As the great occasion drew nearer, Mr. Tate redoubled his epistolary
efforts. He was goaded by two reasons. He had not secured his notables
for the literary programme; he would soon have neither excuse nor
stamps for collecting autographs. He descended into the lower levels
of genius and fame. He wound up his campaign of solicitation with
a stack of letters that made the Cap'n gasp. But the chairman gave
out the stamps with a certain amount of savage satisfaction in doing
it, for some of the other hateful treasury-raiders would have to go
without, and he anticipated that Poet Tate, suggester of the piracy,
would meet up with proper retribution from his own ilk when the
committee in final round-up discovered how great an inroad the
autograph-seeker had made in the funds. The Cap'n had shrewd
fore-vision as to just how Smyrna would view the expenditure of money
in that direction.
For the first time, he gazed on his secretary with a sort of kindly
light in his eyes, realizing and relishing the part that Consetena
was playing. On his own part, Poet Tate welcomed this single gleam
of kindly feeling, as the Eskimo welcomes the first glimpse of the
vernal sun. He ran to his portfolio.
"I have it finished, Captain!" he cried. "It is the effort of my life.
To you I offer it first of all--you shall have the first bloom of
it. It begins"--he clutched the bulky manuscript in shaking
hands--"it begins:
"Ethereal Goddess, come, oh come, I pray,
And press thy fingers, on this festal day,
Upon my fevered brow and--"
"May I ask what you're settin' about to do, there?" inquired Cap'n
Sproul, balefully.
"It is my poem! I am about to read it to you, to offer it to you as
head of our municipality. I will read it to you."
The Cap'n waited for the explanation patiently. He seemed to want
to make sure of the intended enormity of the offence. He even
inquired: "How much do you reckon there is of it?"
"Six thousand lines," said Mr. Tate, with an author's pride.
"Pote Tate," he remarked, solemnly, "seein' that you haven't ever
been brought in very close touch with deep-water sailors, and don't
know what they've had to contend with, and how their dispositions
get warped, and not knowin' my private opinion of men-grown potes,
you've set here day by day and haven't realized the chances you've
been takin'. Just one ordinary back-handed wallop, such as would only
tickle a Portygee sailor, would mean wreaths and a harp for you! Thank
God, I haven't ever forgot myself, not yet. Lay that pome back, and
tie them covers together with a hard knot."
The Cap'n's ominous calm, his evident effort to repress even a loud
tone, troubled Poet Tate more than violence would have done. He took
himself and his portfolio away. As he licked his stamps in the
post-office he privately confided to the postmistress his conviction
that Cap'n Sproul was not exactly in his right mind at all times,
thus unconsciously reciprocating certain sentiments of his chairman
regarding the secretary's sanity.
"I don't think I'll go back to the office," said Mr. Tate. "I have
written all my letters. All those that come here in printed envelopes
for Captain Sproul I will take, as secretary."
At the end of another ten days, and on the eve of the centennial,
Mr. Tate had made an interesting discovery. It was to the effect that
although genius in the higher altitudes is not easily come at, and
responds by courteous declinations and regrets, genius in the lower
levels is still desirous of advertising and an opportunity to shine,
and can be cajoled by promise of refunded expenses and lavish
entertainment as guest of the municipality.
The last batch of letters of invitation, distributed among those
lower levels of notability, elicited the most interesting autograph
letters of all; eleven notables accepted the invitation to deliver
the oration of the day; a dozen or so announced that they would be
present and speak on topics connected with the times, and one and
all assured Captain Aaron Sproul that they thoroughly appreciated
his courtesy, and looked forward to a meeting with much pleasure,
and trusted, etc., etc.
Poet Tate, mild, diffident, unpractical Poet Tate, who in all his
life had never been called upon to face a crisis, did not face this
one.
The bare notion of going to Cap'n Aaron Sproul and confessing made
his brain reel. The memory of the look in the Cap'n's eyes, evoked
by so innocent a proposition as the reading of six thousand lines
of poetry to him, made Mr. Tate's fluttering heart bang against his
ribs. Even when he sat down to write a letter, making the confession,
his teeth chattered and his pen danced drunkenly. It made him so faint,
even to put the words on paper, that he flung his pen away.
A more resourceful man, a man with something in his head besides
dreams, might have headed off the notables. But in his panic Poet
Tate became merely a frightened child with the single impulse to flee
from the mischief he had caused. With his poem padding his thin chest,
he crept out of his father's house in the night preceding the great
day, and the blackness swallowed him up. Uneasy urchins in the
distant village were already popping the first firecrackers of the
celebration. Poet Tate groaned, and fled.
Cap'n Aaron Sproul arrived at the town office next morning in a frame
of mind distinctly unamiable. Though his house was far out of the
village, the unearthly racket of the night had floated up to
him--squawking horns, and clanging bells, and exploding powder. The
hundred cannons at sunrise brought a vigorous word for each
reverberation. At an early hour Hiram Look had come over, gay in his
panoply as chief of the Ancient and Honorables, and repeated his
insistent demand that the Cap'n ride at the head of the parade in
an imported barouche, gracing the occasion as head of the
municipality.
"The people demand it," asseverated Hiram with heat. "The people have
rights over you."
"Same as they had over that surplus in the town treasury, hey?"
inquired the Cap'n. "What's that you're luggin' in that paper as
though 'twas aigs?"
"It's one of my plug hats that I was goin' to lend you," explained
his friend, cheerily. "I've rigged it up with a cockade. I figger
that we can't any of us be too festal on a day like this. I know you
ain't no ways taken to plug hats; but when a man holds office and
the people look to him for certain things, he has to bow down to the
people. We're goin' to have a great and glorious day of this, Cap,"
he cried, all his showman's soul infected by gallant excitement, and
enthusiasm glowing in his eyes. It was a kind of enthusiasm that Cap'n
Sproul's gloomy soul resented.
"I've had consid'able many arguments with you, Hiram, over this
affair, first and last, and just at present reck'nin' I'm luggin'
about all the canvas my feelin's will stand. Now I won't wear that
damnation stove-funnel hat; I won't ride in any baroosh; I won't make
speeches; I won't set up on any platform. I'll simply set in town
office and 'tend to my business, and draw orders on the treasury to
pay bills, as fast as bills are presented. That's what I started out
to do, and that's all I will do. And if you don't want to see me jibe
and all go by the board, you keep out of my way with your plug hats
and barooshes. And it might be well to inform inquirin' friends to
the same effect."
He pushed away the head-gear that Hiram still extended toward him,
and tramped out of the house and down the hill with his sturdy
sea-gait. Dodging firecrackers that sputtered and banged in the
highway about his feet, and cursing soulfully, he gained the town
office and grimly sat himself down.
He knew when the train from down-river and the outside world had
arrived by the riotous accessions to the crowds without in the square.
Firemen in red shirts thronged everywhere. Men who wore feathered
hats and tawdry uniforms filled the landscape. He gazed on them with
unutterable disgust.
A stranger awakened him from his reverie on the vanities of the world.
The stranger had studied the sign