The twenty-first of June was a day of memorable triumph to me, a day of
memorable events for Radville.
Only the evening previous Will Bigelow and I had indulged in
acrimonious argument in the office of the Bigelow House, the subject of
contention being the importance of the work to which I am devoting my
declining years, to wit, the recording of _The History of Radville
Township, Westerly County, Pennsylvania_; Will maintaining with that
obstinacy for which he is famous, that nothing ever had happened, does
happen, can or will happen in our community, I insisting gently but
firmly that it knows no day unmarked by important occurrence (for it
would ill become me, as the only literary man in Radville, to yield a
point in dispute with the proprietor of the town tavern). Besides, he
was wrong, even as I was indisputably right--only he had not the grace
to admit it. We ended vulgarly with a bet, Will wagering me the best
five-cent Clear Havana in the Bigelow House sample-room that nothing
worth mentioning would take place in Radville before sundown of the
following day.
I left him, returning to my room at Miss Carpenter's (Will and I are
old friends, but I refuse to eat the food he serves his guests), warmed
by the prospect of certain triumph if a little appalled by the prospect
of winning the stake; and sympathising a little with Will, who, for all
his egregious stubborness, has some excuse for upholding his
unreasonable and ridiculous views. He knows no better, having never had
the opportunity to find out for himself how utterly absurd are his
claims for the outside world. Whereas I have.
He's an adventurer at heart, Will Bigelow, a romantic soul crusted
heavily with character--like a volcano smouldering beneath its lava.
For many years he has managed the Bigelow House, with his thoughts
apart from it, his eyes ever seeking the horizon that recedes beyond
the soaring rim of our encircling cup of hills, his heart forever
yearning forth to the outer world; which he erroneously conceives to be
a theatre of events--as if outside of Radville only could there be
things worth seeing, considering, or doing, or matters of any sort that
move momentously! As long as I've known the man (and we played truant
together fifty years ago--hookey, we called it then) he's had his heart
set on going forth from Radville, "for to admire and for to see, for to
view this wide world o'er"; always he has presented himself to me as
one poised on the pinnacle of purpose, ready the next instant to dive
and strike out into the teeming unknown beyond the barrier hills. But
this promise he has never fulfilled. He still maintains that he will
surely go--next week--after the hayin's over--as soon as the ice is
in--the minute Mary graduates from High School. ... But I know he never
will.
So to Will Radville is as dull as ditchwater to a teamster; to me it's
as fascinating as that same ditchwater to a biologist with a
microscope. I see nothing going on in the world outside of Radville
more important than our daily life. Too long I have lived away from it,
a stranger in strange lands, not to appreciate its relative
significance in the scheme of things. It makes all the difference--the
view-point: Will sees Radville from its homely heart outwards, I stand
on its boundaries, a native but yet, somehow in the local esteem (by
reason of my long residence in the East) an outlander. Thus I get a
perspective upon the place, to Will and his ilk denied.
It seems curious that things should have fallen out thus for the two of
us: that Will Bigelow, all afire with the lust for travel, should never
have mustered up enterprise enough to break his home ties, whilst I
whose dearest desire had always been to live no day of my alloted span
away from Radville, should have been, in a manner which I'm bound
presently to betray, forced out into the world; that he, the rebellious
stay-at-home, cursing the destiny which chained him, should have
prospered and become the man of substance he is, while I, mutinously
venturing, should have returned only to watch my sands run out in
poverty--what's little better.
Not that I would have you think me whining: I have enough, little but
ample for my simple needs, if inadequate for my ambitions or my
neighbours' necessities. My editorial work for the _Radville
Citizen_ is quite remunerative, while my weekly column of local
gossip for the _Westerly Gazette_ brings me in a little, and I've
one or two other modest sources of still more modest income. But
Radville folks are poor, many of them, many who are very dear to me for
old sake's sake. There's Sam Graham.... Though I wouldn't have you
understand that as a community we are not moderately prosperous and
contented, comfortable if not energetic and advanced. This is not a
pushing town: it has never known a boom. That I'm sure will some day
come, but I hope not in my time. I have faith in the mountains that
fold us roundabout; they are rich with the possibilities of coal and
iron, and year by year are being more and more widely opened up and
developed; year by year the ranks of flaming, reeking coke ovens push
farther on beside the railway that penetrates our valley. But as yet
their smoke does not foul our skies, nor does their refuse pollute our
river, nor their soot tarnish our vegetation. And as I say, I hope this
is not to be while I live, though sometimes I have fears: Blinky
Lockwood made a fortune selling the coal that was discovered beneath
his father's old farm over Westerly way, and ever since that there's
been more or less quiet prospecting going on in our vicinity. I shall
be sorry to see the day when Radville is other than as it is: the
quiet, peaceful, sleepy little town, nestling in the bosom of the
hills, clean, sweet and wholesome....
But this is rambling far from the momentous twenty-first of June, my
day of triumph.
I shall try to set down connectedly and coherently the events which
culminated in the humbling of Will Bigelow to the dust.
To begin with, we were early startled by the rumour that Hiram Nutt,
theretofore deemed unconquerable, had been disastrously defeated at
checkers in Willoughby's grocery--and that by Watty the tailor, of all
men in Radville. The rumour was confirmed by eleven in the forenoon,
and in itself should have provided us with a nine days' wonder.
As it happened, an event happening almost simultaneously confused our
minds. At eleven-fifteen Miss Carpenter's household was thrown into
consternation by the scandalous behaviour of her black cat, Caesar, who
chose suddenly to terminate a long and outwardly respectable career as
Miss Carpenter's familiar by having kittens under the horse-hair sofa
in the parlour. Incidentally this indelicate and ungentlemanly
behaviour temporarily unloosed the hinges of Miss Carpenter's reason,
so that my supper suffered that evening, and for several days she
wandered round the house with blank and witless eyes. Perhaps I should
have warned her, for I had latterly come to suspect Caesar of leading a
double life; but for reasons which seemed sufficient I had refrained.
By the noon train Roland Barnette received his new summer suit from
Chicago. I did not see it till evening, but heard of it before one,
since Roland donned it immediately and wore it to the bank that very
afternoon. I understand it caused something very near a run on the
bank; people came in to draw a dollar or so or get change and lingered
to feast their outraged visions, so that Blinky Lockwood, the
president, had to send Roland home to change before closing-time. He
changed back, however, as soon as off duty, and spent the rest of the
afternoon and evening hours in Sothern and Lee's, at the soda-fountain;
which Sothern and Lee did not object to, since it drew trade.
Pete Willing established a record by getting drunk at Schwartz's bar by
three in the afternoon, his best previous time being four-thirty; and
Mrs. Willing chased him up Centre Street until, at the corner of Main,
he blundered into the arms of Judge Scott; who ordered him to arrest
and lock himself up; which Pete, being the sheriff, solemnly did,
saying that it was preferable to a return to home and wife.
At five o'clock there was a dog-fight in front of Graham's drug-store.
At five-forty-five the evening train lurched in, bearing The Mysterious
Stranger.
Tracey Tanner saw him first, having driven down to the station with his
father's surrey on the off-chance of picking up a quarter or so from
some drummer wishing to be conveyed to the Bigelow House. Only
outlanders pay money for hacks in Radville; everybody else walks, of
course. Naturally Tracey took The Mysterious Stranger for a drummer; he
had three trunks and a heavy packing-box, so Tracey's misapprehension
was pardonable. Instinctively he drove him to the Bigelow House; Will
now and again makes Tracey a present of a bottle of sarsaparilla or
lemon-pop, with the result that Tracey calls Tannehill, who runs the
opposition hotel, a skinflint and never takes strangers there except on
their express desire. The Mysterious Stranger merely asked to be driven
to the best hotel. This is not like most commercial travellers, who as
a rule know where they want to go, even in a strange town, having made
inquiry in advance from their brothers of the road. Tracey made a note
of this, and is further on record as having observed that this stranger
was rather better dressed than the run of drummers, if not so nobbily.
Moreover, he was reticent under the cross-fire of Tracey's
irrepressible conversation, and failed to ask the name of the first
pretty girl they passed; who happened to be Angle Tuthill. Finally The
Mysterious Stranger actually tipped Tracey a whole quarter for carrying
his suit-case into the hotel office.
With these incitements it would have been unreasonable to expect Tracey
to do otherwise than linger around for the good health of his sense of
inquisitiveness, which would else have been severely sprained.
Will Bigelow was dozing behind the desk, lulled by the sound of Hi
Nutt's voice in the barroom, as he explained to all and sundry just how
he had inadvertently permitted Watty the tailor to best him at checkers
that morning. Otherwise the office was deserted. Tracey wakened Will by
stamping heavily across the floor, and Will mechanically pushed down
his spectacles and dipped a pen in ink, slewing the register round for
the guest's signature. He says he knew at a glance that The Mysterious
Stranger was no travelling man, but this is a moot point, Tracey's
memory being minutely accurate and at variance with Will's assertion.
The Mysterious Stranger was a young man, rather severely clothed in a
dark suit which excited no interest in Bigelow's understanding,
although I, when I saw him later, had no difficulty in realising that
it had never been made by a tailor whose place of business was more
than five doors removed from Fifth Avenue. He was tallish, but not
really tall, and carried himself with a slight stoop which took way
from his real height. Tracey says he had a way of looking at you as if
he was smiling inside at some joke he'd heard a long time ago; and I
don't know but that's a fairly apt description of his ordinary
expression. He had a way, too, of nodding jerkily at you--just once--to
show he recognised you or understood what you were driving at; at other
times he carried his head a trifle to one side and slightly forward. He
was a man you wouldn't forget, somehow, though what there was about him
that was remarkable nobody seemed to know.
He nodded that jerky way in answer to Will Bigelow's "G'devenin'," and
without saying anything took the pen and started to register. He had to
stop, however, for Tracey was pressing him so close upon the right that
he couldn't get any play for his elbow, and after a minute or two he
asked Tracey politely would he mind stepping round to the left, where
he could see just as well. So Tracey did. Then he wrote his name in a
good round hand: "Nathaniel Duncan, N.Y."
"I'd like a room with a bath," he told Will: "something simple and
chaste, within the means of a man in moderate circumstances."
Will thought he was joking at first, but he didn't smile, so Will
explained that there was a bathroom on the third floor at the end of
the hall, though there wasn't much call for it. "I could give you a
room next to that," he said, "but you wouldn't want it, I guess."
"Why not?" asked The Mysterious Stranger.
"Because," said Will, "'taint near the sample-room."
"That doesn't make any difference; I'm on the wagon."
The only sense Will could get out of that was that the young man was
travelling for a buggy house and hadn't brought any samples with him.
"I thought," he allowed, "as how you'd be wantin' a place to display
your samples, but of course if you're in the wagon business--"
"Oh," said Mr. Duncan, "I thought you meant the 'sample-room' over
there." He nodded toward the bar. "That's what you call the
dispensaries of intoxicating liquors in this part of the country, is it
not?"
Will made a noise resembling an affirmative, and as soon as he got his
breath explained that travelling men generally wanted a sort of a
showroom next to theirs and that that was called a sample-room, too.
"But I'm not a travelling man," said The Mysterious Stranger. "So I
shall have as little use for the one as the other."
"Then the room on the third floor'll do for you," said Will. "How long
do you calculate on stayin'?"
"That will depend," said Mr. Duncan: "a day or so--perhaps longer;
until I can find comfortable and more permanent quarters."
In his amazement Will jabbed the pen so hard into the potato beside the
ink-well that he never could get the nib out and had to buy a new one.
"You don't mean to say you're thinkin' of coming here to live?" he
gasped.
"Yes, I do," said the young man apologetically. "I don't think you'll
find me in the way. I shall be very quiet and unobtrusive. I'm a
student, looking for a quiet place in which to pursue my studies."
"Well," said Will, "you've found it all right. There ain't no quieter
place in Pennsylvany than Radville, Mr. Duncan. I hope you'll like it,"
he said, sarcastic.
"I shall endeavour to," said the young man.
"And now may I go to my room, please? I should like to renovate my
travel-stained person to some extent before dinner."
"You'll have time," said Will; "dinner's at noon to-morrow. I guess
you're thinkin' about supper. That's ready now. Here, Tracey, you carry
this gentleman's things up to number forty-three."
But Tracey had already gone, and such was his haste to spread the news
that he forgot to take the horse and surrey back to the stable, but
left it standing in front of the hotel till eight o'clock; for which
oversight, I am credibly informed, his father justly dealt with him
before sending him to bed.
I have never been able to understand how we failed to hear of it at
Miss Carpenter's before seven o'clock. That was the hour when, having
finished supper and my first evening pipe, I started down-town to the
_Citizen_ office, intending to stop in at the Bigelow House on the
way and confound Will with the list of the day's happenings. Main
Street was pretty well crowded for that hour, I remember noticing, and
most of the townsfolk were grouped together on the corners, underneath
the lamps, discussing something rather excitedly. I paid no particular
attention, realising that between Caesar, Pete Willing, Roland
Burnette's suit and the checker game, they had enough to talk about. So
it wasn't until I walked into the Bigelow House office that I either
heard or saw anything of The Mysterious Stranger.
Will Bigelow was in his usual place behind the desk, and looked, I
thought, rather disgruntled. His reply to my "Howdy, Will?" sounded
somewhat snappish. But he got out of his chair and moved round the end
of the desk just as the young man came out of the dining-room door.
Then Will pulled up and I realised that he was calling my attention to
the stranger.
So far as I could see, he seemed an ordinary, everyday, good-looking,
good-natured young man, whose naturally sunny disposition had been
insulted by the food recently set before him. He wandered listlessly
out upon the porch and stood there, with his hands in his pockets,
looking up and down Centre Street, just then being shadowed into the
warm, purple June dusk, beneath its double row of elms. We've always
thought it a rather attractive street, and that night it seemed
especially lively with its trickle of girls and boys strolling up and
down, and the groups of grown folks on the corners, and Roland
Burnette's summer suit conspicuous through Sothern and Lee's
plate-glass windows; and I supposed the young man was admiring it all.
But now I know him better. He felt just the same about Main Street,
corner of Centre, Radville, as I should have about Broadway and
Forty-second Street, New York, if you had set me down there and told me
I'd got to get accustomed to the idea that I must live there. He was
saying, deep down in his heart: "O _Lord_!"--with the rising
inflection.
Will grabbed my arm, without saying anything, and pulled me into the
bar.
"Hello!" I said, as he went round behind and opened the cigar-case,
"what's up?"
He took out two boxes of the finest five-centers in town and placed
them before me. "Them's up," he said. "You win. Have one."
It staggered me to have him give in that way; I had been looking
forward to a long and diverting dispute. "I guess you've heard
everything worth hearing about to-day's history," I said, disappointed,
as I selected the least unpleasant looking of the cigars.
"No, I haven't," he said. "I didn't have to hear anything. What earned
you that smoke took place right here in this office.... Here," he said,
striking a match for me.
I had been trying to put the cigar away so that I might dispose of it
without hurting Will's feelings, but he had me, so I recklessly poked
the thing into the automatic clipper and then into my mouth. "What do
you mean?" I asked, puffing.
"Come 'long outside," said Will; and we went out on the porch just in
time to see Mr. Duncan going wearily upstairs to his room. "I mean,"
said Will, _"him"_. And then he told me all about it.
"But things like that don't happen every day," he wound up defensively.
"I'll go you another cigar on to-morrow."
"No, you won't," I said indignantly; and furtively dropped the infamous
thing over the railing.
I am never successful in my little attempts at deception, even in
self-defence. In all candour I believe my disposition of that cigar
would have gone undetected but for my notorious bad luck. Of course
Bigelow's setter, Pompey, had to be asleep right under the spot where I
dropped the cigar, and equally of course the burning end had to make
instantaneous connection with his nerve centres, via his hide, with such
effect that he arose in agony and subsequently used coarse language.
Investigation naturally discovered my empty-handed perfidy. To no one
else in Radville would this have happened.
On the other hand, no one else in Radville would have thrown away the
cigar.
V