A PLEASANT SPIRIT.
It was drawing toward nine o'clock, and symptoms of closing for thenight were beginning to manifest themselves in Mr. Pegram's store. Thefew among the nightly loungers there who had still a remnant of domesticconscience left had already risen from boxes and "kags," and gathered upthe pound packages of sugar and coffee which had served as the pretextfor their coming, but which would not, alas! sufficiently account forthe length of their stay. The older stagers still sat composedly in theseats of honor immediately surrounding the red-hot stove, and a look ofdisapproval passed over their faces as Mr. Pegram, opening the door andthereby letting in a blast of cold air upon their legs, proceeded to putup the outside shutters.
"In a hurry to-night, ain't you, Pegram?" inquired Mr. Dickey, as theproprietor returned, brushing flakes of snow from his coat and shiveringexpressively.
"Well, not particular," replied Mr. Pegram, with a deliberation whichconfirmed his words, "but it's pretty nigh nine, and Sally she ast menot to be later _than_ nine to-night, for our hired girl's gonehome for a spell, and that makes it kind of lonesome for Sally: the babydon't count for much, only when he cries, and I'll do him the justice tosay that isn't often."
"It's a new thing for Sally to be scary, ain't it?" queried Mr.Crumlish, with an expression of mild surprise.
"Well, yes, I may say it is," admitted Mr. Pegram; "but, you know, wehad a kind of a warning, before we moved in, that all wasn't quite as itshould be, and, as bad luck would have it, there was a Boston paper comeround her new coat, with a story in it that laid out to be true, ofnoises and appearances, and one thing and another, in a house rightthere to Boston, and Sally she says to me, 'If they believe in themthings to Boston, where they don't believe in nothing they can't see andhandle, if all we hear's true, there must be something in it, and I onlywish I'd read that piece before we took the house.'
"I keep a-telling her we've neither seen nor heard nothing out of thecommon, so far, but all she'll say to that is, 'That's no reason wewon't;' and sure enough it isn't, though I don't tell her so."
"But surely," said Mr. Birchard, the young schoolmaster, who boardedwith Mr. Dickey, "you don't believe any such trash as that account of ahaunted house in Boston?" There was a non-committal silence, and he wenton impatiently, "I could give you a dozen instances in which mysteriesof this kind, when they were energetically followed up, were proved tobe the results of the most simple and natural causes."
"Like enough, like enough, young man," said Uncle Jabez Snyder, in histremulous tones, "and mebbe some folks not a hunderd miles from herecould tell you another dozen that hadn't no natural causes."
"I should like very much to hear them," replied the young man, with anexasperatingly incredulous smile.
"If Pegram here wasn't in such a durned hurry to turn us out and shetup," said Mr. Dickey, with manifest irritation, "Uncle Jabez could tellyou all you want to hear."
Mr. Pegram looked disturbed. It was with him a fixed principle never todisoblige a customer, and he saw that he was disobliging at least half adozen. On the other hand, he was not prepared to face his wife should heso daringly disregard her wishes as to keep the store open half an hourlater than usual. He pondered for a few moments, and then his facesuddenly brightened, and he said, "If one of you gentlemen that passesmy house on your way home would undertake to put coal on the fire, putthe lights out, lock the door, and bring me the key, the store's at yourdisposal till ten o'clock; and I'm only sorry I can't stay myself."
Two or three immediately volunteered, but as the schoolmaster and Mr.Dickey were the only ones whose way lay directly past Mr. Pegram's door,it was decided that they should divide the labors and honors betweenthem.
"I'd like you not to stop later _than_ ten," said Mr. Pegramdeprecatingly, as he buttoned his great-coat and drew his hat down overhis eyes, "for I have to be up so early, since that boy cleared out,that I need to go to bed sooner than I mostly do."
Compliance with this modest request was readily promised, good-nightswere exchanged, and the lessened circle drew in more closely around thestove, for several of the company had reluctantly decided that, allthings considered, it would be the better part of valor for them to gowhen Mr. Pegram went.
There was a few minutes' silence, and then Mr. Dickey said impatiently,"We're all ready, Uncle Jabez. Why don't you fire away, so's to bethrough by ten o'clock?"
"I was a-thinkin' which one I'd best tell him," said Uncle Jabez mildly."They're all convincin' to a mind that's open to convincement, but I'dlike to pick out the one that's most so."
"There's the one about Alviry Pratt's grandfather," suggested Mr.Crumlish encouragingly.
"No," mused the old man. "I've no doubt of that myself, but then itdidn't happen to me in person, and I've a notion he'd rather hear oneI've experienced than two I've heard tell of."
"Of course I would, Uncle Jabez," said Mr. Birchard kindly, but with anamused twinkle in his eyes. "You take your own time: it's only juststruck nine, and there's no hurry at all."
"Supposin' I was to tell him that one about my first wife?" said the oldman presently, and with an inquiring look around the circle.
Several heads were nodded approvingly, and Mr. Crumlish said, "The veryone I'd 'a' chosen myself if you'd ast me."
Thus encouraged, Uncle Jabez, with a sort of deliberate promptness,began: "We married very young, Lavina and me,--too young, some said, butI never could see why, for I had a good farm, with health and strengthto carry it on, and she was a master-hand with butter and cheese. At anyrate, we thriv; and if we had plenty of children, there was plenty for'em to eat, and they grew as fast as everything else did. She wasn'twhat you'd fairly call handsome, Lavina wasn't, but she waspleasant-appearin', very,--plump as a pa'tridge, with nice brown hairand eyes and a clean-lookin' skin. But it was her smile in particularthat took me; and when she set in to laugh you couldn't no more' helplaughin' along with her than one bobolink can help laughin' back when hehears another. She was the tenderest-hearted woman that ever breathedthe breath of life: she couldn't bear to hurt the feelin's of a cat, andshe'd go 'ithout a chicken-dinner any day sooner'n kill a chicken. Astime passed on and she begun to age a little, she grew stouter 'n'stouter; but it didn't seem to worry her none. She'd puff and blow agood bit when she went up-stairs, but she'd always laugh about it, andsay that when we was rich enough we'd put in an elevator, like they hadat a big hotel we saw once. It would suit her fine, she said, to setdown on a cushioned seat and be up-stairs afore she could git up again.Now, you needn't think I'm wanderin' from the p'int," and Uncle Jabezlooked severely at Mr. Dickey, who was manifestly fidgeting. "All youfolks that have lived about here all your lives knew Lavina 'ithout mytellin' you this; but Mr. Birchard he's a stranger in the neighborhood,and it's needful to the understandin' of my story that he should knowjust what sort of a woman she was,--or is, as I should say."
Mr. Dickey subsided, while Mr. Birchard tried to throw still more of anexpression of the deepest interest and attention into his face. He musthave succeeded, for the old man, going on with his story, fixed his eyesmore and more frequently upon those of the young one. They were large,gentle, appealing blue eyes, with a mildly surprised expression, whichMr. Birchard found exceedingly attractive. Whether or not the fact thatthe youngest of Uncle Jabez's children, a daughter, had preciselysimilar eyes, in any way accounted for the attraction, I leave to mindsmore astute than my own.
"You may think," the narrator resumed, when he felt that he had settledMr. Dickey, "whether or not you'd miss a woman like that, when you'dsummered and wintered with her more'n forty year. She always said shehoped she'd go sudden, for she was so heavy it would 'a' took three orfour of the common run of folks to lift her, and she dreaded a longsickness. Well, she was took at her word. We was settin', as it might benow, one on one side the fire, the other on t'other, in the bigeasy-cheers that Samuel--that's our oldest son, and a good boy, if I dosay it--had sent us with the fust spare money he had. She'd beenlaughin' and jokin', as
she so often did, five minutes afore.Gracie--she was a little thing then, and, bein' the youngest, a littlesassy and sp'iled, mebbe--had been on a trip to the city, and she'dbrought her ma a present of a shoe-buttoner with a handle a full footlong.
"'There, ma,' she says, laughin' up in her mother's face; 'you wascomplainin' about the distance it seemed to be to your feet: here's akind of a telegraft-pole to shorten it a little.'
"My, how we did laugh! And Lavina must needs try it right away, toplease Gracie; and she said it worked beautiful. But whether it was thelaughin' so much right on top of a hearty supper, or the bendin' down totry her new toy, or both, she jest says, as natural as I'm speakin' now,'Jabez, I'm a-goin'--' and then stopped. And when I looked up to see whyshe didn't finish, she was gone, sure enough."
His voice broke, and he stopped abruptly. Mr. Birchard, without in theleast intending to do it, grasped his hand, and held it withaffectionate warmth for a moment.
"Thank you, young man, thank you kindly," said Uncle Jabez, recoveringhis voice and shaking Mr. Birchard's hand heartily at the same moment."You've an uncommon feelin' heart for one so young.
"To say I was lonesome after she went don't say much; but time evensthings out after a while, or we couldn't stand it as long as we do.Gracie she settled into a little woman all at once, as you may say, andseemed older for a while than she does now. The rest was all married andgone, but one boy,--a good boy, too. But they came around me, comfortin'and helpin', though each one of 'em mourned her nigh as much as I didmyself; and after a while, as I said, I got used, in a manner, to doin''ithout her."
Here he made a long pause, with his eyes intently fixed upon thedarkness of the adjoining store-room. The heat from the stove had becometoo great after the shutting of the shutters, and one of the men hadopened an inner door for ventilation.
Now, as one pair of eyes after another followed those of the old man,there was a sort of subdued stir around the circle, and theschoolmaster, to his intense disgust, caught himself looking hastilyover his shoulder,--the door being behind him.
Mr. Dickey broke the spell by suddenly rising, with the exclamation, "Ithink we're cooled off about enough; and, as I'm a little rheumatickyto-night, I'll shut that door, if you've none of you no objections."
There was a subdued murmur of assent, the door was closed, and UncleJabez returned to the thread of his discourse:
"Lemme see: where was I? Oh, yes. You may think it a little strange,now, but I didn't neither see nor hear tell of her for a full sixmonths. If I was makin' this story up, and anxious to make a _good_story of it, you can see, if you're fair-minded, that I'd say she cameback right away. Now, wouldn't I be most likely to? Say?"
He appealed so directly to Mr. Birchard, pausing for a reply, that thesceptic was obliged to answer in some way, and, with a curious sort ofreluctance, he said slowly, "Yes--I suppose--I'm sure you would."
This seemed to satisfy Uncle Jabez, and he went on with his story:
"I came home from town one stormy night, about six months after shedied, pretty well beat out,--entirely so, I may say. I'd been drivin'some cattle into the city, and I'd had only a poor concern of a boy tohelp me. The cattle was contrai-ry,--contrai-rier'n common; and Iremember thinkin', when the feller at the drove-yard handed me my check,that I'd earned it pretty hard. That's the last about it I do remember.I s'pose I must 'a' put it in my pocket-book, the same as usual; but Irode home in a sort of a maze, I was so tired and drowsy, and I'd barelysense enough to eat my supper and grease my boots afore I went to bed. Ihad a bill to pay the next day, and I opened my pocket-book, quiteconfident, to take out the check. It wasn't there. I always kep' anumber of papers in that pocket-book, and I thought at fust it had gotmislaid among 'em: so I turned everything out, and unfolded 'em one byone, and poked my finger through a hole between the leather and thelinin', and made it a good deal bigger,--but that's neither here northere,--and before I was through I was certain sure of one thing,---that wherever else that check was, it wasn't in that pocket-book. Then Itried my pockets, one after the other,--four in my coat, four in myovercoat, three in my vest, two in my pants: no, it wasn't in any ofthem, and I begun to feel pretty queer, I can tell you. It was my onlysale of cattle for the season; I was dependin' on it to pay a bill andbuy one or two things for Gracie; and, anyhow, it's no fun to lose ahunderd-dollar check and feel as if it must have been bewitched awayfrom you. I rode back to the drove-yard, though I wasn't more'n halfrested from the day before, and they said they'd stop payment on thecheck and give me a chance to look right good for it, and if I couldn'tfind it they'd draw me another. You see, they knowed me right well, andthey wasn't afraid I was tryin' to play any sort of a game on 'em.Still, it wasn't a pleasant thing to have happen, for, say the best youcould of it, it argued that I'd lost a considerable share of my wits.So, when I come home, I felt so kind of worried and down-hearted that Icouldn't half eat my supper; and that worried Gracie,--she was athin-skinned little critter, and if I didn't eat the same as usual she'dalways take it into her head there was something wrong with thevictuals. I fell asleep in my cheer right after supper, and slept tillnine o'clock; and then Gracie woke me, and ast me if I didn't think I'dbetter go to bed. I said yes, I s'posed I had; but by that time I washungry, and I ast her what she had good in the pantry. She brightened upwonderful at that,--though when I come to look closer at her I see she'dbeen cryin',--and she said there was doughnuts, fresh fried that day,and the best half of a mince pie. I told her that was all right so faras it went, but I'd like somethin' a little solider to begin with: soshe found me a few slices of cold pork and one of her cowcumber pickles,and I eat a right good supper. She picked at a piece of pie, by way ofkeepin' me company, but she didn't eat much. Now, I tell you this, whichyou may think isn't revelant to the subject, to let you see I went tobed comfortable. We laughed and talked over our little supper, andpretended we was city-folks, on our way home from the theater, gettin' afancy supper at Delmonico's. And I forgot all about the check for thetime bein', as slick and clean as if I'd never had it nor lost it. But,nevertheless, when I went to sleep I begun to dream about it, and was tothe full as much worried in my dream as I was when I was awake. I seemedto myself to be huntin' all over the house, in every hole and corner Icould think of, and sometimes I'd come on pieces of paper that looked solike it outside I'd make sure I'd found it, and then when I opened 'emthey'd be ridickilous rhymes, 'ithout any sense to 'em; when all of asudden I heard Lavina's voice, as plain as you hear mine now. It seemedto come from a good ways off just at first, callin' 'Father,'--shealways called me 'Father,' partly because she didn't like the name ofJabez, and it is a humbly name, I'm free to confess,--and then againnearer, 'Father;' and then again, as if it was right at the foot of thestairs. And this time it went on to say, loud and plain, so's 't I couldhear every word, 'You look in the little black teapot on the top shelfof the pantry, where I kep' the missionary money, and see what you'llfind.' And with that I heard her laugh; and I'd know Lavina's laughamong a thousand. I was too dazed like to do it right away, and I must'a' fell asleep while I was thinkin' about it, for when I woke up it wasbroad daylight and Gracie was callin' to me to get up. But I hadn'tforgot a word that Lavina'd said, and I went for that teapot as quick asI was dressed, and there was the check, sure enough, in good order andcondition!"
He paused to look round at his audience and see the effect of thisstatement, and the schoolmaster took advantage of the pause to ask,"Were you in the habit of putting money in that teapot for safe-keeping,Uncle Jabez?"
"Young man, I was not," said Uncle Jabez emphatically, and evidentlyannoyed both by the question and by the tone in which it was uttered."It was a little notion of Lavina's, and I'd never meddled with it, oneway or the other. But I'd left it be there after she died, because Iliked to look at it. I'd no more 'a' dreamed of puttin' that check in itthan I would of puttin' it into Gracie's work-box. But there it was, andhow it come there it wasn't vouchsafed me to know.
"I think it must have been
a matter of three or four months after this,though I wouldn't like to say too positive, that I fell into my firstand last lawsuit. A man I'd always counted a good neighbor made out he'dfound an old title-deed which give him a right to a smart slice off'n mybest meadow-land. It dated fifty years back, and old Peter Pinnell, thatwas the only surveyor in the township at that time, made out herecollected runnin' the lines; and when McKellop, the feller thatclaimed the track, took old Pinnell over the ground, to see if he couldfind any landmarks that would help to make the claim good, they found abig pine-tree jest where they wanted to find it, and cut into it at theright height to find a 'blaze,' if there was one. The rings was markedas plain as the lines on a map, and when they'd cut through fifty, therewas the mark, sure enough, and McKellop's lawyer crowed ready to hurthimself. I was a good deal cut down, I can tell you, for I could seepretty well that it was goin' to turn the scale; and when supper-timecame, Gracie could hardly coax me to the table. I said no, I didn't feelto be hungry; for I couldn't get that strip of meadow-land out of myhead. And it wasn't so much the value of the land, either, though Icouldn't well afford to lose it, as it was the idee of McKellop'scrowin' and cacklin' all over the neighborhood about it. But Gracielooked so anxious and tired that I come to the table, jest to satisfyher; and I found I was hungry, after all, for I'd been trampin' roundthe farm most of the day, lookin' for some landmark or sign that wouldprove my claim, that dated seventy years back. I recollect we had sousedpigs' feet for supper that night; and I don't think I ever tasted betterin my life. I eat pretty free of them, as I always did of anything Iliked, and we wound up with some of her canned peaches, that she'd gotout to coax me to eat, and cream on 'em 'most as thick as butter: shehad a skimmer with holes into it that she always skimmed the cream withfor our own use. She'd made as good a pot of coffee as I ever tasted.And when I'd had all I wanted, I felt a good deal better, and I says toher,--'I'll fret over it no more, Gracie: if it's his'n, let him take it'ithout more words.'
"She read me a story out of the paper that made us both laugh righthearty, and then a chapter, as usual, and then we went to bed. And allcome round jest as it did afore. I thought I was roamin' about the farm,as I had been pretty nigh all day; but things was changed round,somehow, and the further I went the more mixed up they got, till, jestas I'd found the pine-tree, I heard Lavina's voice, the same as I'd doneafore,--first far, and then near,--sayin', 'Father;' and the third timeshe said it, when it sounded close to, she went on to say, 'He's donehis cuttin', now do you do yours. You cut through twenty more rings, andyou'll find the blaze that marks _your_ survey. And then thank himkindly for givin' you the idee. The smartest of folks is too smart forthemselves once in a while.' And with that she laughed her own jolly,hearty laugh; but that was the last she said; and I laid there wonderin'and thinkin' for a while, and then dropped off to sleep. But it was allas clear as a bell in my head in the morning, and I had McKellop and oldPeter at the pine-tree by eight o'clock. I'd sharpened my axe good, Ican tell you, and it didn't take me long to cut through twenty morerings, and there, sure enough, was the blaze; and if ever you see ablue-lookin' man, that man was McKellop; for as soon as old Peter seethe blaze he recollected hearin' his father tell about the survey; herecollected it particular because the old man was a good judge ofapple-jack, and he'd said that _my_ father'd gi'n him some of thebest, that day the survey was made, that he'd ever tasted. And Petersaid he reckoned he could find something about it in his father's booksand among some loose papers he had in a box. And, sure enough, he foundenough to make my claim as clear as a bell and make McKellop's as flatas a pancake. Now, what do you think of _that_, hey?"
Once more the old man peered into Birchard's face, and the schoolmasteranswered one question with another, after the custom of the country:
"Did you ever know anything about the blazed tree before McKellop foundthe blaze?"
"When I come to think it over, I found I did," said Uncle Jabez, fallingall unconscious into the trap set for him. "I hadn't no papers about it,but my father had told me all the ins and outs of it when I was a boy,and it had somehow gone out of my mind."
"Ah!" said the schoolmaster.
"I don't know what you mean by 'Ah' in this connection," said UncleJabez, speaking with unwonted sharpness; "but if you're misdoubtin' whatI tell you I may as well shet up and go home."
"I don't doubt your word in the least, Uncle Jabez; I assure you Idon't," Mr. Birchard hastened to say. "And I'm deeply interested. I hopeyou will go on and tell me all your experiences of this kind. I've heardand read a good many ghost-stories; but in all of them the ghosts weremalicious creatures, who seemed to come back chiefly for the fun ofscaring people out of their wits. Yours is the first really benevolentand well-meaning ghost of which I have ever heard; and it interests meimmensely; for I never could see why a person who was all goodness andgenerosity while he--or she--was alive should turn into an unmitigatednuisance after dying. I should think, if they must needs come back, theymight just as well be pleasant about it and make people glad to see--orhear--them."
"That's exactly the view I've always taken," said Mr. Crumlish modestly;"and one reason I've never felt to doubt any of Uncle Jabez's stories isthat all the ghosts he's ever seen or heard tell of have beendecent-behaving ghosts, that didn't come back just for the fun ofscaring people to death."
"That's so; that's so," said the old man, entirely mollified, andhearing no note of sarcasm in the schoolmaster's rapidly-utteredeloquence. "If any one of 'em was to behave ugly," he continued, "itwould shake my faith in the whole thing considerable; for I couldn'tbring myself to believe that anybody I've ever knowed could be so fargiven over as to want to be ugly after dyin'."
"Well, now, I don't know," said Mr. Dickey argumentatively. "I_hev_ knowed certain folks that it seems to me would stick to theirugliness alive or dead, and, though I've never seen no appearances ofany kind, as I may say, I can believe jist as easy that some of 'em comeback for mischief as that others come back for good."
There was a few minutes' constrained silence after this remark. Mr.Dickey's first wife had been what is popularly known as "a Tartar," andthere was a generally current rumor that as the last shovelful of earthwas patted down on her grave he had been heard to murmur, "Thanks be topraise, she's quiet at last." The idea of her reappearance in her wontedhaunts was indeed a dismaying one, especially as Mr. Dickey had recentlymarried again, and, if the gossips knew anything about it, was repeatingmuch of his former painful experience. The silence, which was becomingembarrassing, was finally broken by the schoolmaster.
"Had you any more experiences of the kind you have just related, UncleJabez?" he asked, in tones of such deep respect and lively interest thatUncle Jabez responded, with gratifying promptness,--
"Plenty, plenty, though perhaps them two that I've just told you was themost strikin'. But it always seemed to me, after that first time, thatLavina was on hand when anything went wrong or was likely to go wrong;and ef I was to tell you all the scrapes she's kep' me out of and pulledme out of, I should keep you settin' here all night. There was onemore," he continued, "that struck me a good deal at the time. It wasabout money, like the fust one, in a different sort of way. It wasdurin' those days when specie was so skurce and high that it was quite acircumstance to get a piece of hard money. There come along a peddler ina smart red wagon, with all sorts of women's trash packed into it, andGracie took it into her head to want some of his things. It happened tobe her birthday that day, and, as she didn't often pester me aboutclothes, I told her to choose out what she wanted, up to five dollars'worth, and, if the feller could change me a twenty-dollar note, I'd payfor it. He jumped at it, sayin' he didn't count it any trouble at all togive change, the way some storekeepers did, and that he always kep' alot on hand to oblige his customers. I will say for him that it seemedto me he give Gracie an amazin' big five dollars' worth, and when hecome to make the change he handed out a ten-dollar gold piece, or what Ithen took to be such, as easy as if he'd found it growin' on a
bush, andsaid nothin' whatever about the premium on it. Perhaps I'd ought to havementioned it, but it seemed to me it was his business more'n mine: so Ijest took it as if it was the most natural thing in life, and he wentoff. I thought I might as well as not get the premium on it before itwent down the way folks said it was goin' to: so, after dinner, Iharnessed up, and drove down to the post-office,--it was kep' in thedrug-store then, the same as it is now,--and when I handed my gold pieceto the postmaster, which was also the druggist, and said I'd take aquarter's worth of stamps, and I believed gold was worth a dollarfifteen just now, he first smelt of it, and then bit it, and then pouredsome stuff out'n a bottle onto it, and then handed it back to me with apityin' smile that somehow riled me more'n a little, and he says, sayshe,--
"'Somebody's fooled you badly, Uncle Jabez. That coin's a counterfeit.Do you happen to know where you got it?'
"'I know well enough,' I says, and I expect I spoke pretty mad, for I_felt_ mad. 'I got it of a travellin' peddler, that's far enoughaway by this time, and if you're sure it's bad I'm that much out ofpocket.' He seemed right concerned about it, and ast me if I hadn't noclue that I could track the peddler by; but I couldn't think of any, andI went home a good deal down in the mouth. But Gracie chirked me up, asshe always does, bless her! and she made me a Welsh rabbit for supper,and some corn muffins, and a pot of good rich chocolate, by way of achange, and we agreed that, as she'd a pretty big five dollars worth andas the rest of the change was good, we'd say no more about it, for itwould be like lookin' for a needle in a hay-stack to try to track him.
"'Why, father,' she says, 'I don't so much as know his name: do you?'
"I told her no, I didn't; that if I'd heard his name I disremembered it,but that I didn't think I'd heard it. And then that very night comeanother visit from mother, and she told me all about it. She come theway she always did, and when she spoke the last time, close to, as youmay say, she says,--
"'I wouldn't give up that ten dollars so easy, if I was you, father.That peddler's name is Hanigan,--Elwood Hanigan,--and he'll be at theState Fair to-morrow. Now, do you go, and you'll find his red wagon withno trouble at all; and jest be right down firm with him, and tell himthat if he doesn't give you good money in place of the bad he foistedoff on you you'll show him up to the whole fair, and you'll see how gladhe'll be to settle it.'
"And with that she laughed jest as natural as life, and I heard no moretill Gracie knocked on my door in the morning."
"And did you go to the fair and find him and get your money back?" askedBirchard, who was interested in spite of his scepticism.
"I did, jest that," replied Uncle Jabez. "I got off bright and early,and, as luck would have it, I'd jest tied and blanketed my horse whenthat wonderful smart red wagon come drivin' in at the gate. I waitedtill he'd begun to pull his wares out and make a fine speech about 'em,and then I jest walked up to him, cool and composed, and give him hischoice between payin' me good money for his bogus gold or hearin'_me_ make a speech; and you may jest bet your best hat he paid upquicker'n winkin'. Perhaps I'd ought to have warned folks ag'in' him asit was, but I had a notion he'd save his tricks till he got to anotherneighborhood; and it turned out I was right. He didn't give none of hisgold change out that day. But you can see for yourself that if it hadn'tbeen for Lavina he'd have come off winnin' horse in that race. That wasalways the way when mother was about: she had more sense in her littlefinger than I had in my whole body, and head too, for that matter."
"And you found that you really had not known the man's name until it wasconveyed to you in the manner in which you have described?" asked theschoolmaster deferentially.
"Well, no," said Uncle Jabez. "When I saw his wagon the next day, Iremembered of readin' his name in gilt letters on the side, tacked tosome patent medicine he claimed to have invented; but I don't supposeI'd ever thought of it again if mother hadn't told it to me so plain."
The schoolmaster said nothing. He had his own neat little theoriesconcerning all the manifestations which had been mentioned, but somehowthe old man's guileless belief had touched him, and he had no longer anydesire to shake it, even had it been possible to do so. But he could nothelp probing the subject a little further: so presently he asked, "Andyou've never spoken to her, never asked her if it were not possible foryou to see as well as hear her?"
"Young man," said Uncle Jabez kindly, but solemnly, "there's such a sinas presumption, and there's some old sayin' or other about fools rushin'in where angels fear to tread. If you try to grab too much at once,you're apt to lose all. If it was meant for me to see mother as well ashear her, I _should_ see her; and if I was to go to pryin' roundand tryin' to find out what's purposely hid from me, I make no doubt butI should lose the little that's been vouchsafed to me. But I'd farrather hear you ask questions like that than to have you throwin' doubton the whole business, as you seemed inclined to do at fust."
"Look here," said Mr. Dickey briskly, "do you know it's well on tohalf-past ten? and we were to have the key at Pegram's by ten. I thinkwe'd better do what there is to do, and clear out of this as quick as weknow how, and mebbe some of us will wish before an hour's gone that wehad Uncle Jabez's knack at makin' out a good story."
"You speak for yourself, Dickey," said Mr. Crumlish good-naturedly."There's some of us that goes in and comes out, with nobody to carewhich it is, nor how long we stay; but freedom has its drawbacks, aswell as other things."
The schoolmaster laughed at himself for striking a match as he turnedthe last light out, but he felt moving through his brain a vague wishthat Uncle Jabez would break himself of that trick he had of gazingfixedly at nothing, and that other trick of stopping suddenly in themiddle of a sentence to cock his head, as if he were hearing somefar-away, uncertain sound.
MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.