Frank R. Stockton

“ If I had a dictionary I could make use of my head in a way that I can’t now. There is books in this house, but amongst ’em there is no dictionary. If there had been one I’d been a different man by this time from what I am now, and like as not Marietta wouldn’t have wanted any other man in the house but me.”
Mr. Rooper stood looking upon the ground; and Asaph, who had also arisen, waited for him to speak. “You are a graspin’ man, Asaph,” said Thomas. “But there is another thing I’d like to know: if I give you them clothes, you don’t want them before she’s married?” ”

“ Rooper. He had been thinking a great deal of Mrs. Himes and everything connected with her, and he had even thought of that visit of Doctor Wicker’s. That gentleman was a widower and a well-to-do and well-appearing man; and it would have been a long way for him to come just for some trifling rickets in a servant-girl. Being really in love, his imagination was in a very capering mood, and he began to fear that the doctor had come to court Mrs. Himes. “Asaph,” he said, quickly, “that’s a good offer I make you. If you take it, in less than an hour you can walk home looking like a gentleman.” ”

“ Gilbert. “Indeed, he shall marry her, if I have anything to say about it! My poor girl has been drooping ever since I told her it could not be.”
My wife rushed at him, but whether she embraced him or only shook his hands I cannot say; for I had the knapsack in one hand and was rubbing my eyes with the other.
“But, my dear fellow,” said Mr. Gilbert, directly, “if you still consider it to your interest to keep your invention a secret, I wish you had never made it. No one having a machine like that can help using it, and it is often quite as bad to be considered a maniac as to be one.” ”

“ It was a dreadful thing to think of his sister’s possible early departure from this world; but, after all, life is life, reality is reality, and business is business. He was Marietta’s only legal heir.
Of course he had known this before, but it had never seemed to be of any importance. He was a good deal older than she was, and he had always looked upon her as a marrying woman. When he made his proposition to Mr. Rooper the thought of his own heirship never came into his mind. ”

“ Old Pipes was just about to tell her that he had sent the money to the village by a Dryad when he suddenly reflected that his mother would be sure to disapprove such a proceeding, and so he merely said he had sent it by a person whom he had met.
“And how do you know that the person will ever take it to the Chief Villager?” cried his mother. “You will lose it, and the villagers will never get it. Oh, Pipes! Pipes! when will you be old enough to have ordinary common sense?” ”

“ People so seldom come this way; and when they do come at the right time they either don’t hear me, or they are frightened and run away. But you, you dear old man, you were not frightened, and you looked and looked for the key, and you let me out, and now I shall not have to go back till winter has come and the air grows cold. Oh, it is glorious! What can I do for you to show you how grateful I am?”
“I am very glad,” said Old Pipes, “that I let you out, since I see that it makes you so happy; but I must admit that I tried to find the key because I had a great desire to see a Dryad. ”

“ I rightly imagined that it came from a tobacco-pipe, and presently I heard a voice. It was that of the Alpine Club man. Of all people in the world I did not want him to discover me, and I hung as motionless as possible. The man was speaking to another person who was walking with him.
“He is crazy beyond a doubt,” said the Alpine man. “Nobody but a maniac could have gone up and down that mountain as he did! He hasn’t any muscles, and one need only look at him to know that he couldn’t do any climbing in a natural way. It is only the excitement of insanity that gives him strength.” ”

“ The next morning the air began to get mighty disagreeable in the part of the cabin where we were, and then William Anderson he says, ‘What we’ve got to do is to climb up into the stern state-rooms, where the air is purer. We can come down here to get our meals, and then go up again to breathe comfortable.’ ‘And what are we going to do when the air up there gets foul?’ says I to William, who seemed to be making arrangements for spending the summer in our present quarters. ‘Oh, that’ll be all right,’ said he. ‘It don’t do to be extravagant with air any more than with anything else. ”

“ The summer days went on and passed away, the leaves were falling from the trees, and the air was becoming cold.
“Nature has ceased to be lovely,” said the Dryad, “and the night winds chill me. It is time for me to go back into my comfortable quarters in the great oak. But first I must pay another visit to the cottage of Old Pipes.”
She found the piper and his mother sitting side by side on the rock in front of the door. The cattle were not to go to the mountain any more that season, and he was piping them down for the last time. ”

“ And now, then, I want to know what you are goin’ to do for me?”
“What do you want?” asked Thomas.
“The first thing I want,” said Asaph, “is a suit of clothes. These clothes is disgraceful.”
“You are right there,” said Mr. Rooper. “I wonder your sister lets you come around in front of the house. But what do you mean by clothes—winter clothes or summer clothes?”
“Winter,” said Asaph, without hesitation. “I don’t count summer clothes. And when I say a suit of clothes, I mean shoes and hat and underclothes.” ”

“ Through the crack in the window-blind Marietta saw that Asaph was still under the tree. What could she do to delay the doctor? She did not offer to take leave of him, but stood looking upon the floor. It seemed a shame to make so good a man go all the way back to Timberley and come again next day, just because that ragged, dirty Asaph was sitting under the chestnut-tree. ”

“ Marietta can’t stand my clothes any longer. If she can’t stand them she can’t stand me, and when it comes to that, you can see for yourself that I can’t help you.”
A shade settled upon Mr. Rooper’s face. During the past evening he had been thinking and puffing, and puffing and thinking, until everybody else in the tavern had gone to bed; and he had finally made up his mind that, if he could do it, he would marry Marietta Himes. ”

“ But before, in our astonishment, we could say a word one to the other, the moon moved past the steeple, and in its bright light we could see none of the signs of life and traffic which had just astonished us.
Timidly, with hearts beating fast, but with not one thought of turning back, nor any fear of vagrants—for we were now sure that what we had seen was not flesh and blood, and therefore harmless—we crossed the open space and entered a street down which the moon shone clearly. ”

“ Thomas Rooper shrunk two inches in height. “Asaph Scantle,” he said, in a voice which seemed also to have shrunk, “I don’t understand you. I wasn’t hard on you. I only wanted to make a fair bargain. If I’d got her, I’d paid up cash on delivery. You couldn’t expect a man to do more than that. But I tell you, Asaph, that I am mighty serious about this. The more I have thought about your sister the more I want her. And when I tell you that I’ve been a-thinkin’ about her pretty much all night, you may know that I want her a good deal. And I was intendin’ to go to-morrow and begin to court her.” ”

“ A car, with a number of these machines, could be made to rise in the air like a balloon. Everything, in fact, that was heavy could be made light; and as a great part of labor, all over the world, is caused by the attraction of gravitation, so this repellent force, wherever applied, would make weight less and work easier. I told her of many, many ways in which the invention might be used, and would have told her of many more if she had not suddenly burst into tears. ”

“ Rooper, being of a practical way of thinking, turned his thoughts from love and resentment to the subject of his income. And he soon became convinced that it would be better to keep the McJimseys in his house, if it could be done without too great an outlay for repairs. So he walked over to his property. When he reached the house he was almost stupefied to see Asaph in a chair in the front yard, dressed in the new suit of clothes which he, Thomas Rooper, had paid for, and smoking the Centennial pipe. ”

“ It reminds me of those persons who have had doubles, and I suppose a man would often be very angry indeed when he found that there was another being who was personating himself.”
“Oh, the cases are not similar at all,” said the ghost. “A double or doppelgänger lives on the earth with a man, and, being exactly like him, he makes all sorts of trouble, of course. It is very different with me. I am not here to live with Mr. Hinckman. I am here to take his place. Now, it would make John Hinckman very angry if he knew that. ”

“ The little machine in this knapsack, which is the only one I now possess, has been a great pleasure to me. But I now know it has also been of the greatest injury indirectly to me and mine, not to mention some direct inconvenience and danger, which I will speak of another time. The secret lies with us three, and we will keep it. But the invention itself is too full of temptation and danger for any of us.”
As I said this I held the knapsack with one hand while I quickly turned the screw with the other. ”

“ When we are dead let Herbert have the invention. He will then be old enough to judge for himself whether it will be better to take advantage of it for his own profit, or simply to give it to the public for nothing. ”

“ On the afternoon of the day after the collision the wind fell, and the sea soon became pretty smooth. The captain was quite sure that there would be no trouble about keeping afloat until some ship came along and took us off. Our flag was flying, upside down, from a pole in the stern; and if anybody saw a ship making such a guy of herself as the ‘Thomas Hyke’ was then doing, they’d be sure to come to see what was the matter with her, even if she had no flag of distress flying. We tried to make ourselves as comfortable as we could, but this wasn’t easy with everything on such a dreadful slant. ”

“ From far and near the people gathered, and thronged the great galleries of the arena; and crowds, unable to gain admittance, massed themselves against its outside walls. The king and his court were in their places, opposite the twin doors—those fateful portals, so terrible in their similarity.
All was ready. The signal was given. A door beneath the royal party opened, and the lover of the princess walked into the arena. Tall, beautiful, fair, his appearance was greeted with a low hum of admiration and anxiety. Half the audience had not known so grand a youth had lived among them. ”

“ It does not matter to me. Another will grow out next spring. And although the good piper made me no promise, I know that when the warm days arrive next year he will come and let me out again.”
The Echo-dwarf did not stop to break the key of the tree. He was too happy to be released to think of anything else, and he hastened as fast as he could to his home on the rocky hillside.
The Dryad was not mistaken when she trusted in the piper. When the warm days came again he went to the oak-tree to let her out. But, to his sorrow and surprise, he found the great tree lying upon the ground. ”

“ Rooper gave a sniff. “I wonder you don’t say overcoat,” he remarked.
“I do say overcoat,” replied Asaph. “A suit of winter clothes is a suit of clothes that you can go out into the weather in without missin’ nothin’.”
Mr. Rooper smiled sarcastically. “Is there anything else you want?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Asaph, decidedly; “there is. I want a umbrella.”
“Cotton or silk?”
Asaph hesitated. He had never had a silk umbrella in his hand in his life. He was afraid to strike too high, and he answered, “I want a good stout gingham.”
Mr. Rooper nodded his head. “Very good,” he said. “And is that all?” ”

“ The eyes of the Echo-dwarf glistened. Here was a man who might help him in his plans.
“Your idea is a good one,” he said to Old Pipes, “and it does you honor. But you should know that a Dryad can make no person younger but one who lets her out of her tree. However, you can manage the affair very easily. All you need do is to find the Dryad, tell her what you want, and request her to step into her tree and be shut up for a short time. Then you will go and bring your mother to the tree; she will open it, and everything will be as you wish. ”

“ I have read ‘Robinson Crusoe,’ ‘The Wreck of the “Grosvenor,”’ ‘The Sinking of the “Royal George,”’ and wrecks by water-spouts, tidal waves, and every other thing which would knock a ship into a cocked hat, and I’ve classified every sort of wreck under its proper head; and when I’ve found out to what class a wreck belongs, I know all about it. Now, when a man comes here to report a wreck, the first thing he has to do is just to shut down on his story, and to stand up square and answer a few questions that I put to him. ”

“ Cannot you live content in your own realms and spheres, knowing, as you must know, how timid we are, and how you frighten us and make us unhappy? In all this city there is, I believe, not one of us except myself who does not flee and hide from you whenever you cruelly come here. ”

“ It is then that the flowers of this world bloom brightest; that its sun is the most genial; that its clouds are the scarcest; that its fruit is the most delicious; that the air is the most balmy; that its cigars are of the highest flavor ”

“ It was a great shock to me to find him in such a condition of poverty and squalor, and to see a man who had originated the “Conundrum of the Anvil” reduced to the soul-depressing occupation of grinding pin-points. As I walked and thought, the dreadful picture of a totally eclipsed future arose before my mind. The moral of Barbel sank deep into my heart.
When I reached home I told my wife the story of my friend Barbel. She listened with a sad and eager interest.
“I am afraid,” she said, “if our fortunes do not quickly mend, that we shall have to buy two little grindstones. ”

“ As soon as we were in the boat we cut her rope and pulled away as hard as we could; and when we got to what we thought was a safe distance we stopped to look at the ‘Thomas Hyke.’ You never saw such a ship in all your born days. Two thirds of the hull was sunk in the water, and she was standing straight up and down with the stern in the air, her rudder up as high as the topsail ought to be, and the screw propeller looking like the wheel on the top of one of these windmills that they have in the country for pumping up water. ”

“ You will never have a better chance. You are not likely to be interrupted; and, so far as I can judge, the lady seems disposed to listen to you favorably; that is, if she ever intends to do so. There is no knowing when John Hinckman will go away again; certainly not this summer. If I were in your place I should never dare to make love to Hinckman’s niece if he were anywhere about the place. If he should catch any one offering himself to Miss Madeline he would then be a terrible man to encounter. ”

“ There’s nobody in this place that can stand as much as the McJimseys can.”
“Consequently,” said Asaph, deliberately filling his pipe, “it stands to reason that there ain’t nothin’ for you to do but marry money.”
Thomas Rooper took his pipe from his mouth and sat up straight. Gazing steadfastly at his companion, he remarked, “If you think that is such a good thing to do, why don’t you do it yourself? There can’t be anybody much harder up than you are.”
“The law’s agin’ my doin’ it,” said Asaph. “A man can’t marry his sister.”
“Are you thinkin’ of Marietta Himes?” asked Mr. Rooper. ”

“ But what I git from the rent of that house is what I have to live on; there’s no gittin’ around that pint.”
“Well, then,” said Asaph, “if you don’t marry money, what are you goin’ to do? You can’t go back to your old business.”
“I never had but one business,” said Thomas. “I lived with my folks until I was a good deal more than growed up; and when the war broke out I went as sutler to the rigiment from this place; and all the money I made I put into my property in the village here. That’s what I’ve lived on ever since. ”