A Guest at the Ludlow, and Other Stories

  A FLYER IN DIRT

  VIII

  I have just returned from a visit to my property at Minneapolis, and cannot refrain from referring to its marvelous growth. The distance betweenit and the business center of the city has also grown a good deal sinceI last saw it. This is the property which I purchased some three yearsago of a real good man. His name is Pansley--Flinton Pansley. He hasdone business in most all the towns of the Northwest. Perhaps a furtherword or two about this pious gentleman will not be amiss. Entering aplace quietly and even meekly, with a letter to the local pastor, hewould begin reaching out his little social tendrils by sighing over thelost and undone condition of mankind. After regretting the state inwhich he had found God's vineyard, he would rent a store and sell goodsat a sacrifice, but when the sacrifice was being offered up, a closeobserver would discover that Mr. Pansley was not in it.

  In this way he would build up quite a trade, only sparing a little timeeach day in which to retire to his closet and sob over the altogethergodless condition in which he had found man. He would then make anassignment.

  Pardon me for again referring to the matter, but I do so utterly withoutmalice, and in connection with the unparalleled growth of my propertyhere. So if the gentle and rather attractive reader will excuse a badpen, and some plain stationery, as my own crested writing-paper is in mytrunk, which is now in the possession of a well-known hotel man whosename is suppressed on account of his family, I shall refer again brieflyto the property and the circumstances surrounding its purchase. I hadintended to put a good fence around it ere this, but with these peculiarcircumstances surrounding it, I feel that it is safe from intrusion.

  The property was sold to my wife by Mr. Pansley at a sacrifice, but whenthe burnt offering had ascended, and the atmosphere had cleared, and theashes on the altar had been blown aside, the suspender buttons of Mr.Pansley were not there. He had taken his bright red mark-down figures,and a letter to his future pastor, and gone to another town. He is nowselling groceries. From town lots to groceries is, to a versatile man, avery small stride. He is in business in St. Paul, and that has givenMinneapolis quite a little spurt of prosperity.

  We exchanged a cottage for city lots unimproved, as I said in a formerarticle, and got Mr. Pansley to do it for us. My wife gave him hercarriage for acting in that capacity. She was sorry she could not domore for him, because he was a man who had found his fellow-men in suchan undone condition everywhere, and had been trying ever since to dothem up.

  The property lies about half-way between the West Hotel and the openPolar Sea, and is in a good neighborhood, looking south; at least itwas the other day when I left it. It lies all over the northwest,resembling in that respect the man we bought it of.

  Mr. Pansley took the carriage, also the wrench with which I was wont totake off the nuts thereof when I greased it on Sabbath mornings. Westill go to church, but we walk. Occasionally Mr. Pansley whirls by us,and his dust and debris fall upon my freshly ironed and neat linen coatas he passes by us with a sigh.

  He said once that he did not care for money if he only could let in theglad sunlight of the gospel upon the heathen.

  "Why," I exclaimed, "why do you wish to let in the glad sunlight of thegospel upon the heathen?"

  "Alas!" he said, brushing away a tear with the corner of a gray shawlwhich he wore, and wiping his bright, piercing nose on the top rail ofmy fence, "so that they would not go to hell, Mr. Nye!"

  "And do you think that the heathen who knows nothing of God will go tohell, or has been going to hell for, say, ten thousand years, withouthaving seen a daily paper or a Testament?"

  "I do. Millions of ignorant people in yet undiscovered lands are goingto hell daily without the knowledge of God." With that he turned away,and concealed his emotion in his shawl, while his whole frame shook.

  "But, even if he should escape by reason of his ignorance, we can notescape the responsibility of shedding the light of the gospel upon hisopaque soul," said he.

  So I gave him $2 to assist the poor heathen to a place where he mayshare the welcome of a cordial and eternal damnation along with the moreeducated and refined classes. Whether the heathen will ever appreciateit or not, I can not tell at this moment. Lately I have had a little rayof fear that he might not, and with that fear, like a beam of sunshine,comes the blessed hope that possibly something may have happened to the$2, and that mayhap it did not get there.

  I went up to see the property with which my wife had been endowed by thegenerous foresight of Mr. Pansley, the heathen's friend. I had seen theplace before, but not in the autumn.

  Oh, no, I had not saw it in the hectic of the dying year! I had not sawit when the squirrel, the comic lecturer, and the Italian go forth togather their winter hoard of chestnuts. I had not saw it as the god ofday paints the royal mantle of the year's croaking monarch and the crowsinks softly onto the swelling bosom of the dead horse. I had only sawit in the wild, wet spring. I had only saw it when the frost and thebullfrog were heaving out of the ground.

  _Then rolling my trousers up a yard or two, I struck offinto the scrub pine, carrying with me a large board_ (Page 74)]

  I strolled out there. I rode on the railroad for a couple of hoursfirst, I think. Then I got off at a tank, where I got a nice, cool,refreshing drink of as good, pure water as I ever flung a lip over. Thenrolling my trousers up a yard or two, I struck off into the scrub pine,carrying with me a large board on which I had painted in clear,beautiful characters:

  FOR SALE.

  The owner finding it necessary to go to Europe for eight or nine years, in order to brush up on the languages of the continent and return a few royal visits there, will sell all this suburban property. Terms reasonable. No restrictions except that street-cars shall not run past these lots at a higher rate of speed than sixty miles per hour without permission of the owner.

  I think that the property looks better in the autumn even than it doesin spring. The autumn leaves are falling. Also the price on this pieceof property. It would be a good time to buy it now. Also a good time tosell. I shall add nothing because it has been associated with me. Thatwill cut no figure, for it has not been associated with me so very long,or so very intimately.

  The place, with advertising and the free use of capital, could be made abeautiful rural resort, or it could be fenced off tastefully into acheap commodious place in which to store bears for market.

  But it has grown. It is wider, it seems to me, and there is less toobstruct the view. As soon as commutation or dining trains are put onbetween Minneapolis and Sitka, a good many pupils will live on myproperty and go to school at Sitka.

  Trade is quiet in that quarter at present, however, and traffic ispractically at a standstill. A good many people have written to measking about my subdivision and how various branches of industry wouldthrive there. Having in an unguarded moment used the stamps, I hasten tosay that they would be premature in going there now, unless in pursuitof rabbits, which are extremely prevalent.

  Trade is very dull, and a first or even a second national bank in mysubdivision of the United States would find itself practically out of ajob. A good newspaper, if properly conducted, could have some fun andget a good many advertisements by swopping kind words at regularcatalogue prices for goods. But a theater would not pay. I write thisfor the use of a man who has just written to know if a good opera-housewith folding seats would pay a fair investment on capital. No, it wouldnot. I will be fair and honest. Smarting as I do yet under the cruelinjustice done me by the meek and gentle groceryman, who, while he weptupon my corrugated bosom with one hand, softly removed my pelt with theother and sprinkled Chili sauce all over me, I will not betray my ownfriends. Even with my still bleeding carcass quivering under the Halfordsauce of Mr. Pansley, the "skin" and hypocrite, the friend of thefar-distant savage and the foe of those who are his unfortunateneighbors, I will not betray even a stranger. Though I have used hispostage-stamp I shall not be false to him. An opera-house this fallwoul
d be premature. Most everybody's dates are booked, anyhow. We couldnot get Francis Wilson or Nat C. Goodwin or Lillian Russell or HenryIrving or Mr. Jefferson, for they are all too busy turning people away,and I would hate to open with James Owen O'Connor or any othermechanical appliance.

  No. Wait another year at least. At present an opera-house in mysubdivision of the solar system would be as useless as a Dull Thud inthe state of New York.

  One drawback to the immediate prosperity of the place is thatcommutation rates are yet in their infancy. Eighty-seven and one-halfcents per ride on trains which run only on Tuesdays and Fridays is notsufficient compensation for the long and lonely walk and the paucity ofsome suitable cottages when one gets there.

  So I will sell the dear old place, with all its associations and thegood-will of a thriving young frog conservatory, at the buyer's price.As I say, there has been since I was last there a steady growth, whichis mostly noticeable on the mortgage that I secured along with theproperty. It was on there when I bought it, and as it could not beremoved without injury to the realty, according to an old andestablished law of Justinian or Coke or Littleton, Mr. Pansley ruledthat it was part of the property and passed with its conveyance. It islooking well, with a nice growth of interest around the edges and itsforeclosure clause fully an inch and a half long.

  I shall be willing, in case I do not find a cash buyer, to exchange theproperty for almost anything I can eat, except Paris green. Nor should Ihesitate to swap the whole thing, to a man whom Ifelt that I could respect, for a good bird dog. I am also willing totrade the lots for a milk route or a cold storage. It would be a goodsite for some gentleman in New York to build a country cottage.

  I should also swap the estate to a man who really means business for asecond-hand cellar. Call on or address the undersigned early, and pleasedo not push or rudely jostle those in the line ahead of you.

  Cast-off clothing, express prepaid, and free from all contagiousdiseases, accepted at its full value. Anything left by mistake in thepockets will be taken good care of, and, possibly, returned in thespring.

  Gunnysack Oleson, who lives eight miles north of the county line, willshow you over the grounds. Please do not hitch horses to the trees. Iwill not be responsible for horses injured while tied to my trees.

  A new railroad track is thinking of getting a right of way next year,which may be nearer by two miles than the one that I have to take,provided they will let me off at the right place.

  I promise to do all that I can conscientiously for the road, to aid anyone who may buy the property, and I will call the attention of allrailroads to the advisability of a road in that direction. All that Ican honorably do, I will do. My honor is as dear to me as my gas billevery year I live.

  N. B.--The dead horse on lot 9, block 21, Nye's Addition to the SolarSystem, is not mine. Mine died before I got there.