WHAT AH FE DOES NOT KNOW.
Thus admonished by the practical-minded Olly, Gabriel retired
precipitately to the secure fastnesses of Conroy's Hill, where, over a
consolatory pipe in his deserted cabin, he gave himself up to
reflections upon the uncertainty of the sex and the general vagaries of
womanhood. At such times he would occasionally extend his wanderings to
the gigantic pine tree which still towered pre-eminently above its
fellows in ominous loneliness, and seated upon one of its outlying
roots, would gently philosophise to himself regarding his condition, the
vicissitudes of fortune, the awful prescience of Olly, and the
beneficence of a Creator who permitted such awkward triviality and
uselessness as was incarnate in himself to exist at all! Sometimes,
following the impulse of habit, he would encroach abstractedly upon the
limits of his own domain, and find himself under the shadow of his own
fine house on the hill, from which, since that eventful parting with his
wife, he had always rigidly withheld his foot. As soon as he would make
this alarming discovery, he would turn back in honourable delicacy and
a slight sense of superstitious awe. Retreating from one of these
involuntary incursions one day, in passing through an opening in a
little thicket of "buckeye" near his house, he stumbled over a small
workbasket lying in the withered grass, apparently mislaid or forgotten.
Gabriel instantly recognised it as the property of his wife, and as
quickly recalled the locality as one of her favourite resorts during the
excessive mid-day heats. He hesitated and then passed on, and then
stopped and returned again awkwardly and bashfully. To have touched any
property of his wife's, after their separation, was something
distasteful and impossible to Gabriel's sense of honour; to leave it
there the spoil of any passing Chinaman, or the prey of the elements,
was equally inconsistent with a certain respect which Gabriel had for
his wife's weaknesses. He compromised by picking it up with the
intention of sending it to Lawyer Maxwell, as his wife's trustee. But in
doing this, to Gabriel's great alarm (for he would as soon have
sacrificed the hand that held this treasure as to have exposed its
contents in curiosity or suspicion), part of that multitudinous contents
overflowed and fell on the ground, and he was obliged to pick them up
and replace them. One of them was a baby's shirt--so small it filled the
great hand that grasped it. In Gabriel's emigrant experience, as the
frequent custodian and nurse of the incomplete human animal, he was
somewhat familiar with those sacred, mummy-like enwrappings usually
unknown to childless men, and he recognised it at once.
He did not replace it in the basket, but, with a suffused cheek and an
increased sense of his usual awkwardness, stuffed it into the pocket of
his blouse. Nor did he send the basket to Lawyer Maxwell, as he had
intended, and in fact omitted any allusion to it in his usual account to
Olly of his daily experience. For the next two days he was peculiarly
silent and thoughtful, and was sharply reprimanded by Olly for general
idiocy and an especial evasion of some practical duties.
"Yer's them lawyers hez been huntin' ye to come over and examine that
there Chinaman, Ah Fe, ez is jest turned up ag'in, and you ain't no whar
to be found; and Lawyer Maxwell sez it's a most important witness. And
whar' bouts was ye found? Down in the Gulch, chirpin' and gossipin' with
that Arkansas family, and totin' round Mrs. Welch's baby. And you a
growed man, with a fammerly of yer own to look after. I wonder ye ain't
got more _sabe_!--prancin' round in this yer shiftless way, and you on
trial, and accused o' killin' folks. Yer a high ole Gabe--rentin'
yerself out fur a dry nuss for nothin'!"
Gabriel (colouring and hastily endeavouring to awaken Olly's feminine
sympathies): "It waz the powerfullest, smallest baby--ye oughter get to
see it, Olly! 'Tain't bigger nor a squirrel--on'y two weeks old
yesterday!"
Olly (outwardly scornful, but inwardly resolving to visit the phenomenon
next week): "Don't stand yawpin' here, but waltz down to Lawyer Maxwell
and see that Chinaman."
Gabriel reached the office of Lawyer Maxwell just as that gentleman and
Arthur Poinsett were rising from a long, hopeless, and unsatisfactory
examination of Ah Fe. The lawyers had hoped to be able to establish the
fact of Gabriel's remoteness from the scene of the murder by some
corroborating incident or individual that Ah Fe could furnish in support
of the detailed narrative he had already given. But it did not appear
that any Caucasian had been encountered or met by Ah Fe at the time of
his errand. And Ah Fe's memory of the details he had already described
was apparently beginning to be defective; it was evident nothing was to
be gained from him even if he had been constituted a legal witness. And
then, more than all, he was becoming sullen!
"We are afraid that we haven't made much out of your friend, Ah Fe,"
said Arthur, taking Gabriel's hand. "You might try if _you_ can revive
his memory, but it looks doubtful."
Gabriel gazed at Ah Fe intently--possibly because he was the last person
who had spoken to his missing wife. Ah Fe returned the gaze, discharging
all expression from his countenance, except a slight suggestion of the
habitual vague astonishment always seen in the face of a newborn infant.
Perhaps this peculiar expression, reminding Gabriel as it did of the
phenomenon in the Welch family, interested him. But the few vague
wandering questions he put were met by equally vague answers. Arthur
rose in some impatience; Lawyer Maxwell wiped away the smile that had
been lingering around his mouth. The interview was ended.
Arthur and Maxwell passed down the narrow stairway arm in arm. Gabriel
would have followed them with Ah Fe, but turning toward that Mongolian,
he was alarmed by a swift spasm of expression that suddenly convulsed Ah
Fe's face. He winked both his eyes with the velocity of sheet-lightning,
nodded his head with frightful rapidity, and snapped and apparently
dislocated every finger on his right hand. Gabriel gazed at him in
open-mouthed wonder.
"All litee!" said Ah Fe, looking intently at Gabriel.
"Which?" asked Gabriel.
"All litee! You shabbee 'all litee!' _She_ say 'all litee.'"
"Who's _she_?" asked Gabriel, in sudden alarm.
"You lifee!--shabbee?--Missee Conloy! She likee you--shabbee? Me likee
you!--shabbee? Miss Conloy she say 'all litee!' You shabbee shelliff?"
"Which?" said Gabriel.
"Shelliff! Man plenty chokee bad man!"
"Sheriff, I reckon," suggested Gabriel, with great gravity.
"Um! Shelliff. Mebbe you shabbee him bimeby. He chokee bad man. Much
chokee. Chokee like hellee! _He no chokee you._ No. Shabbee? She say
'shelliff no chokee you.' Shabbee?"
"I see," said Gabriel, significantly.
"She say," continued Ah Fe, with gasping swiftness, "she say you talkee
too much. She say me talkee too much. She say Maxwellee talkee too much.
All talkee too much. She say 'no talkee!' Shabbee? She say 'ash up!'
Shabbee? She say 'dly up!' Shabbee? She say 'bimeby plenty
talkee--bimeby all litee!' Shabbee?"
"But whar ez she--whar kin I git to see her?" asked Gabriel.
Ah Fe's face instantly discharged itself of all expression. A wet sponge
could not have more completely obliterated all pencilled outline of
character or thought from his blank slate-coloured physiognomy than did
Gabriel's simple question. He returned his questioner's glance with
ineffable calmness and vacancy, patiently drew the long sleeves of his
blouse still further over his varnished fingers, crossed them
submissively and Orientally before him, and waited apparently for
Gabriel to become again intelligible.
"Look yer," said Gabriel, with gentle persuasiveness, "ef it's the same
to ye, you'd be doin' me a heap o' good ef you'd let on whar thet
July--thet Mrs. Conroy ez. Bein' a man ez in his blindness bows down to
wood and stun, ye ain't supposed to allow fur a Christian's feelings.
But I put to ye ez a far-minded brethren--a true man and a man
whatsoever his colour that it's a square thing fur ye to allow to me
whar thet woman ez ez my relation by marriage ez hidin'! Allowin' it's
one o' my idols--I axes you as a brother Pagan--whar ez she?"
A faint, flickering smile of pathetic abstraction and simplicity, as of
one listening to far-off but incomprehensible music stole over Ah Fe's
face. Then he said kindly, gently, but somewhat vaguely and
unsatisfactorily--
"Me no shabbee Melican man. Me washee shirtee! dollah and hap dozen!"