You Can Search Me

  CHAPTER II.

  JOHN HENRY GETS A SUFFICIENCY.

  Since Uncle Peter Grant was elected Mayor of Ruraldene one bookago, our family group considers it extremely disloyal to stay inthe big town for more than four hours at a time. So with us it isa case of catching those imitation railroad trains at all sorts ofhours and commute to beat the band.

  Since I became a confirmed commuter I have sprained three watchesand two of my legs trying to catch trains that are wild enough tododge a dog-catcher.

  The commuters are divided into two classes: going and coming.

  One of the first rules for a commuter to follow after he locatesthe railroad station, and hikes there a couple of times to get intraining, is to get a red and pink and blue hammock.

  A hammock is a necessary evil in the country, because only by thismeans can the insects become acquainted with the new commuter.

  The day after we first put up our new hammock Uncle Peter camerubbering around to look it over. He was all swelled up over beingelected Mayor, and he dropped in the hammock with a splash. Tenseconds later the rope exploded and Uncle Peter made a deepimpression on the stone porch.

  Every mosquito in the neighborhood rushed to his assistance andtried to lift him up with their teeth.

  Then Uncle Peter ran home and told Aunt Martha that Cinders, ourbulldog, had tried to bite him.

  The national emblem of the commuter is the lawn-mower.

  The lawn-mower was invented originally for the purpose of givingthe lawn a quick shave, and because it can't talk like a barber itmakes a noise like the fall of Port Arthur.

  I remember the first day I decided I would trim the vandyke beardon our lawn. Of course I got all mine, and I got it good. Theresult will always live in history side by side with the battle ofGettysburg.

  The lawn-mower was sleeping peacefully in the barn when I rushed inand dragged it shriekingly from its slumbers.

  Perhaps it was because I forgot to lather the lawn, but any way itwas the hardest shave I ever had anything to do with.

  That lawn-mower began to complain so loudly that the neighbors formiles around rushed to the rock pile and armed themselves for thefray.

  The committee of citizens attracted by the screams of thelawn-mower came over to see if I was killing a member of the familyor only a distant relative.

  When they saw me boxing the ears of a stubborn lawn-mower they saidmy punishment was heavy enough, so they threw away the lynchingrope and left me at the post.

  Clara J. came out on the porch and said, "John, perhaps thatlawn-mower would stop screaming if you used a little axle grease!"

  "All right," I came back at her, "but it will take me an hour and ahalf to find out which part of the lawnmower will fit the axlegrease."

  Then I lifted the machinery up to examine its constitution andby-laws, and about two and a half pounds of wrought iron fell offand landed on my instep.

  The wrought iron made good.

  Then I tried to stand on the other foot, but I lost my balance andfell on the lawn-mower's third rail.

  I never was so mortified in my life as when that lawn-mower beganto saw its initials on my shin bones.

  Every time I tried to get up I lost my balance, and every time Ilost my balance the lawn-mower would leap up in the air and fall onmy wish-bone.

  When loving hands finally pulled us apart I was two doors and ahalf below unconsciousness, while the lawnmower had recovered itssecond wind and was wagging its tail with excitement.

  After waiting for about ten minutes for me to come back in thering, the lawn-mower got impatient and began to bark at me inYiddish, so I decided that our lawn could grow whiskers like aPopulist farmer and be hanged to it.

  Another splendid bit of local color in the life of some commutersis the tunnel which runs from Forty-second Street up as far as OneHundred and Fifty in the shade.

  A ride through this tunnel on a hot day will put you over on WooseyAvenue quicker than a No. 9 pill in Hop Lee's smoke factory.

  In order to get out to Ruraldene I have to use the tunnel, andevery time I use it it leaves something which looks like the markof Cain across my brow.

  The first day I went through that tunnel will always remain one ofmy hottest memories.

  I lost nine pounds of solid flesh somewhere between my shoulderblade and Seventy-ninth Street.

  The sensation is the same as a Bad Man's hereafter, including thesulphur.

  First I choked up a little, then I coughed, then I stirreduneasily, and then I looked out the window and prayed for thedaylight, and then I looked at my newspaper, but I couldn't readit, because the railroad company had found the gas bill prettyheavy last month and they were cutting down expenses.

  Then I lost my breath, and when I got it back I found it wasn'tmine.

  Then I began to fan myself with my hat, but I stopped when the manbehind me began to kick because I was handing him more than hisjust share of the tunnel gas.

  Then I began, to choke up again, and then I coughed, and then Icould feel something fat and mysterious playing hide and go seekaround my brain, but outside all was black as ink, and only fromthe noise could I tell that the road was still paying dividends.

  The air began to get close and thick like a porterhouse steak in aSt. Louis hotel.

  I began to breathe like my wife crochets an open-facedstocking--one, two, three, drop one; one, two, three, four, dropone.

  Then my blood began to curdle and cold chills ran up my back andliked it so well they ran down again.

  My respiration was 8 to 1, my inspiration was 9 to 6 for a place,and my perspiration was like a cloudburst.

  I had made my will with a few mental and Indian reservations, andwas choking up for the last time when, with one mighty jumpforward, the train shook itself free from the tunnel and once morewe were out in the sunlight.

  After picking enough sulphur off my clothes to make a box ofmatches, I reached gently over and tried to put the window up, butit was closed tighter than a sacred saloon on Sunday.

  I gave the window-sash a couple of upper-cuts and a few short-armpunches, but it sat there and laughed in my face.

  The brakeman came through, and I spoke to him about the window. Hesaid, "The first time I see the president of the road I'll tell himabout it!" and left me flat.

  Once more I tried to open that window, but I only succeeded inopening my collar; so then I opened my mouth and made a short butspicy announcement, whereupon the old lady in the seat ahead of megot up and left the car.

  Just then the train pulled into a station which I hadn't paid for,but I went out and took it, because it contained a little fresh air.

  Some day I will mention the name of this railroad company and makethem blush.

  Well, after I left Bunch that afternoon, I ducked for the depot,and reached Ruraldene just in time to witness the beginning of amost painful episode.

  The house was lighted up from cellar to attic. As soon as I openedthe door I found our respected Mayor, Uncle Peter, and he was alsolit up.

  "It's a surprise, Johnny," he whispered hoarsely. "Clara J. isgiving an entertainment for the benefit of the Christian Soldiers'League, and it's going to cost you two dollars to come into yourown house."

  It made an awful hit with Uncle Peter to see me cough up those twobones, but I said nothing and made good.

  My wife called it a musicale, but to me it looked more like a fight.

  With the help of Aunt Martha and Alice Grey, my wife arranged theprogramme and kept it dark to surprise the rest of the family.

  It was such a surprise to me that I felt like doing a glide to thewoodlands.

  It was my second experience with a musicale, and this one cured meall right.

  You know I don't care much for society--especially when it breaksinto our bungalow and begins to scratch my furniture with itshigh-heeled shoes. But just to please Peaches I promised to go inthe parlor and not be an insult to those present.

  For awhile everybody sat around and
sized up what everybody elsewas wearing.

  Then they gave each other the silent double-cross.

  Presently my wife whispered to Miss Cleopatra Hungerschnitz,whereupon that young lady giggled her way over to the piano andbegan to knock its teeth out.

  The way Cleopatra went after one of Beethoven's sonatas and slappedits ears was pitiful.

  Cleopatra learned to injure a piano at a conservatory of music, andshe could take a fugo by Victor Hugo and leave it for dead in aboutthirty-two bars.

  At the finish of the sonata we all applauded Cleopatra just asloudly as we could, in the hope that she would faint with surpriseand stop playing, but no such luck.

  She tied a couple of chords together and swung that piano like apair of Indian clubs.

  First she did "My Old Kentucky Home," with variations, untileverybody who had a home began to weep for fear it might get to belike her Kentucky home.

  The variations were where she made a mistake and struck the rightnote.

  Then Cleopatra moved up to the squeaky end of the piano and gave animitation of a Swiss music box.

  It sounded to me like a Swiss cheese.

  Presently Cleopatra ran out of raw material and subsided, while weall applauded her with our fingers crossed, and two very thoughtfulladies began to talk fast to Cleopatra so as to take her mind offthe piano.

  Then the Bingledingle brothers, known as Oscar and Victor, openedfire on us with a couple of mandolins.

  Oscar and Victor play entirely by hand. They don't know one notefrom another, and they can prove it when they begin to play.

  Their mother believes them to be prodigies of genius. She is alonein her belief.

  After Oscar and Victor had chased one of Sousa's marches all overthe parlor and finally left it unconscious under the sofa, theybowed and ceased firing, and then they went out in the dining-roomand filled their storage batteries with ice cream and cake.

  This excitement was followed by another catastrophe named MinnehahaJones, who picked up a couple of soprano songs and screeched themat us.

  Minnehaha is one of those fearless singers who vocalize without asafety valve. She always keeps her eyes closed, so she can't telljust when her audience gets up and leaves the room.

  The next treat was a mixed duet on the flute and trombone betweenClarence Smith and Lancelot Diffenberger, with a violin obligate onthe side by Hector Tompkins.

  Never before have I seen music so roughly handled.

  It looked like a walk-over for Clarence, but in the fifth round heblew a couple of green notes and Lancelot got the decision.

  Then, for a consolation prize, Hector was led out in the middle ofthe room, where he assassinated Mascagni's _Cavalleria Rusticana_so thoroughly that it will never be able to enter a fifty-centtable d'hote restaurant again.

  Then Cornucopia Coogan arose and gave us a few select recitations.She weighs 295 pounds and she was immense.

  Just as she started to tell us that curfew would not ring to-nightUncle Peter winked at me, and we sneaked out and began to drown oursorrow.

  Those musicales would be all to the good if the music didn'tsuffocate them.

  After the crowd had left that night Peaches said to me, "John,Uncle Peter and Aunt Martha and I have been talking matters overto-day, and we've arranged a most delightful surprise for you!"

  "What is it, another one of those parlor riots?" I asked, "If so, Iwant to tell you right now that you couldn't surprise me if UnclePeter and Aunt Martha stepped out and did a song and dance in blackface."

  Peaches laughed.

  "Oh! that isn't it," she chuckled. "It has something to do withthe $5,000 you've saved."

  "Oh! it has," I muttered faintly.

  "Yes, Uncle Peter thinks we better not invest it in that house justnow," she went on. "He has a better plan. You are to give him themoney and he will invest it for you."

  "Ah!" I said.

  "But that isn't the real surprise," she cooed.

  "It will do," I answered.

  "Uncle Peter is so delighted that you have kept your promise to menot to speculate any more that he has planned--oh! I nearly told,and it's _such_ a secret!"

  Then I went over into a corner and got busy with my thoughts.

  Bunch and I would have to get Petroskinski to work in a hurry.

  We both needed the money.