Mr. Aholiah Luce, of the Purgatory Hollow section of Smyrna, stood
at bay on the dirt-banking of his "castle," that is, a sagged-in old
hulk of a house of which only the L was habitable.
He was facing a delegation of his fellow-citizens, to wit: Cap'n
Aaron Sproul, first selectman of the town; Hiram Look, Zeburee Nute,
constable; and a nervous little man with a smudge of smut on the side
of his nose--identity and occupation revealed by the lettering on
the side of his wagon:
T. TAYLOR
STOVES AND TINWARE
VIENNA
Mr. Luce had his rubber boots set wide apart, and his tucked-in
trousers emphasized the bow in his legs. With those legs and his
elongated neck and round, knobby head, Mr. Luce closely resembled
one of a set of antique andirons.
"You want to look out you don't squdge me too fur in this," said Mr.
Luce, warningly. "I've been squdged all my life, and I've 'bout come
to the limick. Now look out you don't squdge me too fur!"
He side-stepped and stood athwart his door, the frame of which had
been recently narrowed by half, the new boarding showing glaringly
against the old. When one understood the situation, this new boarding
had a very significant appearance.
Mr. Luce had gone over into Vienna, where his reputation for
shiftiness was not as well known, and had secured from Mr. T. Taylor,
recently set up in the stove business, a new range with all modern
attachments, promising to pay on the instalment plan. Stove once
installed, Mr. Luce had immediately begun to "improve" his mansion
by building a new door-frame too narrow to permit the exit of the
stove. Then Mr. Luce had neglected to pay, and, approached by
replevin papers, invoked the statute that provides that a man's house
cannot be ripped in pieces to secure goods purchased on credit.
Constable Nute, unable to cope with the problem, had driven to Smyrna
village and summoned the first selectman, and the Cap'n had solicited
Hiram Look to transport him, never having conquered his sailor's fear
of a horse.
"It ain't goin' to be twitted abroad in Vienny nor any other town
that we let you steal from outsiders in any such way as this,"
declared the first selectman, once on the ground. "Folks has allus
cal'lated on your stealin' about so much here in town in the run of
a year, and haven't made no great fuss about it. But we ain't goin'
to harbor and protect any general Red Rover and have it slurred
against this town. Take down that scantlin' stuff and let this man
have his stove."
"You can squdge me only so fur and no furder," asserted Luce, sullenly,
holding down his loose upper lip with his yellow teeth as though to
keep it from flapping in the wind. Within the mansion there was the
mellow rasp of a tin of biscuit on an oven floor, the slam of an oven
door, and Mrs. Luce appeared dusting flour from her hands. All who
knew Mrs. Luce knew that she was a persistent and insistent exponent
of the belief of the Millerites--"Go-uppers," they called the sect
in Smyrna.
"I say you've got to open up and give this man his property," cried
Cap'n Sproul, advancing on them.
"Property? Who talks of property?" demanded Mrs. Luce, her voice
hollow with the hollowness of the prophet. "No one knows the day and
the hour when we are to be swept up. It is near at hand. We shall
ride triumphant to the skies. And will any one think of property and
the vain things of this world then?"
"Prob'ly not," agreed the Cap'n, sarcastically, "and there won't be
any need of a cook-stove in the place where your husband will fetch
up. He can do all his cookin' on a toastin'-fork over an open
fire--there'll be plenty of blaze."
"Don't squdge me too fur," repeated Mr. Luce, clinging to the most
expressive warning he could muster just then.
"It's full time for that critter to be fetched up with a round turn,"
muttered Constable Nute, coming close to the elbow of the first
selectman, where the latter stood glowering on the culprit. "I reckon
you don't know as much about him as I do. When his mother was nussin'
him, a helpless babe, he'd take the pins out'n her hair, and they
didn't think it was anything but playin'. Once he stole the specs
off'm her head whilst she was nappin' with him in her arms, and jammed
'em down a hole in the back of the rockin'-chair. Whilst old Doc Burns
was vaccinatin' him--and he wa'n't more'n tew years old--he got Doc's
watch."
"Those things would kind of give you a notion he'd steal, give him
a fair chance," commented Hiram, dryly.
"He's stole ever since--everything from carpet tacks to a load of
hay," snapped the constable, "till folks don't stop to think he's
stealin'. He's got to be like rats and hossflies and other pests--you
cuss 'em, but you reckon they've come to stay."
"I've abated some of the nuisances in this town," stated the Cap'n,
"and I cal'late I'm good for this one, now that it's been stuck under
my nose. Why haven't you arrested him in times past, same as you ought
to have done?"
"Wasn't any one who would swear out complaints," said the constable.
"He's allus been threatenin' what kairosene and matches would do to
barns; and it wouldn't be no satisfaction to send 'Liah Luce to State
Prison--he ain't account enough. It wouldn't pay the loser for a
stand of buildin's--havin' him there."
Cap'n Sproul began to understand some of the sane business reasons
that guaranteed the immunity of Aholiah Luce, so long as he stuck
to petty thieving. But this international matter of the town of
Vienna seemed to the first selectman of Smyrna to be another sort
of proposition. And he surveyed the recalcitrant Mr. Luce with
malignant gaze.
"I've never seen you backed down by nobody," vouchsafed the admiring
constable, anxious to shift his own responsibility and understanding
pretty well how to do it. "I've allus said that if there was any man
could run this town the way it ought to be run you was the man to
do it."
Cap'n Sproul was not the kind to disappoint the confident flattery
of those who looked up to him. He buttoned his pea-jacket, and set
his hat firmly on his head. Mr. Luce noted these signs of belligerency
and braced his firedog legs.
"It's the meek that shall inherit, ye want to remember that!" croaked
Mrs. Luce. "And the crowned heads and the high and mighty--where will
they be then?"
"They won't be found usin' a stolen cook-stove and quotin'
Scriptur'," snorted the Cap'n in disgust.
"It ain't been stole," insisted Mr. Luce. "It was bought reg'lar,
and it can't be took away without mollywhackin' my house--and I've
got the law on my side that says you can't do it."
Cap'n Sproul was close to the banking.
"Luce," he said, savagely, "I ain't out here to-day to discuss law
p'ints nor argy doctrines of religion. You've got a stove there that
belongs to some one else, and you either pay for it or give it up.
I'm willin' to be fair and reasonable, and I'll give you fifteen
seconds to pay or tear down that door framework."
But neither alternative, nor the time allowed for acceptance, seemed
to please Mr. Luce. In sudden, weak anger at being thus cornered after
long immunity, he anathematized all authority as 'twas vested in the
first selectman of Smyrna. Several men passing in the highway held
up their horses and listened with interest.
Emboldened by his audience, spurred to desperate measures, Mr. Luce
kicked out one of his rubber boots at the advancing Cap'n. The Cap'n
promptly grasped the extended leg and yanked. Mr. Luce came off his
perch and fell on his back in the mud, and Constable Nute straddled
him instantly and held him down. With an axe that he picked up at
the dooryard woodpile, Cap'n Aaron hammered out the new door-frame,
paying no heed to Mr. Luce's threats or Mrs. Luce's maledictions.
"I don't know the law on it, nor I don't care," he muttered between
his teeth as he toiled. "All I know is, that stove belongs to T. Taylor,
of Vienny, and he's goin' to have it."
And when the new boarding lay around him in splinters and the door
was wide once more, he led the way into the kitchen.
"You undertake to throw that hot water on me, Mis' Luce," he declared,
noting what her fury was prompting, "and you'll go right up through
that roof, and it won't be no millennium that will boost you, either."
The stove man and Hiram followed him in and the disinterested
onlookers came, too, curiosity impelling them. And as they were
Smyrna farmers who had suffered various and aggravating depredations
by this same Aholiah Luce, they were willing to lend a hand even to
lug out a hot stove. The refulgent monarch of the kitchen departed,
with the tin of biscuit still browning in its interior, passed close
to the cursing Mr. Luce, lying on his back under Nute's boring knee,
and then with a lusty "Hop-ho! All together!" went into T. Taylor's
wagon.
Mr. Luce, freed now as one innocuous, leaped up and down in a perfect
ecstasy of fury. "You've squdged me too fur. You've done it at last!"
he screamed, with hysteric iteration. "You've made me a desp'rit'
outlaw."
"Outlaw! You're only a cheap sneak-thief!"
"That's right, Cap'n Sproul," remarked the constable. "He can't even
steal hens till it's dark and they can't look at him. If they turned
and put their eye on him he wouldn't dare to touch 'em."
"I don't dast to be an outlaw, hey?" shrieked Mr. Luce. The vast
injury that had been done him, this ruthless assault on his house,
his humiliation in public, and now these wanton taunts, whipped his
weak nature into frenzy. Cowards at bay are the savagest foes. Mr.
Luce ran amuck!
Spurring his resolution by howling over and over: "I don't dast to
be an outlaw, hey? I'll show ye!" he hastened with a queer sort of
stiff-legged gallop into the field, tore away some boarding, and
descended into what was evidently a hiding-place, a dry well. A
moment, and up he popped, boosting a burden. He slung it over his
shoulder and started toward them, staggering under its weight. It
was a huge sack, with something in it that sagged heavily.
"Nice sort of an outlaw he'll make--that woodchuck!" observed
Constable Nute with a cackle of mirth.
The first selectman and his supporters surveyed the approach of the
furious Mr. Luce with great complacency. If Mr. Luce had emerged with
a shot-gun in his fist and a knife in his teeth he might have presented
some semblance of an outlaw. But this bow-legged man with a sack
certainly did not seem savage. Hiram offered the humorous suggestion
that perhaps Mr. Luce proposed to restore property, and thereby
causing people to fall dead with astonishment would get his revenge
on society.
"I warned ye and you wouldn't listen," screamed the self-declared
pariah. "I said there was such a thing as squdgin' me too fur. Ye
didn't believe it. Now mebbe ye'll believe that!"
He had halted at a little distance from them, and had set down his
sack. He dove into it and held up a cylinder, something more than
half a foot long, a brown, unassuming cylinder that certainly didn't
have anything about its looks to call out all the excitement that
was convulsing Mr. Luce.
"Pee-ruse that!" squealed he. "_There's_ a lead-pencil that will
write some news for ye." He shook the cylinder at them. "And there's
plenty more of 'em in this bag." He curled his long lip back.
"Daminite!" he spat. "I'll show ye whuther I'm an outlaw or not."
"And I know where you stole it," bawled one of the bystanders
indignantly. "You stole all me and my brother bought and had stored
for a season's blastin'. Constable Nute, I call on you to arrest him
and give me back my property."
"Arrest me, hey?" repeated Mr. Luce. In one hand he shook aloft the
stick of dynamite, with its dangling fuse that grimly suggested the
detonating cap at its root. In the other hand he clutched a bunch
of matches. "You start in to arrest me and you'll arrest two miles
straight up above here, travellin' a hundred miles a minit."
"There ain't any grit in him, Nute," mumbled Cap'n Sproul. "Jest give
a whoop and dash on him."
"That sounds glib and easy," demurred the prudent officer, "but if
that man hasn't gone clean loony then I'm no jedge. I don't reckon
I'm goin' to charge any batteries."
"You'll do what I tell you to! You're an officer, and under orders."
"You told me once to take up Hiram Look's el'funt and put her in the
pound," remonstrated the constable. "But I didn't do it, and I wasn't
holden to do it. And I ain't holden to run up and git blowed to
everlastin' hackmetack with a bag of dynamite."
"Look here, Nute," cried the Cap'n, thoroughly indignant and
shifting the contention to his officer--entirely willing to ignore
Mr. Luce's threats and provocations--"I haven't called on you in a
tight place ever in my life but what you've sneaked out. You ain't
fit for even a hog-reeve. I'm going to cancel your constable
appointment, that's what I'll do when I get to town hall."
"I'll do it right now," declared the offended Mr. Nute, unpinning
his badge. "Any time you've ordered me to do something sensible I've
done it. But el'funts and lunatics and dynamite and some of the other
jobs you've unlo'ded onto me ain't sensible, and I won't stand for
'em. You can't take me in the face and eyes of the people and rake
me over." He had noted that the group in the highway had considerably
increased. "I've resigned."
Mr. Luce was also more or less influenced and emboldened and pricked
on by being the centre of eyes. As long as he seemed to be expected
to give a show, he proposed to make it a good one. His flaming eyes
fell on T. Taylor, busy over the stove, getting it ready for its
journey back to Vienna. Mr. Taylor, happy in the recovery of his
property, was paying little attention to outlaws or official
disputes. He had cleaned out the coals and ashes, and having just
now discovered the tin of biscuit, tossed it away. This last seemed
too much for Mr. Luce's self-control.
"I don't dast to be an outlaw, hey?" he cried, hoarsely. "That stove
is too good for me, is it? My wife's biskits throwed into the mud
and mire!"
He lighted the fuse of the dynamite, ran to the team and popped the
explosive into the stove oven and slammed the door. Then he flew to
his sack, hoisted it to his shoulder and staggered back toward the
dry well.
At this critical juncture there did not arise one of those rare
spirits to perform an act of noble self-sacrifice. There have been
those who have tossed spluttering bombs into the sea; who have
trodden out hissing fuses. But just then no one seemed to care for
the exclusive and personal custody of that stick of dynamite.
All those in teams whipped up, yelling like madmen, and those on foot
grabbed on behind and clambered over tailboards. Cap'n Sproul,
feeling safer on his own legs than in Hiram's team, pounded away down
the road with the speed of a frantic Percheron. And in all this panic
T. Taylor, only dimly realizing that there was something in his stove
that was going to cause serious trouble, obeyed the exhortations
screamed at him, cut away his horse, straddled the beast's back and
fled with the rest.
The last one in sight was Mrs. Luce, who had shown serious intentions
of remaining on the spot as though she feared to miss anything that
bore the least resemblance to the coming of the last great day. But
she suddenly obeyed her husband, who was yelling at her over the edge
of the hole, and ran and fell in by his side.
Missiles that screamed overhead signalized to the scattered
fugitives the utter disintegration of T. Taylor's stove. The hearth
mowed off a crumbly chimney on the Luce house, and flying fragments
crushed out sash in the windows of the abandoned main part. Cap'n
Sproul was the first one to reappear, coming from behind a distant
tree. There was a hole in the ground where T. Taylor's wagon had
stood.
"Daminite!" screamed a voice. Mr. Luce was dancing up and down on
the edge of his hole, shaking another stick of the explosive. "I'll
show ye whuther I'm an outlaw or not! I'll have this town down on
its knees. I'll show ye what it means to squdge me too fur. I give
ye fair warnin' from now on. I'm a desp'rit' man. They'll write novels
about me before I'm done. Try to arrest me, will ye? I'll take the
whole possy sky-hootin' with me when ye come." He was drunk with power
suddenly revealed to him.
He lifted the sack out of the hole and, paying no heed to some apparent
expostulations of Mrs. Luce, he staggered away up the hillside into
the beech growth, bowed under his burden. And after standing and
gazing for some time at the place where he disappeared, the first
selectman trudged down the road to where Hiram was waiting for him,
soothing his trembling horse.
"Well," said the old showman, with a vigorous exhalation of breath
to mark relief, "get in here and let's go home. Accordin' to my notion,
replevinin' and outlawin' ain't neither sensible or fashionable or
healthy. Somethin' that looked like a stove-cover and sounded like
a howlaferinus only just missed me by about two feet. That critter's
dangerous to be let run loose. What are you goin' to do about him?"
"Ketch him," announced the Cap'n, sturdily.
"Well," philosophized Hiram, "smallpox is bad when it's runnin'
round loose, but it's a blastnation sight worse when it's been
ketched. You're the head of the town and I ain't, and I ain't
presumin' to advise, but I'd think twice before I went to runnin'
that bag o' dynamite into close corners. Luce ain't no account, and
no more is an old hoss-pistol, but when a hoss-pistol busts it's a
dangerous thing to be close to. You let him alone and mebbe he'll
quiet down."
But that prophecy did not take into account the state of mind of the
new outlaw of Smyrna.