reëlected, as usual.
“Now,” he continued, “havin’ got this turr’ble weight offen our chests,
the next business’ll be the ’lection of a new boss, fer Sophy Perkins
has left us. She’s gone way off some’rs where the winds are blowin’ an’
she’ll never come back. Mr. Posey has been suggested fer new secretary
an’ treasurer. Does anybody nominate ’im?”
“He’d be a good man to take in the money, but he’d make a hell of a
secretary!” shouted somebody in the crowd.
“Never mind, does somebody nominate ’im?” continued Bill.
“How d’ye know Sophy’ll never come back?” demanded another voice from
the rear.
“How do I know? How do I know anything? Shut up!” replied the chair with
asperity.
Mr. Posey modestly declined his impending honors, but was elected.
“The next business,” announced Bill, “is the report o’ the chair on the
case o’ Mr. Josh Varney. Some o’ you’ll prob’ly faintly recollect of ’is
havin’ been among us some time ago.”
He then related the story of Plunkett, revealed the sins of Varney in
all their sable hues and commented caustically on the soft headedness of
the victims of that artful tactician.
“All you fellers has been just as easy marks fer Josh as them ten
turkeys in them boxes was a year ago. Some day we may ketch the
perfessor, but knowin’ ’im as I do, I don’t b’lieve we will. He bruised
a lot o’ gold shekels out o’ this bunch with that pale fowl, an’ besides
’e made us feel bad.”
Mr. Rat Hyatt was now recognized by the chair.
“Fer years,” said Rat, “all of us has called Sophy Perkins ‘the
stinger,’ an’ she was a stinger, but I now move you, Mr. Chairman, that
that title be hereby shifted offen ’er an’ put on that pink eyed turkey
man.”
The motion was unanimously carried and ordered spread upon the records
that Sophy had left at the store.
The meeting then adjourned.
As we left I casually mentioned the fine weather we were having.
“Yes, it’s been a phenonomous year,” replied Bill, thoughtfully.
VIII
THE PREDICAMENTS OF COLONEL PEETS[1]
Near one of the picturesque bends of the river, about half a mile above
the beginning of the Big Marsh, was the home of Col. Jasper M. Peets, a
doughty warrior, who had fought valiantly for the Lost Cause, and was
spending his declining years in a troubled twilight.
Footnote 1:
The author acknowledges his indebtedness to Mr. T. H. Ball, of Crown
Point, Ind., for a portion of the material used in this story.
The Colonel was an exotic. Perverse fates had transplanted him into a
strange clime. All that anybody along the river knew of his history, up
to the time of his arrival, had come from his own lips, and none of it
was to his discredit.
I had made his acquaintance at Posey’s store, where he frequently came
for supplies. Muskrat Hyatt cautioned me not to have anything to do with
him.
“That feller’s bad medicine,” he declared. “He’s worse’n I am, an’
that’s sayin’ a whole lot. If you ever go down to his place, you keep
yer cash in yer shoes an’ don’t you take ’em off while you’re there.”
The little farm, with its dilapidated house and barn, had come to the
Colonel as an inheritance from a distant relative whom he had never
seen. The old pioneer, who had died there, had spent years of toil,
patient and unremitting, in clearing the land and coaxing a precarious
livelihood from the reluctant soil. He had left no will and the Colonel
was the nearest surviving relative.
The Colonel explained that this “fahm” and a “small passel of land down
south” was all that he now possessed in the world. The “iron heel of the
oppressah” had destroyed everything else. His “beautiful mansion on the
Cumbe’land,” and all his “niggahs,” had been lost in the fury of the
conflict. His “pussonal fo’tune” was a wreck.
He was over seventy, and quite gray, but his erect military figure and
splendid health somewhat belied his years. He was rather indolent in his
movements, but as he sat in his hickory arm chair before the stone fire
place, the lights that played over his storm beaten features pictured a
warrior in repose.
His heavy moustache was trained down in horseshoe fashion on each side
of his chin, and then twisted outward in a way that gave his face a
redoubtable expression when he frowned. He would often stand before the
three-cornered piece of mirror attached to the outside of the house,
combing and recombing the bellicose ornament, and observing it
attentively, until he achieved particular curves at the ends that
pleased his fancy. Apparently he affected a formidable facial aspect,
becoming to one who had led charging men.
[Illustration:
COLONEL JASPER M. PEETS
]
Evidently he had somewhere received a fair education, but outside of
fiction, a field he had widely covered, he seemed to have little
interest in books. His former environment had left a romantic polish,
heightened by a florid imagination. His character had been moulded by
the traditions of the south and they were the only religion he had. His
vanity was delightful, and he had the heart of a child. Little gifts of
tobacco and cigars made him happy for hours, and there was a subtle
lovable quality about him that radiated even in his foibles.
The old house stood on the rising ground, among tall elms and walnuts,
about two hundred feet from the river. It had never been painted. Some
of the clapboards and shingles were missing and others were loose. When
the wind blew, stray currents permeated the structure, and there were
mournful sounds between the walls—like the moanings of uneasy ghosts.
The little log barn was decayed and tenantless, with the exception of a
few scraggly hens and a vicious looking old game cock. The Colonel had
bought him somewhere and annexed him to his estate—possibly as a
concession to his early sporting instincts, or for sympathetic reasons.
They were both warriors of better days.
In an enclosure beyond the barn were half a dozen young razor backed
pigs. These noisy shoats were a continual source of irritation to the
Colonel. He declared that he would shoot the two sopranos and let the
other pork loose if Seth Mussey, who looked after them, did not put
muzzles on them or find some other way of keeping them quiet at night.
The Colonel did not do any “wo’k on the fahm.” This was attended to by
Mussey “on shares.” Mussey lived a quarter of a mile away, and was the
only neighbor. The “shares” were not very remunerative, but, added to
the Colonel’s other small resources, they made existence possible.
A narrow path led down to the river bank, where the Colonel kept his row
boat and a small duck canoe which he propelled with a long paddle. The
landing consisted of a couple of logs secured with stakes, and overlaid
with planks. During high water in the spring the landing usually floated
away and a new one was built when the freshets subsided. There was an
air of general shiftlessness about the place that would have been
depressing to anybody who did not know its eccentric proprietor.
He spent much of his time fishing on the river in the summer and early
fall until the ducks began to come in. During the game seasons he acted
as host, guide and “pusher” for duck hunters, who sometimes spent weeks
with him. They had rare sport on the big marsh, but were compelled to
suffer some hardships at the Colonel’s house. He did the cooking, or
rather he heated the things that were eaten, and some of them baffled
analysis.
One of his guests once told of a “mud-hen hash” that the Colonel had
compounded, in which there were many feathers, and of some “snapping
turtle soup” where all was lost but the adjective. The complaining
visitor had slept on the floor, with a bag of shelled corn for a pillow,
and the unholy mess, with a cup of doubtful coffee, had been served for
breakfast, but he soon got “broken in” and learned to put up with these
things if he wanted to shoot ducks with the Colonel.
The various dishes, when cooked for the first time, could usually be
identified, but succeeding compositions were culinary by-products, and
afforded few clues to their component parts, except to a continuous and
very observant guest.
I once ate some “fish chowder” with the Colonel, which, if it had been
called almost anything else, would have been really very good. I never
knew the ingredients, and doubt if its author could have reconstructed
it, or have given an accurate account of its contents. Some one has
aptly said, “if you want to be happy don’t inquire into things,” and the
injunction seemed quite applicable to the Colonel’s fare.
There are many accidents—both happy and sad—in cookery. A wise cook is
never free with recipes, for, in any art, formula dissipates mystery
that is often essential to appreciation. Some cooks enter where angels
fear to tread, and when the trip is successful the glory is properly
theirs. Their task is thankless, and malediction is upon them when they
fail. They are in contact with elemental instincts, and their occupation
is perilous, for they are between an animal and its meat.
One stormy night we sat before the crackling fire. The loose clapboards
rattled outside and the big trees were grumbling in the wind. Water
dripped from the leaky roof and little streams crept across the floor.
I had come down the river in a small rowboat, and intended to spend a
week fishing for bass in the stream and sketching in the big marsh.
“You must pa’don the appeahance of things ’round heah,” remarked the
Colonel. “Theah is a lot of fixin’ up to be done, and the weatheh has
been so pleasant lately that that infe’nal Mussey has had to wo’k out
doahs. If this weatheh stays bad he will come in heah an’ straighten
things up.”
He had queer notions regarding work. There were some things that he
would do diligently, and others he considered beneath his dignity. The
line of demarcation was confused, and I was never quite able to be
certain of it. He cooked and partially washed the dishes, but never
swept the floors, or fed the chickens and shoats at the barn. He never
repaired anything except under urgent necessity, and his idea of order
was not to disturb anything after he had let go of it.
“You may be interested to know, suh, that I have been occupying my
spaiah time writing my memoahs,” he continued. “I have collected the
scattehed reco’ds of my careah. I have no descendants, an’ I may say to
you confidentially, as one gentleman to anotheh, that I do not expect
any, suh, so theah will be nobody to take pride in my literary wo’k
afteh I am gone, but the gene’l public, but as a paht of the history of
the south, durin’ its period of great trial, I think my memoahs would be
valuable.
“I am going to put my memoahs in the fawm of a novel, suh, an’ I have
had to mix up a lot of otheh people in it who ah, to some extent,
fictitious, so my book will be a combination of fact and romance. I have
thought it all oveh. I am of the opinion that a book to be populah must
be a story. It must have a plot, and somebody must get married on the
last page. I am writing such a story, suh, and am weaving the main
incidents of my careah into the plot. In this way I will get my history
befoah a great many people who nevah read memoahs. I will gild what is
the real pill, so to speak, by dipping it into the bright hued watehs of
romance.
“I am having a great deal of trouble with my plot, suh. Theah is a
fellah in it by the name of Puddington Calkins. I want to kill this
cussed Calkins, but if I kill ’im I will have nobody to marry to the
mystehious veiled lady that I see in the dim distance. She is gliding
towa’d the web of my plot, but I do not yet know whetheh she comes upon
an errand of vengeance, or to demand justice foh her child. This veiled
lady is pe’fumed with tube rose, suh, and I hate to leave her out, foh,
with the exception of bou’bon, tube rose is my favorite odeh, and that
reminds me, suh—pahdon me just one moment.”
The Colonel arose and went to the cupboard. He brought forth a tall
bottle, poured a liberal dose into a tin cup, and swallowed it with
impressive solemnity.
“That bou’bon came f’om Tennessee. It was sent to me by an old friend
who was related to Jedge Benton of Nashville. When the Jedge died he had
two bar’ls of this noble fluid in his cellah, and one of them was left
to my friend in the Jedge’s will. It had been twenty-foah yeahs in the
wood, suh. I was fo’tunate enough to be presented with some of that
wonde’ful whiskey. I am sorry, suh, that you do not indulge, foh you ah
missin’ something that puts spangles on a sad life, suh!
“Most people drink whiskey foh its alcohol, and such people, suh, should
pat’onize a drug stoah. A gentleman drinks it foh its flavah, and that
reminds me, suh, that birdy cannot fly with one wing, an’ if you’ll
pahdon me I’ll take anotheh.”
After replacing what was left of the “bou’bon,” the Colonel stuffed some
fragrant tobacco into a much darkened cob pipe, contemplated the
ascending wreaths for a while, and reverted to his novel.
“The plot of that story is a pe’plexity to me, suh. I think of things to
put in it when I am out on the rivah, and when I get back I fo’get what
they ah. I am going to get some moah papeh and write the whole thing
oveh. Maybe I will kill that infe’nal Pud Calkins and I will myself
marry that female whose face is concealed. Somebody must marry her or
she will be left without suppo’t at the end of the book. People will
nevah buy my memoahs. They will look in the back, and if theah is no
wedding theah, they will cast the volume aside.
“That Pud Calkins is much on my mind, suh. He is a predicament. He wakes
me f’om my slumbehs, an’ sits beside me at my humble meals. He has
dammed up the flow of my fancy in my novel, suh. I have nevah read a
novel that had anything like him in it. He is a damned nuisance, suh,
and he has got to go.
“The next time you come down I would like to read to you what I have
written. It is too much mixed up now, but I will have it all in o’deh
when you come again. And anotheh thing that bothehs me is my chestnut
filly that I rode durin’ the wah. I have got to have her in the story. I
rode her through battle smoke and oveh fields of ca’nage. I was at the
head of my men, suh, an’ ev’ry fall of her hoofs was on dead Yankees
that fell befoah ouah onslaught. It would break my heaht if Pud Calkins
should evah ride that hawss, even in a story, and yet Pud Calkins was on
the field where I fell covehed with wounds, and he rode some hawss home
to tell the tale, and if he had some otheh hawss, I would have to leave
my filly out, foh only one live hawss was left at the end of that
cha’ge, and that was the one I fell f’om, an’ Great Gawd, man, I
couldn’t kill my filly!
“Of co’se my hawss will succumb in my memoahs to the immutable laws of
natcha, but that must appeah as the reco’d of the actual fact, afteh the
wah was oveh. She will not die by my hand, even in fiction—no, suh! I
will kill Pud Calkins a thousand times first, suh!
“The prepahation of all this written matteh has been a great labah to
me, but it has occupied many houahs that would othe’wise be unbeahable
in this Gawd fo’saken country. I sit heah by my fiah and wo’k with my
pen, but this Pud Calkins is always by my side, suh.”
Barring a few unavoidable discomforts, I spent a very pleasant week with
the Colonel. The fishing had been good, and there was a world of
interest and joy in the stretches of the great marsh, teeming with wild
life, and filled with the gentle melodies of hidden waters.
I paid mine host his modest bill, bade him good bye at the landing,
rowed up stream, and, after spending a day with Tipton Posey at Bundy’s
Bridge, left the river country.
It was six months before I returned. I sought the Colonel and found him
much changed. A trouble had come upon him. His eye had lost its lustre,
he had an air of listlessness and preoccupation, and he looked older.
It seemed that there had been great excitement in the county after my
departure, and the Colonel had been the storm center.
When we had finished our simple evening meal, and had lighted our pipes
before the fire, the Colonel handed me a copy of _The Index_, the weekly
paper, published at the county seat. Its date was about four months old.
“I would like to have you read that, suh, and then I will hand you
anotheh.”
On the front page were some glaring headlines: THE BURGLARY!!!—THE
EXPLOSION!!!—THE PURSUIT!!! I read the account with deep interest, which
was as follows:
“On Monday morning of June 10th a crowd assembled in front of the County
Treasurer’s office at the Court House, amid very unusual circumstances.
Nearly seven thousand dollars were known to have been in the safe
Saturday night, and now as the anxious citizens crowded through the
door, they saw a ruined open safe, and abundant evidences of a fearful
explosion. A steel drill, some files, and an empty can that had probably
contained the explosive compound, were scattered about on the floor. The
rugs were in a pile near the safe, where they had probably been used to
muffle the explosion. The money was gone.
“It was learned that a stranger of singular appearance, and marked
individualities, with a gray coat, a heavy gray moustache and long chin
whiskers, who entered the town last Friday, and had been observed by
many of the citizens during Friday and Saturday, had deposited at the
Treasurer’s office, for safe keeping, a box represented to contain
valuables. This box, made of tin, some eight inches in length and five
in width, was deposited on Friday, and taken out on Saturday morning. It
was again deposited on Saturday afternoon, to be called for on Monday
morning.
“The county treasurer, the Hon. Truman W. Pettibone, had gone fishing on
Thursday and expected to remain away until Tuesday, as is his custom
during the summer months.
“The mysterious stranger was waited on by Mr. J. Milton Tuttle, the
courteous and well known clerk in the treasurer’s office. Mr. Tuttle’s
charming daughter has just returned from a visit to her aunt in Oak
Grove township—but we digress. J. Milton Tuttle had no suspicions, and
retired at evening to his home and his interesting family.
“The stranger was thought by several citizens to have taken the evening
train, but was seen lurking around town, with a slouch hat pulled well
down over his eyes, at a late hour Saturday night. He entered the Busy
Bee Buffet at eleven o’clock and was served by Mr. Oscar Sheets, the
gentlemanly bartender. He immediately departed. It is supposed that he
spent the night in some barn.
“It was ascertained that the tall and singular looking man, in the gray
coat, who appeared to be disguised, was seen on Sunday morning to enter
the front door of the Court House. This door, as is well known, is
usually left open on Sunday for the convenience of Sunday callers who
wish to read the legal notices on the bulletin board in the hallway.
“Miss Anastasia Simpson, an unmarried lady, living near the Court House,
noticed particularly that the stranger was very distinguished looking.
She watched from her window for his reappearance, which did not take
place until three in the afternoon, when he departed seemingly in a
state of great perturbation and excitement.
[Illustration:
MISS ANASTASIA SIMPSON
]
“It was ascertained that Mr. Wellington Peters, proprietor of the
prominent and well known low priced hardware store bearing his name, and
whose business is advertised in our columns, while standing on the
corner talking with a traveling man near the hotel, heard a dull booming
sound from the direction of the court house, at about 2:45 P.M., but
thinking that it was boys making some kind of a racket, he paid no
attention to it. Several other prominent and well known citizens heard
the same sound at the same hour.
“The tall and mysterious stranger was seen by Miss Simpson to walk south
after leaving the court house. She went to another window to further
observe him, but he had disappeared.
“The little tin box which the artful and designing robber had left ‘for
safe keeping’ with J. Milton Tuttle, and which he locked up in the safe,
was opened and found to contain nothing but a bag of sand.
“It was evident to all that the tin box was a subterfuge. It was used as
an excuse to visit and inspect the ‘lay of the land’ in the office of
the treasurer of our county.
“About noon, on Monday, a posse was formed by the Hon. Cyrus Butts, our
gentlemanly and efficient sheriff. The posse, consisting of three
prominent and well known citizens, Oliver K. Gardner, Silas B. Kendall
and Elmer Dinwiddie, accompanied by the sheriff, made a circuit of the
town. They ascertained that the mysterious stranger had stopped at the
pleasant little home of Mr. Mike Carney, the genial and well known
butcher of our town, and asked for a drink of water, which was given
him. He had then taken a southerly direction along the section line
road. The posse procured Toppington Smith’s mottled blood hound and put
the intelligent animal on the trail of the fleeing burglar. The pursuit
continued for about twelve miles. The fugitive was evidently making a
bee line along the section road for the river marshes. A team was met on
the road, with a load of baled hay, and impressed into service. All of
the bales but two were unloaded and left by the roadside. The two bales
were retained on the wagon for use as a barricade in case of a revolver
battle with the burglar.
“Drivers of teams, met along the route, reported seeing a man enter the
woods before they met him, and go back into the road a long ways behind
them after they had passed. The variations in the course taken by the
hound confirmed this.
“About ten o’clock at night there was a full moon. The trail left the
road and led into some thick underbrush, near a small slough. Some smoke
issued from the brush, where the fugitive had evidently built a fire and
expected to spend the night. The place was surrounded and the posse
cautiously advanced, but the burglar was gone. It was thought that the
cunning malefactor had got wind of his pursuers, that he had turned
aside and lighted this fire in the brush with a view of delaying and
baffling those behind him with artful strategy.
“The hound left the brush, and a few minutes later a tall figure, with a
light gray coat, was seen a few hundred yards away on a bare ridge in
the moonlight. It was unquestionably the fugitive and the hound was with
him. The posse opened fire with revolvers, but at such a distance it was
futile. The man and the dog disappeared over the ridge into the woods.
The burglar had escaped, and the dog had evidently joined forces with
him.
“Further pursuit that night was considered hopeless. The posse slept at
a farm house and resumed the search Tuesday morning. They found the dog
tied to a tree near the edge of the big marsh, there were tracks in the
soft mud at the margin of the slough, and an old boat belonging to a
farmer in the vicinity was gone. There were marks in the mud showing
where the boat had been shoved out to the water.
“The pursuit was abandoned and the posse returned home. A full
description of the robber was sent broadcast, and it is thought that his
capture is only a matter of time.
“Up to the hour of going to press there are no further particulars to
record, but we hope that before our next issue, justice will triumph,
and the burglar with his ill gotten booty will be within its grasp.”
“And now, suh, will you please cast youah eye oveh this reco’d of
infamy,” requested the Colonel, as he handed me a later copy of the same
paper.
The next account was headed:
“ARRESTED!!!—PRELIMINARY
HEARING!!!—HABEAS CORPUS!!!”
and it read as follows:
“We are able to announce that the crafty and resourceful robber of the
county treasurer’s office, who so successfully eluded the grasp of his
pursuers, and made good his retreat into the river marshes, has probably
been apprehended.
“The evidence seems to indicate that one Col. Peets, who lives on a
small farm on the river, above the marsh, is the culprit.
“He was captured there by the sheriff, the day after our last week’s
issue was in the hands of the public. He offered no resistance. The
information that led to his capture was received from Mr. Tipton Posey
who keeps the well known general store near Bundy’s Bridge. Mr. Posey
stated that the description of the robber, printed in this paper,
exactly fitted Col. Peets, with the exception of the chin whiskers,
which he thought were false.