The old woman was a-drowse on the porch of the rickety
little log-cabin beneath the gourd vines, the paralytic grandfather came
hirpling unsteadily through the doorway on his supporting crutch, his
pipe shaking in his shaking hand, while he muttered and mumbled to
himself--who knows what?--whether of terror of the future, or regret for
the past, or doubt and despair of to-day. The place was obviously so
meagre, so poverty-bitten, so eloquent of the hard struggle for mere
existence. If it had been necessary for Brent Kayle to put his hand to
the plow in its behalf the words would never have been spoken--but "good
money" for this idle trade, these facile pranks!
"Vallie," he said impulsively, "I'm going ter try it--ef ye'll go with
me. Ef ye war along I'd feel heartened ter stand up an' face the crowd
in a strange place. I always loved ye better than any of the other
gals--shucks!--whenst _ye_ war about I never knowed ez they war alive."
Perhaps it was the after-glow of the sunset in the sky, but a crimson
flush sprang into her delicate cheek; her eyes were evasive, quickly
glancing here and there with an affectation of indifference, and she had
no mind to talk of love, she declared.
But she should think of her gran'dad and gran'mam, he persisted. How had
she the heart to deprive them of his willing aid? He declared he had
intended to ask her to marry him anyhow, for she had always seemed to
like him--she could not deny this--but now was the auspicious
time--to-morrow--while the circus was in Shaftesville, and "good money"
was to be had to provide for the wants of her old grandparents.
Though Valeria had flouted the talk of love she seemed his partisan when
she confided the matter to the two old people and their consent was
accorded rather for her sake than their own. They felt a revivifying
impetus in the thought that after their death Valeria would have a good
husband to care for her, for to them the chief grief of their loosening
hold on life was her inheritance of their helplessness and poverty.
The courthouse in Shaftesville seemed a very imposing edifice to people
unaccustomed to the giddy heights of a second story. When the two
staring young rustics left the desk of the county court clerk and
repaired to the dwelling of the minister of the Methodist Church near
by, with the marriage license just procured safely stowed away in
Brent's capacious hat, their anxieties were roused for a moment lest
some delay ensue, as they discovered that the minister was on the point
of sitting down to his dinner. He courteously deferred the meal,
however, and as the bride apologetically remarked after the ceremony
that they might have awaited his convenience were it not for the circus,
he imagined that the youthful couple had designed to utilize a round of
the menagerie as a wedding tour. The same thought was in the minds of
the metropolitan managers of the organization when presently the two
young wildings from the mountain fastness were ushered into their
presence, having secured an audience by dint of extreme persistence,
aided by a mien of mysterious importance.
They found two men standing just within the great empty tent, for the
crowd had not as yet begun to gather. The most authoritative, who was
tall and portly, had the manner of swiftly disposing of the incident by
asking in a peremptory voice what he could do for them. The other, lean
and languid, looked up from a newspaper, in which he had been scanning a
flaming circus advertisement, as he stood smoking a cigar. He said
nothing, but concentrated an intent speculative gaze on the face of
Valeria, who had pulled off her faint green sun-bonnet and in a flush of
eager hopefulness fanned with the slats.
"Ventriloquist?" the portly man repeated with a note of surprise, as
Brent made known his gifts and his desire for an engagement. "Oh,
well--ventriloquism is a chestnut."
Then with a qualm of pity, perhaps, for the blank despair that settled
down on the two young faces he explained: "Nothing goes in the circus
business but novelty. The public is tired out with ventriloquism. No
mystery about it now--kind of thing, too, that a clever amateur can
compass."
Brent, hurled from the giddy heights of imminent achievement to the
depths of nullity, could not at once relinquish the glowing prospects
that had allured him. He offered to give a sample of his powers. He
would like to bark a few, he said; you couldn't tell him from a sure
enough dog; he could imitate the different breeds--hound-dog, bull-pup,
terrier--but the manager was definitely shaking his head.
Suddenly his partner spoke. "The girl might take a turn!"
"In the show?" the portly man said in surprise.
"The Company's Una weighs two hundred pounds and has a face as broad as
a barn-door. She shows she is afraid of the lion when she stands beside
him in the street parade, and--curse him--he is so clever that he knows
it, no matter how he is doped. It incites him to growl at her all
through the pageant, and that simply queers the sweet peace of the
idea."
"And you think this untrained girl could take her place?"
"Why not? She couldn't do worse--and she _could_ look the part. See," he
continued, in as business-like way as if Valeria were merely a bale of
goods or deaf, "ethereal figure, poetic type of beauty, fine expression
of candor and serene courage. She has a look of open-eyed innocence--I
don't mean _ignorance_." He made a subtle distinction in the untutored
aspect of the two countenances before him.
"Would you be afraid of the lion, child?" the stout man asked Valeria.
"He is chained--and drugged, too--in the pageant."
It was difficult for the astonished Valeria to find her voice. "A lion?"
she murmured. "I never seen a lion."
"No? Honest?" they both cried in amazement that such a thing could be.
The portly man's rollicking laughter rang out through the thin walls of
canvas to such effect that some savage caged beast within reach of the
elastic buoyant sound was roused to anger and supplemented it with a
rancorous snarl.
Valeria listened apprehensively, with dilated eyes. She thought of the
lion, the ferocious creature that she had never seen. She thought of the
massive strong woman who knew and feared him. Then she remembered the
desolate old grandparents and their hopeless, helpless poverty. "I'll
resk the lion," she said with a tremulous bated voice.
"That's a brave girl," cried the manager.
"I hev read 'bout Daniel's lions an' him in the den," she explained.
"An' Daniel hed consid'ble trust an' warn't afeard--an' mebbe I won't
be afeard nuther."
"Daniel's Lions? Daniel's Lions?" the portly manager repeated
attentively. "I don't know the show--perhaps in some combination now."
For if he had ever heard of that signal leonine incident recorded in
Scripture he had forgotten it. "Yes, yes," as Valeria eagerly appealed
to him in behalf of Brent, "we must try to give Hubby some little stunt
to do in the performance--but _you_ are the ticket--a sure winner."
Of course the public knew, if it chose to reflect, that though
apparently free the lion was muzzled with a strong steel ring, and every
ponderous paw was chained down securely to the exhibition car; it may
even have suspected that the savage proclivities of the great beast were
dulled by drugs. But there is always the imminent chance of some failure
of precaution, and the multitude must needs thrill to the spectacle of
intrepidity and danger. Naught could exceed the enthusiasm that greeted
this slim, graceful Una a few days later in the streets of a distant
city, as clad in long draperies of fleecy white she reclined against a
splendid leonine specimen, her shining golden hair hanging on her
shoulders, or mingling with his tawny mane as now and again she let her
soft cheek rest on his head, her luminous dark gray eyes smiling down at
the cheering crowds. This speedily became the favorite feature of the
pageant, and the billboards flamed with her portrait, leaning against
the lion, hundreds of miles in advance of her triumphal progress.
All this unexpected success presently awoke Brent's emulation--so far he
had not even "barked a few." A liberal advance on his wife's salary had
quieted him for a time, but when the wonders of this new life began to
grow stale--the steam-cars, the great cities, the vast country the
Company traversed--he became importunate for the opportunity of display.
He "barked a few" so cleverly at a concert after the performance one
evening that the manager gave him a chance to throw the very
considerable volume of sound he could command into the jaws of one of
the lions. "Let Emperor speak to the people," he said. Forthwith he
wrote a bit of rodomontade which he bade Brent memorize and had the
satisfaction soon to hear from the lion-trainer, to whom was intrusted
all that pertained to the exhibition of these kings of beasts, that the
rehearsal was altogether satisfactory.
An immense audience was assembled in the great tent. The soaring dome of
white canvas reflected the electric light with a moony lustre. The
display of the three rings was in full swing. That magic atmosphere of
the circus, the sense of simple festivity, the crises of thrilling
expectancy, the revelation of successive wonders, the diffusive delight
of a multitude not difficult to entertain--all were in evidence.
Suddenly a ponderous cage was rolled in; the band was playing liltingly;
the largest of the lions within the bars, a tawny monster, roused up and
with head depressed and switching tail paced back and forth within the
restricted limits of the cage, while the others looked out with
motionless curiosity at the tiers of people. Presently with a long
supple stride the gigantic, blond Norwegian trainer came lightly across
the arena--a Hercules, with broad bare chest and arms, arrayed in
spangled blue satin and white tights that forbade all suspicion of
protective armor. At a single bound he sprang into the cage, while
Brent, garbed in carnation and white, stood unheralded and unremarked
close by outside among the armed attendants. There seemed no need of
precaution, however, so lightly the trainer frolicked with the savage
creatures. He performed wonderful acrobatic feats with them in which one
hardly knew which most to admire, the agility and intrepidity of the man
or the supple strength and curious intelligence of the beasts. He
wrestled with them; he leaped and rolled among them; he put his head
into their terrible full-fanged jaws--but before springing forth he
fired his pistols loaded with blank cartridges full in their faces; for
the instant the coercion of his eye was pretermitted every one
treacherously bounded toward him, seeking to seize him before he could
reach the door. Then Emperor, as was his wont, flung himself in baffled
fury against the bars and stood erect and shook them in his wrath.
All at once, to the astonishment of the people, he spoke, voicing a
plaintive panegyric on liberty and protesting his willingness to barter
all the luxury of his captivity for one free hour on the desert sands.
Surprise, absolute, unqualified, reigned for one moment. But a
circus-going crowd is uncannily quick. The audience perceived a certain
involuntary element of the entertainment. A storm of cat-calls ensued,
hisses, roars of laughter. For the place was the city of Glaston, the
Company being once more in East Tennessee, and the lion spoke the old
familiar mountain dialect so easily recognizable in this locality. Even
a _lapsus linguae_, "you uns," was unmistakable amidst the high-flown
periods. Although the ventriloquism was appreciated, the incongruity of
this countrified jargon, held in great contempt by the townfolks,
discounted Emperor's majesty and he was in ludicrous eclipse.
Behind the screening canvas the portly manager raged; "How dare you make
that fine lion talk like a 'hill-Billy' such as yourself--as if he were
fresh caught in the Great Smoky Mountains!" he stormed at the indignant
ventriloquist. The other partners in the management interfered in
Brent's behalf; they feared that the proud mountaineer, resenting the
contemptuous designation "hill-Billy" might withdraw from the Company,
taking his wife with him, and the loss of Valeria from the pageant would
be well nigh irreparable, for her ethereal and fragile beauty as Una
with her lion had a perennial charm for the public. The management
therefore assumed the responsibility for the linguistic disaster, having
confided the rehearsal to a foreigner, for the Norwegian lion-trainer
naively explained that to him it seemed that all Americans talked alike.
A course in elocution was recommended to Brent by the managers, and he
fell in with this plan delightedly, but after two or three elementary
bouts with the vowel sounds, long and short, consonants, sonant and
surd, he concluded that mere articulation could be made as laborious as
sawing wood, and he discovered that it was incompatible with his dignity
to be a pupil in an art in which he had professed proficiency.
Thereafter his accomplishment rusted--to the relief of the
management--although he required that Valeria should be described in the
advertisements as the wife of "the _celebrated ventriloquist_, Mr. Brent
Kayle," thus seeking by faked notoriety to secure the sweets of fame,
without the labor of achievement.
Valeria had welcomed the pacific settlement of the difficulty, because
her "good money" earned in the show so brightened and beautified the
evening of life for the venerable grandparents at home. For their sake
she had conquered her dread of the lion in the pageant. Indeed she had
found other lions in her path that she feared more--the glitter and
gauds of her tinsel world, the enervating love of ease, the influence of
sordid surroundings and ignoble ideals. But not one could withstand the
simple goodness of the unsophisticated girl. They retreated before the
power of her fireside traditions of right thinking and true living which
she had learned in her humble mountain home.
It had come to be a dwelling of comfortable aspect, cared for in the
absence of the young couple by a thrifty hired housekeeper, a widowed
cousin, and here they spent the off-seasons when the circus company went
into winter quarters. Repairs had been instituted, several rooms were
added, and a wide veranda replaced the rickety little porch and gave
upon a noble prospect of mountain and valley and river. Here on sunshiny
noons in the good Saint Martin's summer the old gran'dad loved to sit,
blithe and hearty, chirping away the soft unseasonable December days.
Sometimes in the plenitude of content he would give Valeria a meaning
glance and mutter "Oh, leetle _Owel_! Oh, leetle _Owel_!" and then break
into laughter that must needs pause to let him wipe his eyes.
"Yes, Vallie 'pears ter hev right good sense an' makes out toler'ble
well, considerin'," her husband would affably remark, "though of course
it war _me_ ez interduced her ter the managers, an' she gits her main
chance in the show through my bein' a celebrated ventriloquisk."
THE LOST GUIDON
Night came early. It might well seem that day had fled affrighted. The
heavy masses of clouds, glooming low, which had gathered thicker and
thicker, as if crowding to witness the catastrophe, had finally shaken
asunder in the concussions of the air at the discharges of artillery,
and now the direful rain, always sequence of the shock of battle, was
steadily falling, falling, on the stricken field. Many a soldier who
might have survived his wounds would succumb to exposure to the elements
during the night, debarred the tardy succor that must needs await his
turn. One of the surgeons at their hasty work at the field hospital,
under the shelter of the cliffs on the slope, paused to note the presage
of doom and death, and to draw a long breath before he adjusted himself
anew to the grim duties of the scalpel in his hand. His face was set and
haggard, less with a realization of the significance of the scene--for
he was used to its recurrence--than simply with a physical reflection of
horror, as if it were glassed in a mirror. A phenomenon that had earlier
caught his attention in the landscape appealed again to his notice,
perhaps because the symptom was not in his line.
"Looks like a case of dementia," he observed to the senior surgeon,
standing near at hand.
The superior officer adjusted his field-glass. "Looks like 'Death on the
White Horse'!" he responded.
Down the highway, at a slow pace, rode a cavalryman wearing a gray
uniform, with a sergeant's chevrons, and mounted on a steed good in his
day, but whose day was gone. A great clot of blood had gathered on his
broad white chest, where a bayonet had thrust him deep. Despite his
exhaustion, he moved forward at the urgency of his rider's heel and
hand. The soldier held a long, heavy staff planted on one stirrup, from
the top of which drooped in the dull air the once gay guidon,
battle-rent and sodden with rain, and as he went he shouted at
intervals, "Dovinger's Rangers! Rally on the guidon!" Now and again his
strident boyish voice varied the appeal, "Hyar's yer Dovinger's Rangers!
Rally, boys! Rally on the reserve!"
Indeed, despite his stalwart, tall, broad-shouldered frame, he was
scarcely more than a boy. His bare head had flaxen curls like a child's;
his pallid, though sunburned face was broad and soft and beardless; his
large blue eyes were languid and spiritless, though now and then as he
turned an intent gaze over the field they flared anew with hope, as if
he expected to see rise up from that desolate expanse, from among the
stiffening carcasses of horses and the stark corpses of the troopers,
that gallant squadron wont to follow, so dashing and debonair, wherever
the guidons might mark the way. But there was naught astir save the
darkness slipping down by slow degrees--and perchance under its cloak,
already stealthily afoot, the ghoulish robbers of the dead that haunt
the track of battle. They were the human forerunners of the vulture
breed, with even a keener scent for prey, for as yet the feathered
carrion-seekers held aloof; two or three only were descried from the
field hospital, perched on the boughs of a dead tree near the river,
presently joined by another, its splendid sustained flight impeded
somewhat by the rain, battling with its big, strong wings against the
downpour of the torrents and the heavy air.
And still through all echoed the cry, "Rally on the guidon! Dovinger's
Rangers! Rally on the reserve!"