Nelson Lloyd

“ An orchestra of three pieces, a bass-viol, a violin and a cornet, operated by three men in shirt sleeves, sent forth wheezy strains to the time of which men and women, young and old, gaily swung corners and partners, galloped forward and back, made ladies’ chains, winding in and out, then back and bowing, until William Larker and his companion fairly grew dizzy. ”

“ They passed through the outer circle of elderly women, who were unpacking baskets and tastefully arranging their contents on table-cloths spread on the ground—jars of pickles, cans of fruit, bags of sandwiches, bottles of cold tea, layer cakes of wondrous size and construction, and the scores of other dainties necessary to pass a pleasant day with nature. ”

“ He used to have a shanty up in Buzzard Walley near me an’ Pap, an’ was young an’ full o’ all them noble idees. No—he wasn’t allus full of ’em. They hed ben a time ’hen he was easy-goin’ an’ happy, askin’ nawthin’ better o’ his Maker than a trout stream, a hook an’ a line, an’ a place to borry a shot-gun. All o’ a sudden he bloomed out full o’ ambition an’ high notions. He hed a call. He was wastin’ his life loafin’ ’long the creeks or settin’ day after day on a lawg, whistlin’ fer wild turkeys. The world needed Zebulon Pole, an’ he answered by comin’ out ez candidate fer superwisor. ”

“ Ef he ever returns I’ll put this right hand in hisn an’ say, ’Hen, you done wrong, but you’ve suffered innardly an’ I fergive ye.’ They’s a heap o’ difference ’tween plain, ord’nary sufferin’ inside o’ ye, an’ sufferin’ innardly. Fer the first ye takes bitters, stops smokin’ an’ in a day you’re all right. But ’hen the conscience gits out o’ order all the bitters in the world an’ all the stoppin’ smokin’ in creation’ll give ye no ease. That’s what I sais, an’ I otter know, fer I can jest see how Hen Wheedle feels. ”

“ An’ Absalom, dozin’ on the porch, ’ud hear her voice tell she’d reach the edge o’ the woods. There she’d stop her song an’ go ploddin’ by, gazin’ over the walley like he wasn’t about or wasn’t wuth lookin’ at. Absalom kept gittin’ fatter an’ fatter from doin’ nawthin’, an’ it seemed to him like Annie May Crimmel was prettier every time she went to store. He was onrastless. He was onhappy. He knowd what was wrong, an’ he seen no cure, fer to him that girl walkin’ ’long the road not twenty rods from his house was like a bit o’ bread danglin’ jest beyant the reach o’ a starvin’ man. ”

“ There Abraham Buttenberger lay on a little pile of hay at the back of the stable, writhin’ and moanin’.
“‘I always knew it,’ he groaned. ‘I always told you they talked on Christmas Eve. But why did you ever get me to try and hear them? See what you’ve led me to. Look at me layin’ here with a broken leg and see what you’ve done. It was the white John mule—I know his voice. T’other was the brindle cow.’
“‘Look out for the mule! Look out!’ he cried, as we carried him out of the stable and put him on a wheelbarrow. ”

“ Tom Buttonporgie slept sound an’ hard. Everything in this world was pleasant fer him. Things was goin’ his way. It’s strange that it should be so, boys, but yit it is true that sleep comes easiest an’ quickest to them ez hes nawthin’ but good things to forget in it. So from the time he laid his head down on the hay till a kick awoke him, Tom knowd nawthin’. He opened his eyes with a jerk an’ set up an’ rubbed ’em. The airly mornin’ light was jest creepin’ inter the barn, but he could make out only a small, dark figure a few feet away. ”

“ It’s pretty hard talkin’ to a girl ’hen she’s mendin’ a barn roof, an’ ez I didn’t git no answer I stood up an’ yelled at the top o’ me woice, ‘What are ye doin’?’
“‘Well,’ sais she, ‘I s’pose it does look ez tho’ I’m playin’ the melodium, don’t it?’
“She wasn’t in a wery sociable turn o’ mind, but I’m one o’ those felly’s that oncet he gits his plow in the furrow don’t pull it out tell he has at least gone oncet ’round the field. So I jest set there smokin’ while she kep’ on workin’. By an’ by the dinner-bells over in the walley begin to ring, an’ she come down. ”

“ Mighty souls! The idee! How’s that to defend a man—jest to ast fer his dead body.”
The Patriarch shook his head solemnly. “Terrible—terrible,” he said. “Sech men ought never git diplomys.”
“Yit, Gran’pap,” suggested the Tinsmith, “don’t ye think after all it’s best they is some sech lawyers? Why, ef it wasn’t fer the dumb lawyers they’d never be no murderers brought to jestice.”
“True—true,” said the old man. “Now it used to be that ’hen a man committed murder he was tried, an’ ef the evydence was agin him, he was hung. Nowadays a felly commits murder an’ a year is spent hevin’ him indickted. ”

“ Duty to who?”
“Why, duty to society,” the student, answered. “Every man is endowed with certain faculties, and it is his duty to use those faculties to the best of his ability for the advancement of himself and his fellow-man.”
“Certainly—certainly,” said the pedagogue. “It’s the old parable of the talents all over agin.”
“Yes, they is some argyment in that,” said the Loafer. “Yit they ain’t. Pap allus used to say that too many fellys was speckilatin’ in their talents, [86] an’ ’hen their employer called an accountin’ they was only able to pass in a lot o’ counterfeit coin.” ”

“ No one knowd how old Hiram was, no more’n they knowd where he come from ’hen he settled up the walley sixty years ago, fer he never sayd. No one ever dast ask him ’bout sech things, fer he’d jest look black an’ say nawthin’, an’ give you sech a glance with them big eyes that you felt all creepy. ”

“ It’ll come hard fer ye first off, after your last suit of clothes is wore out. Let’s hope that happens in summer so ye’ll break in fer winter easier. You’ll git used to not eatin’,’ I sais. ‘Eatin’ is wanity. An’ ez fer tobacker—I never seen a lily smokin’. But still, Zeb, ’hen ye runs out o’ cut an’ dried, they is allus a placet ye can git a leetle ’hen ye takes a rest from bloomin’ in the fiels.’
“That wery night Zebulon ’cepted my inwite an’ come over to our placet an’ got a handful o’ cut an’ dried. ”

“ Why couldn’t ye jest shoot yourself?’
“‘You’re wastin’ walable time,’ Si answers. ‘I’ll kill myself sooner than be catched. Ez long ez you know that you’ll be killed ef I am catched, you won’t bother callin’ folks to see what you are carryin’. An’, Tom,’ he went on, ‘I might jest ez well tell you now that ’hen we git well out o’ harm’s way, I’m goin’ to shoot ye anyhow. I don’t want to leave no one ’round to blab.’
“Si Berrybush smiled the innercentest smile you uns ever see, an’ the pedler chewed a straw a spell. ”

“ You uns mind the winter we hed the big blizzard, ’hen the snow covered all the fences an’ was piled so high in the roads that we hed to drive th’oo the fiel’s. They was a heap sight goin’ on that year—church sosh’bles, singin’ school an’ spellin’ bees. Me an’ Perry Muthersbaugh was buddies, an’ not a week passed ’thout we went some’eres together. Fore I knowd it him an’ Jawhn Jimson was keepin’ company with Hannah Ciders. She was jest ez pretty ez a peach, plump an rosy, with the slickest nat’ral hair an’ teeth you uns ever seen. ”

“ You otter ’a’ seen the look Becky Stump give me an’ the look Sime give me. Huh!
“When intermission come, Sime he gits off in one corner an’ begins blowin’ to a lot of the boys. I heard him talkin’ loud ’bout me, so I steps over. He sayd it was all a mistake; that he could beat me at anything—spellin’, wrastlin’ or fishin’. He was showin’ off agin, fer he talked loud like Becky Stump could hear. I makes up me mind I wouldn’t stand his blowin’.
“‘See here, Sime Cruller!’ I sais, sais I, ‘you uns is nawthin’ but a blow-horn,’ I sais. ‘You claims you can wrastle. ”

“ First off ye conterdicted me fer sayin’ a man should take his time. Now ye come ’round my way, only worse. I never sayd a man should keep house in a tub. Why, his missus ’ud never give him no peace. No, sir; don’t ye git no fool idees like that in your head.”
“But that is the truest philosophy——”
“I know. Zebulon Pole got that wery idee after he was defeated fer county commissioner. He moped ’round the walley fer a year an’ final one day come to me an’ sayd he was goin’ to dewote the rest o’ his life to religious medytation. ”

“ They’s only one thing in the world’ll separate buddies like me an’ him was. A crow-bar won’t do it; a gun won’t; nothin’ won’t but a combination o’ yeller hair an’ dreamy blue eyes an’ pink cheeks. Melissy Flower hed ’em all. But what she done she didn’t do intentional. I didn’t want her without Hen hevin’ her; he didn’t want her without me hevin’ her—so they was a hitch. We used to go over to her house together allus, an’ we’d sing duets to her melodium playin’. He sung tenor an’ I bass. At the eend of each piece she distributed her praise jest equal. ”

“ Hair? You uns don’t often see sech hair nowadays ez Becky Stump hed—soft an’ black like. Eyes? Why, they sparkled jest like new buggy paint. An’ mighty souls, but she could plough! She wasn’t none of your modern girls ez is too proud to plough. Many a day I set over on the porch at our placet an’ looked down acrosst the walley an’ seen her a-steppin’ th’oo the fiel’, an’ I thot how I’d like to hev one han’le while she’d hev the other, an’ we’d go trampin’ along life’s furrow together.”
“Now Gran’pap, I ’low you’ve ben readin’——”
“Can’t you keep still a piece?” roared the Miller. ”

“ Yon fiel’ ’ll pastur’ ten head o’ cattle comf’table all summer, ’lowin’ they is easy-goin’ an’ without no ambition. Now you uns gits the high-flyin’ idee ye must dewelop your heaven-given faculties fer the benefit o’ your sufferin’ fellys. The main talent a cow has is that o’ eatin’; so ye dewelop it be grazin’ night an’ day. ’Hen the other cows is friskin’ up an’ down the meadow or splashin’ ’round the creek, you are nibblin’ off the choice grass an’ digestin’ all the turnip tops ye can reach th’oo the holes in the fence. ”

“ The Loafer looked at the Storekeeper, who was sitting beneath him on an empty egg-crate. “Do you mind how he use to say that Solerman meant ‘teacher’ ’hen he sayd ‘wine’; how Solerman meant, ‘Look not upon the teacher ’hen he is read,’ fer a leetle learnin’ leaveneth the whole lump an’ puffs him up so——”
The pedagogue’s chair came down on all four [19] legs with a crash. His right thumb left the seclusion of his waistcoat, his right arm shot out straight, and a trembling forefinger pointed at the eyes that were just visible over the top of the white-patched knee. ”

“ Well, sir, you uns never seen sech a time ez was raised ’hen they see I was off to fight the Spaynyards. Mary Alice, the eldest, jest th’owed her arms ’round my neck an’ bust out with tears. The seven others begin to cry, ‘Pap, Pap, you’ll git shooted.’
“‘Children,’ I sais, sais I, ‘your pap’s a weteran an’ a experienced soldier. Duty calls an’ he obeys.’
“The missus didn’t see things that way. She jest gits me be the collar an’ sets me down in an arm-chair, draws me boots, walks off with them an’ me musket an’ hides ’em. She weren’t goin’ to hev no foolin’ ’round the shanty, she sayd. ”

“ Of course the warnin’ made Lord kind o’ oneasy at first, but ez the years went by an’ he heard nawthin’ o’ his cousin he concided that the ole man hed jest ben th’owin’ a scare inter him. Meantime he’d ben doin’ wery well with Alice Fairfax, an’ things was all goin’ his way. Then a strange artist come th’oo the walley. He was paintin’——”
The Patriarch interrupted with a hilarious chuckle.
“Now, boys, look out,” he cried. “They never yit was a painter that wasn’t catchin’ with the weemen. Ye mind Bill Spiegelsole’s widdy an’ how she’d fixed it up to merry Joe Dumple? ”

“ On reachin’ the apple tree be the bend in the road, I set down on the grassy bank to rest a leetle an’ look ’round. Pretty soon I see a man comin’ over the medder, an’ ez he got close I knowd be the cut o’ his coat an’ the flatness o’ his black slouch that it was the preacher hisself. ’Hen he reached the creek he give a run an’ jump an’ went flyin’ over it in the most ondignifiedest way I ever seen. ‘It seems like he thinks he’s an angel a’ready an’ is spreadin’ his wings,’ I sais to meself. ”

“ Then you find you’ve left your bait-can at home an’ stirs up some yeller-jackets, ez you are huntin’ under rocks fer worms. You lays down your extry hooks where you can find ’em quick, an’ then ’hen you need ’em you discovers they’re in your foot. No, sir, ef I was wantin’ to go fishin’ in them mo’ntains, an’ I hed the power, I’d tell ’em to git back five mile so I’d hev furder to walk to reach the run.”
“I hain’t got nawthin’ agin your idees o’ fishin’,” said the Patriarch from his place on the bench between the Tinsmith and the G. A. R. Man, “but what you say about expectin’ is ridic’lous. ”

“ He paused to give effect to his words, but the Loafer seized the opportunity, thus unintentionally offered, to remark, “Then it ’ud seem like most men’s brains is like cellars. They is allus some hole or corner in a cellar that ye can’t light lest ye put [129] a special lantern in it, an’ ye hev trouble keepin’ that burnin’.”
“But the brain’s perfectly round,” interposed the Miller, shaking his head sagely.
The Teacher sighed. “It’s no use talking to you men in figures——”
“Go on. Let’s hev figgers,” cried the Storekeeper, eagerly. ”

“ Ez the artist walked along th’oo the park he heard a scream, follered be a beautiful girl who run down the road pursued be a ferocious dog. The paper sayd the great hound was in the act o’ leapin’ at her to catch her be the neck ’hen the stranger run for’a’d an’ grabbin’ the brute be the th’oat throttled the life outen him. The anymal’s fiery breath, the paper sayd, was blowin’ in the artist’s face ’hen his hands closed on the furry neck. ”

“ The old man cast him off an’ he went to South Ameriky, leavin’ a son who went be the name o’ Reginal’ Deeverox. Be rights this Deeverox should ’a’ hed the property, bein’ the hair o’ the oldest son. He didn’t know it tho’, an’ his uncle didn’t take the trouble to hunt him up ’hen the gran’pap died, but jest settled down on the farm himself.”
“What in the name o’ common sense is an earl?” asked the Miller. “What does he do?”
“Nawthin’,” the Loafer explained. “In Englan’ an earl is a descendant o’ them ez first cleared the land. He usually hes a good bit o’ property an’ farms it on the half.” ”

“ Major was a coon dog, an’ a mighty fine one, bein’ half setter, quarter houn’, an’ last quarter coach. Me an’ him was great buddies. Wherever we went he allus hed an’ eye out fer game. He knowd the seasons, too. Ef it was September he was watchin’ fer squirrels; October, fer patridges; November, rabbits; springtime, girls. It was in the spring ’hen I happened to hear Si Bumbletree speakin’ o’ a petickler fine lot o’ saplin’s fer walkin’ sticks that was growin’ on the chestnut flats at the foot o’ the mo’ntain jest above Andy Horner’s clearin’. ”

“ Ed an’ May ’ud git on the wood-box an’ Pap an’ Ma on the settee. It took th’ee pipes to wind Tom up. Then he’d go beautiful. The words ’ud role out like music an’ you’d fergit the kitchen an’ the folks around. You’d be out in the woods with him, steppin’ along with him hour after hour ez he was carryin’ Si Berrybush to freedom. You’d see the things ez he saw, an’ you’d feel the things ez he felt. Now ye was low down an’ discouraged. Everything was [112] dark ez ye stumbled on an’ on, achin’ in every limb, expectin’ each minute ’ud be your last. Now ye was hopin’. They was a chance fer ye yit. ”

“ Then I hear the weemen in the house laughin’ like they’d die.
“The Missus she puts her head out an’ sais, ‘Jest you keep on stirrin’. Don’t you dast stop fer the butter’ll stick to the kittle an’ burn it ef ye does.’
“Down went the windy. I was jest that hoppin’ mad I’d a notion to quit right there an’ leave the ole thing burn, but then I was afraid Abe Scissors might kerry on ef I did. So I stirred, an’ stirred, an’ stirred. I tell ye I don’t know any work ez mean ez that. Stop movin’ the stick an’ the kittle burns. Ef any o’ you uns ever done it you’ll know it ain’t no man’s work.” ”

“ Ye otter see one thet ain’t plain—one o’ them where they hes sech figgers ez ‘first lady on the war-dance,’ like they done at the big weddin’ up in Raccoon Walley th’ee year ago. These [209] is plain. I never danced ’em afore meself, but I’ve seen ’em do it an’ I’ve ben practisin’. All ye’ll hev to do is to mind me.”
So the following dance found them on the platform among the first. The girl was trembling, blushing and self-conscious; the young man self-conscious but triumphant and composed. ”

“ I don’t mind killin’ a good man, fer I knows he’ll git his reward in the next world. But shootin’ a felly after he’s used sech language hurts me,’ he sayd.
“With that he rubbed the nose o’ the pistol between Tom’s shoulder-blades. The pedler jest bubbled.
“‘Keep on hopin’, Tom,’ he heard the woice at his back. ‘Mebbe somethin’ll happen ’twixt now an’ to-morrow mornin’ that’ll let you free o’ your pack!’
“The sun come out hot, an’ the road was dusty. The load was heavy an’ they was a good many long hills. Time an’ agin Tom ’ud slow down. ‘Git up, ole hoss,’ he’d hear come from [120] behind him. ”

“ Things run ’long all right fer a year, an’ then folks begin to complain that the sugar was damp, an’ blamed Pap fer wettin’ it to make it weigh. He sayd he didn’t, an’ he didn’t, fer he wasn’t no man to tell nawthin’ but the truth, let alone to treat his sugar dishonest. But the customers begin to drop off buyin’ an’ he to be afraid o’ losin’ his trade. What was more, he seen that sugar he got in the bawrel ez dry ez a chip one night was damp next mornin’. ’Hen he declared it wasn’t his fault, folks wouldn’t believe him, an’ they was no denyin’ it, them goods was soakin’. ”

“ But now, ’henever I thinks o’ a lazy man, I picturs Absalom Bunkel, settin’ there in the road, his fat legs stretched out afore him, his fat arms proppin’ up that unwieldy body o’ hisn, his eyes an’ his ears a-strainin’ to see an’ hear th’oo the darkness that gathered ’round him what he might ’a’ seen an’ heard allus hed he only hed the ambition to ’a’ gone a few steps furder. ”