“You fellows outside the medical profession have absolutely no conception of the terrors confronting a prominent physician and of the traps and snares and pitfalls laid for him at every turn.”
The great surgeon lolled back in his chair, and, raising a glass of champagne in those delicately formed, yet steel-strong fingers that had resolved the intricacies of life and death for many a sufferer, he gazed thoughtfully at the whirling torrent of tiny bubbles and then touched it lightly to his lips. It was one of those rare times when the wheel of Fate had brought together a group of men united by the strongest bond that friendship can tie, the bond of the college life and love of auld lang syne. It was heart to heart here, even as it had been with us a quarter century before, ere we had parted to go our several ways in the broad fields of life.
Of us all, Harrington had become the one pre-eminently famous, and his remark came in reply to a bit of the congratulatory flattery that only the intimacy of the college chum dare venture with impunity.
“What do you mean, Harrington?” asked Dalbey, the banker. “Perplexities of diagnosis, the nervous strain of responsibility, and the like?”
“I think I can say without conceit,” replied the surgeon, “that diagnosis has become with me almostan intuition. In that field I have absolute confidence in myself. As for nerves, I haven’t any. I can cut within the fiftieth of an inch of certain death as coolly as you pare your nail. No; I mean deliberate wickedness, malice, blackmail. We are never free from this danger. Let me give you an instance, if it won’t bore you.”
There was a chorus of calls, “Go on, go on,” and Jenkins cried, “Never heard it!” for which he was promptly squelched.
It was just two years ago (Harrington began), and my five gray hairs date from that night. I was sitting in my office just after my evening office hour had ended, and I was pretty well tired out. The bell rang furiously, and I heard the attendant saying that my hour was over and that I could see no one. There was some very vigorous insistence, and I caught the words “urgent,” “imperative,” and a few more equally significant, so I called to the man that I would see the belated visitor. He entered quickly. He was evidently a man of wealth and breeding, and as evidently laboring under great excitement.
“Is this Dr. Harrington?” he asked as he seated himself close by my desk.
“It is,” I answered.
“Dr. James Y. Harrington?”
“Yes.”
In the next second I found myself looking into the muzzle of a revolver. They say that when a man is in imminent danger, the mental strain is relieved automatically by trivialities of thought; and, do you know, the first thing that flamedthrough my head was, “How many turns does the rifling take in a barrel of that length?”
“I have come to kill you,” said my visitor in a tone as cold as camphor ice, yet with a dignified courtesy I could not but admire. Was I face to face with a crank? This question I decided in the negative, and the situation became so much the more—piquant, shall I say? Well, I can say it now, at least. Perspective adds piquancy, very often.
“Sir,” I said as quietly-as most men could when a very earnest gentleman has the drop on them, “sir, there is certainly some mistake here.”
It may have been an inane remark; but at least he didn’t pull the trigger, and that gained time.
“There is none, I am equally certain,” he replied.
“You have me at a decided disadvantage,” I continued, “and as any movement of attack or alarm on my part would precipitate fatalities, may I request that before you kill me, you at least tell me why you propose to do so. I make this request because, as a physician, I can see that you are perfectly sane and not the crank I at first thought you.”
I was regaining my nerve, you see; if there is one thing in this world to give a man nerve and coolness, it’s to put it right up to him to avoid the next one. At any rate, the fairness of my request must have appealed to my visitor, for he said, “Certainly I will tell you, doctor. That is only just. I kill you because you performed a critical operation on my wife, and she is dying.”
“This is all a fearful error,” I exclaimed eagerly. “I do not even know you, have never seen younor your wife, much less operated upon her. Surgeons of my standing in the profession—I say this advisedly, sir—usually know whom they treat.”
“Usually they do, I grant you,” he assented, but he emphasized the wrong word quite unpleasantly. “This has been an exception,” he added.
“Why do you believe it was I who operated?” I urged.
“My wife said so; that is sufficient for me.”
“She must surely have made the charge in delirium,” I said.
“She is not delirious, nor has she been.”
“Where was the operation performed?”
“She refuses to tell me.”
I thought very bard for a minute. What kind of a predicament was this? I then said to him, “This is a serious and vital matter, sir, for both of us. Any mistake could not fail to have momentous consequences. Suppose you take me to confront your wife. It is probably a case of mistaken identity, and when she sees me, she will most certainly be able readily to rectify this awful blunder. And so sure am I of the result that I pledge you my word to accompany you without violence or outcry.”
After a moment’s reflection he said, “I accept your proposition.”
His carriage was waiting at the door. Evidently he had been desperate when he came, and fully prepared to face the consequences of his desperation. We drove together to his home.
In my complete certainty of my position I feasted my eyes on the luxurious furnishings, the costly rugs—I’m a lover of rugs, you know, and a bit of a connoisseur—and the exquisitebric-a-brac and paintings. Moreover, I now knew with whom I was dealing, though that fact I concealed.
We went up to the sickroom. A beautiful woman, desperately ill and pale as death itself, lay motionless upon the pillows. As we softly entered the room, she turned her eyes toward us, too weak to move her head.
The eyes were dull and listless, but when their glance fell on me, they literally flashed fire and a hard, determined look came into them.
“Dear,” said her husband, bending tenderly down to her, “who did you say performed that operation?”
“Dr. Harrington,” she whispered.
“I have brought him here. Is that the person who operated?”
“Yes.”
My heart just at that moment went as cold as a snowball. I saw myself ruined, broken on the wheel of Fate. The death phase of the situation didn’t matter. Worst of all, I now saw the motive. She was shielding some bungler, near, or more probably dear, to her—I was the victim selected by mere horrible chance.
I crossed softly to the bed. “Madam,” I said to her as gently as my tumult of feeling would permit, “I implore you to tell the truth. Did I perform this operation?”
With absolute self-possession she whispered, “Doctor, you did.”
I was helpless; it was a fine illustration of the terrible power of the lie as a weapon against right and honor.
“I assure you, before God,” I declared, turning to the husband, “that I was not theoperating surgeon in this case. You know, possibly, my reputation for professional skill. Will you then permit me to take your wife’s temperature and to make a very brief examination with a view to determining the probable effect of her condition upon her rational faculties?”
To my delight, he consented. With careful formality I prepared a thermometer, taking and noting the temperature both at mouth and armpit. The woman exhibited none of the repulsion she ought to have shown, by all principles of psychology, to being examined by the author of her misfortune.
I then seated myself by the bed and felt the pulse. Taking my watch and detaching it from the chain, I placed it on the white cover of the bed beside her, where she could not fail to hear the ticking. I lifted her hands and applied my finger tips lightly to the arterial beat at the wrist. I looked her steadily in the eyes, and apparently gave the most minute attention to the really faint beating of her pulse.
“Madam,” I said after a long wait, “it is my solemn and painful duty to inform you that you have but fifteen minutes to live. My whole professional life is at stake here. Ruin, disgrace, and even death stare me in the face as a result of what you may say. But I do not urge this upon you. I urge you merely for God’s sake to tell the truth.”
“Doctor, you know you did it,” she whispered wearily.
I had expected that. My bit of work in experimental psychology was just beginning. I kept perfectly silent, my fingers still resting upon the patient’s wrist. The tomb itself is not more stillnor more solemn than was that room. I let full five minutes pass without word or movement.
Do you know how long five minutes can be? Did you ever try a silent wait of five little minutes, even though life and death were not in the balance? Try to guess at five minutes; and if you are not skilled in counting seconds, you will call time in two. Five minutes can be an eternity. They were so then.
“Madam,” I said again, “you have but ten minutes to live. I implore you to right the great wrong you have done.”
Why that man did not throw me out of the room I will never know. He seemed fascinated by the fearful experiment.
Again she calmly murmured, “Doctor, it was you.”
I acknowledge that then the room turned black; but I was myself in an instant. I resumed my solemn death watch. This time I deliberately allowed eight minutes to add themselves to the eternal past. Then I knew I was playing my last card.
“Madam,” I said as solemnly and impressively as I could speak the words, “in two minutes you will be before your God. Are you willing that your soul should face its Maker with the black stain upon it of the dreadful lie you have told? For your own immortal soul’s sake, I implore you to tell the truth.”
A feeble gesture called her husband to her side. I rose and retired across the room. He bent over her, shaken by great sobs. She drew him down to her, kissed him and whispered, “It was not he.”
I almost fell. The revulsion of feeling was too great. Mastering myself by a supreme effort, I stood to hear the colloquy to the end.
“Who was it?” he asked.
She told him.
“You swear to this?”
“With my dying breath.”
He turned to me with a face of ashen paleness. “Doctor,” he gasped, “pardon.”
I snapped shut the case of my watch. “Madam,” I said, “you will recover,” and left the room and house unmolested.
No one spoke for a moment. Then Carvill ejaculated under his breath, “My God!”
B. W. Mitchell.
“Lemmy—oo-hoo—Lemmy—”
Lemmy stopped short in his game of jack-stones, and looked fearfully over his shoulder. All about him were the rest of the children, unconcerned, playing none the quieter for the reposeful afternoon shadow of the gray cloister-like walls. At the edge of the yard where the grass was worn off most he saw the “biggest boys,” now suspending their game of ball to call to him. In the general cry he recognized the leading, raucous voice of Gus Chapman. Lemmy did not answer. He turned his back and tried to fling his jackstones indifferently. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Gus approaching.
“The ’Dopters, Lemmy—the ’Dopters are coming!” Gus warned him.
In an instant Lemmy was on his feet. Panic-stricken, he fled, leaving his jackstones upon the ground. He put his hands over his ears to shut out the hooting, derisive cries of the boys who did not understand his fear of the ’Dopters—that horde of individuals who lurked about the Home, a constant menace to his happiness. They looked harmless enough, to be sure, in their varied disguises. Some came as jolly, oldish ladies with much candy and sometimes fat bunches of raisins in their pockets. Others looked for all the world like hearty farmers who might raise apples, both red andyellow—a very deceptive sort, these farmers, who laughed a great deal and poked the boys’ muscles and pinched the girls’ cheeks. Most to be feared were the ’Dopters in black who hung round more than any of the rest. They brought toys hardly worn at all, but they never seemed to want to let them go at the last minute. They made a show of crying over Gracie Peeler and Nannie Bagget, who had curls and knew how to do a curtsey. The ’Dopters in black always made off with some one.
Despite the endless variety, it was not hard to tell a ’Dopter if you saw him in time. There was something about them. Most of the children recognized them instinctively. Gus was particularly expert at picking out the ’Dopters from the casual visitors at the Home. Watching for them never interfered with his play in the least. He always saw first. Lemmy had learned to trust Gus’s signals of danger, and although he was overwhelmed by the accompanying teasing, he felt very grateful. Gus was his savior—his methods were not to be criticized. Times innumerable Gus had saved him from being adopted.
Who knew what it meant—being adopted? Lemmy could not understand why most of the children thought that it was something nice. None of them seemed to realize that there was any reason to be afraid. They were always talking about Tommie Graham, who had been borne off by the ’Dopters. His friends at the Home had not seen him since his disappearance, but stories had started somehow about Tommie’s having a dog with a schooner back and a train of cars which whizzed around when he pressed a button. It was also said that there was another button which Tommie couldpress and some one would come to take him for a ride in a sailboat. But all this was mere hearsay. There was no telling what had really befallen Tommie, all because he was foolish enough to sing in the hearing of the ’Dopters his song about three frogs that sat on a lily pad.
Lemmy was certain that when a ’Dopter threw off his disguise he was a dragon of the very worst kind. It was Simple Simon to believe when they talked about this and that you could have if you would only come along. Lemmy knew, for once from behind the office door he had heard them talking to Miss Border, who wore the white of authority. Their remarks about “parental history” and “hereditary instincts” and “psychological effects of environment” had betrayed them. Lemmy remembered how ominous these things had sounded mixed with whoop and halloo from the playground. And the queer feeling which had shivered through him! The sensation from eating a mouthful of green gooseberries was nothing in comparison.
How could the other children believe that likely as not those words meant something nice? Lemmy knew better. After he had overheard that secret conference with Miss Border, he thought that he understood the ’Dopters pretty well. Theirs was a sticky-fly-paper method; there was no end to the ways they had of fooling you. They had named him “among the least promising”—this, Lemmy gathered, on account of his skinny legs, the result of something “subnormal”; and because of his habit of going off alone into corners, termed “sulkiness and uncompanionability”; his big ears had something to do with it too. One tall lady had said that they were “not exactly Grecian.” Altogether hewas “undesirable.” This classification even Gus took to be aboveboard.
“They don’t wantcha, Lemmy,” Gus repeatedly assured him. “Yuh needn’t be so scarey.” But Gus didn’t fathom the duplicity of the ’Dopters—they hatched up all sorts of schemes to make you feel easy and then got you unawares. Likely as not they knew all the time that he was the littlest boy in the Home who could hang by his heels, and that he could hold his breath longer than Gus—and, though it was a secret, that he had a pet toad named Nippy in the broken wall where it was green and wet. They seemed to know everything—the ’Dopters.
The thought of these things made Lemmy’s heels fly faster. He whisked behind the spirea bushes and drew from underneath the widespreading branches a short ladder which he had constructed laboriously from the odds and ends of dry-goods boxes. He set up the rickety support and climbed nimbly to the top of the high, broad wall, where the low elm trees hid him from view. He drew the ladder up carefully after him, and with a breath of relief stretched himself at full length, safe from the ’Dopters for a little while at least. It was comfort to have such a place where he could hide, unless the ’Dopters came at mealtime, when no one could escape. He would not soon forget the time when Lucy Simmons was dragged away just as she had started to eat her piece of blackberry pie. She never came back to finish it. One could never be really safe from the ’Dopters. There was no let-up to looking out for them. And there would always be ’Dopters as long as the Outside remained. Lemmy was afraidof the Outside. He liked to look at it from the top of the wall; it appeared fascinatingly full of mystery, but it always terrified him. There was no place really safe, even bed. Lemmy sighed and squinted through the fluttering leaves at a bit of cloud. After a while it would be getting pink, as it did when supper time came—baked potatoes and milk, and maybe jam from the long, dark shelves in the vegetable cellar. Lemmy’s thoughts flew to the empty barrel in which he intended to hide when winter came on and the elm leaves fell to the ground. It would be hard to get by Mrs. O’Gorman, who was always puttering about the basement with a pad and pencil, muttering unintelligible things under her breath. Perhaps the linen closet would be safer, only they might come when Gerda and Lou were putting away the ironed things.
Lemmy’s speculations were interrupted by a deep “Ho-ho-hum” from the other side of the wall. The exclamation had a luxurious sound, as if some one was treating himself to a good rest. Lemmy peered over the edge of the wall, and gave a little gasp.
There on the bench beneath was some one who had undoubtedly stepped out of book covers. He was a big man, a very big man, with a brown skin lined with fine wrinkles which told all sorts of things without his saying a word. His hair was gray, but he looked somehow very young and up to anything lively. His old trousers were turned up, and his coat with its big buttons, flung wide apart, disclosed a faded blouse. From his belt dangled a heavy chain, and from his pocket the end of a jolly colored handkerchief. His cap had the look of a cap which had been through things. Slowlyand comfortably he stretched his long arms, and as his sleeve slipped back Lemmy caught sight of a tattooed bird, green and blue and red, above his left wrist. And then he flung his head back, and his blue eves twinkled up at Lemmy without a sign of surprise.
“A-hoy, mate,” he called companionably.
“A-hoy, Cap’n,” returned Lemmy, laughing in delight.
“How’s the wind?”
“Southwest,” Lemmy gave back promptly. “And that’s what stirs the water up all purply pink—”
“Right-o—” The Cap’n slapped his knee in approval.
“Wind that makes the lake look like that must come from a place where a fellah could find out about magic,” Lemmy speculated.
“Magic? You want to find out about magic, young man?” The Cap’n sat up with a great show of interest. His eyes were very friendly.
“Oh, more’n anything else in the world,” Lemmy burst out impulsively. “I want to find out how to make a rosebush pop out of a stovepipe hat and how to pull fuzzy little chickens out of people’s sleeves and how to pick gold pieces out of the air the way I saw a man do once to make the lumbermen laugh at Camp Cusson—that’s where I lived when my Daddy used to run the lumber camp until he died, and so did my mother of epidemick—” Lemmy caught his breath. “I want to learn how to do magic so I can have fun and make people laugh.”
The Cap’n chuckled and spread his jolly colored handkerchief across his knees. From an old,brown wallet he took a coin which he twirled merrily in his nimble fingers.
“Have a look at this,” he said, reaching up to put the coin into Lemmy’s hand.
Lemmy looked curiously at the strange piece of money which lay in his palm. It was not at all like the dimes and nickels which the ’Dopters often slid into a fellow’s pocket. It was shiny and yellow, the color of the pin which always fastened Miss Border’s collar. It was gold! And there were figures of dragons upon it guarding words which Lemmy could not read at all, though they were very short.
“Heave it into the hanker,” directed the Cap’n.
Plump into the jolly colored handkerchief Lemmy dropped the coin. Wide-eyed, he watched the Cap’n tie the handkerchief into a knot and twist it smartly to make certain that it was secure. With a fine flourish he flung it high into the air, caught it again deftly and untied the tight knot. Smiling broadly, he spread the handkerchief out upon his knees again. Lemmy stared unbelievingly—the gold coin had vanished and in its place lay a silver dollar. He blinked at the air in a daze. Very quickly the Cap’n retied his handkerchief and tossed it up once more. When he opened it again, wonder of wonders, there was the gold coin!
A cry of discovery burst from Lemmy’s throat.
“You’re a Majishun!”
The Cap’n beamed and drew from his pocket, one, two, three oranges. He took the gold coin again, and carelessly balancing it upon his nose, at the same time tossed the oranges one after the other into the air, juggling them with fine precision so that they rose and fell rhythmically in time to music which the Cap’n alone could hear.
“They’re majicked!” Lemmy whispered spellbound as he eyed the oranges flashing in the air while the coin remained apparently affixed to the Cap’n’s nose.
His eyes grew wider yet when suddenly the Cap’n ended his performance by gathering in oranges and coin with one grand sweep, not dropping a thing.
“Now hold your hands,” the Cap’n invited.
Before Lemmy could say Jack Robinson, there right in his own hands was one of the magician’s golden balls.
“Shiver my timbers, did you never see an orange before?” the Cap’n cried as he watched Lemmy’s face.
“Not a Majishun’s orange,” Lemmy answered, fingering his treasure reverently.
“Taste it, young ’un—”
“O-oh, I couldn’t!” Lemmy’s voice carried agony.
“The Cap’n’s orders. Eat it and you get another.”
Still Lemmy hesitated.
“I’ll have one along with you,” the Cap’n urged sociably. “I can beat you peeling!”
The Cap’n started to peel one of the erstwhile magic balls. Lemmy dug his teeth quickly into his own orange. The race was on. Lemmy’s squeal of victory as he threw down the last bit of rind surprised the Cap’n amazingly.
“And mine only half peeled,” he exclaimed. “You are a quick-un.”
Then, quite naturally, Lemmy fell to eating oranges along with the Cap’n.
“Eating oranges with a Majishun—what’d Gussay?” Lemmy murmured, half in a trance. “What if I hadn’t run away from the ’Dopters?”
“The ’Dopters?” The Cap’n put his head on one side and raised his eyebrows very much puzzled indeed. “Who are they?”
“Oh, the ’Dopters are always hanging round the Home, trying to carry us off. A fellah has to watch out all the time. They’re sharp as tacks, always trying to fool us by looking something diff’rent. Ev’ry time they come they change their clothes to put us off the track.”
“Oh-ho—so you don’t like ’em, eh?”
“Oh, I’m afraid of ’em, they scare me so!” Lemmy’s voice quivered pitifully. “All the time I have to think of ’em. I’m never, never safe from the ’Dopters. I bet they’d poke a fellah’s eyes out once they got him, or starve him maybe. Oh, I don’t know what a ’Dopter wouldn’t do!”
The Cap’n listened gravely. Never once did he laugh as Lemmy poured forth his miserable fear of the ’Dopters. The Cap’n understood. Lemmy could tell that. By the time the oranges had disappeared, Lemmy had told the Cap’n all about the ’Dopters and even confided the existence of Nippy.
“I’ll show him to you,” Lemmy offered, hustling down the ladder to return with his pet toad upon a wet leaf for exhibition.
The Cap’n was a gratifying sort. He saw at once Nippy’s good points—the beautiful brightness of his eyes, the fine spots upon his back, the superiority of his intellect. Nippy in turn winked his approval at the Cap’n as if they had many a joke in common.
“As fine a toad as ever sat a rock or sailed the sea,” avowed the Cap’n enthusiastically. “By thebye, young man, how’d you like to take Nippy on a cruise with me?”
Lemmy clutched the wall and gazed for one electrical second into the Cap’n’s eyes. It wasn’t a joke!
“Can we start now?” Lemmy asked breathlessly.
The Cap’n bestirred himself instantly.
“It’s high time to be off. Swing yourself down and I’ll catch you.”
Lemmy ensconced Nippy quickly in the little perforated box which he always kept in his pocket for him; then he swung himself from the wall straight into the Cap’n’s arms. It seemed so natural and safe to be walking along Outside, ahold of a Majishun’s hand.
Lemmy’s legs took on a fine stride.
Down the hill they went with never a look behind at those gray walls, for their eyes were fixed upon the great lake, Superior, pulsing now under the wonder touch of the southwest wind, shimmering all the colors of the opal. There lay the boats poking up their brightly painted smokestacks for folks to see. Down, down, and down, such a short way, and yet, the wonderful farness of it!
“Here we are at the docks—the Northern Star waiting for us,” the Cap’n announced presently.
Lemmy swung along a little faster, for there in full sight were the high ore docks stretching far, far into the water. Of course they had been “majicked” there. Thus the wonder of them was explained.
The Cap’n lifted him to his shoulder and walked along the abutment to one of the biggest freighters nosing the end of the dock.
“All aboard the Northern Star,” the Cap’n said, giving him a lift up the ladder.
Lemmy climbed like a little monkey, as fast as he could, for fear he wouldn’t really get aboard.
Straight up to the bridge the Cap’n took him. “You can see us load up from here. Keep your eyes open and many a sight you’ll see.” Lemmy heard the Cap’n’s words as if in a dream. He looked wonderingly about him.
On top of the high dock he could see cars full of reddish, yellowish chunks which the Cap’n called iron ore. Hurrying about everywhere were the dock workers, smudged from head to foot with pigment which gave them the look of pirates. With quick calls these men loosened the doors in the bottoms of the cars to let the ore rattle down into the big pockets in the dock. But nearer at hand something more engrossing was happening. Deck-hands aboard the Northern Star were opening the hatches. All along the deck of the freighter the hatchways yawned ready for the load of ore. There was a great rattle of cables from above, and down came the chutes into the hatchways. Lemmy could see the men on the dock poking long poles into the pockets to set the ore sliding. The first chunks struck the bottom of the hold thunderingly and then heavy masses came sliding down the chutes with a steady, rushing sound which thrilled Lemmy like nothing he had ever heard before. It was not long before the big freighter was loaded full of the ore, and one after another the long chutes were drawn back into place against the dock. When the men set about closing the hatchways, the Cap’n took Lemmy below to see his quarters.
What Lemmy saw first when he entered was an old sea chest.
“Have a look in,” the Cap’n suggested, following Lemmy’s gaze. “It’s chock-full of stuff from everywhere.”
He threw back the lid, and Lemmy had a whiff of tar and tobacco and salt, an indescribable smell, suggesting untold adventure. “Chock-full” the chest was of all manner of wonderful things: compasses and shells, quadrants and gaudy strips of silk, battered old books, squinty-eyed monkeys carved out of ivory, long strings of many-colored beads, chains, silver and copper and gold all strung with bangles—there was no end to the treasure store.
The Cap’n took a cutlass from the chest and balanced it upon his nose as easily as he had poised the coin there.
“See here, young ’un,” he said suddenly. “You’re old enough to start learning magic.”
A golden mist swam before Lemmy’s eyes.
“You—you mean to learn to be a majishun?”
“A sort of A-B-C magician, yes. Here, take this!” He thrust into Lemmy’s hand a carved ebony ring. “I’ll show you how to make it disappear.”
Very patiently, the Cap’n initiated Lemmy into the rudiments of magic, teaching him how to exhibit with a flourish before imaginary spectators, then with an adroit pass to make it disappear until he chose by a swift movement to hold it once more in full view between his thumb and finger. The mastery of the old trick, dependent only upon a little dexterity in sleight-of-hand, filled Lemmy with enormous pride. He glowed with delight at theCap’n’s applause, mingled with the easily imagined handclapping from the invisible audience. He was lifted far, far away from commonplace things. He was a novitiate in a new world of unending mystery and delight. He tried to say “thank you” to the Cap’n, but his gratitude overwhelmed him. He could only press the ring back reverently into the Cap’n’s hand. There were no words for a thing such as this.
Then came a noise at the door. At the Cap’n’s bidding in walked a burly fellow as big as the Cap’n himself.
“Look at the young ’un, Andy McDonald—he’s off with us tonight,” the Cap’n informed him.
“Bless my soul,” Andy McDonald exclaimed, tousling Lemmy’s hair, “the Northern Star’s in luck.”
“Now Andy’ll find you a proper place for Nippy and I’ll be off on a bit of business before we set out.” The Cap’n left him with Andy McDonald, who knew exactly where to catch flies for Nippy and where to get pebbles to his liking and where to find just the sort of safe, dampish corner where he could voyage happily. And McDonald was very ingenious at devising quarters which would give Nippy plenty of room and yet keep him in bounds.
“He might jump overboard in his sleep, you know, dreamin’ like,” Andy McDonald remarked as he screened Nippy in.
As soon as Nippy was settled, Andy gave a shrill whistle which brought Chink, the rat terrier mascot of the boat, tearing to make Lemmy’s acquaintance.
“He’s got a collar with spikes on it,” Lemmycried excitedly. “And a piece of his ear’s nipped off!”
“He gets scarred up, Chink does, but he never gets licked. Don’t let him get in a row with Nippy.”
How could Lemmy know that during these enchanted moments with Andy McDonald the Cap’n was talking with Miss Border about “parental history” and “hereditary instincts” and all the rest of the ’Dopters’ secrets?
It was at table that Lemmy saw the Cap’n again—the head of a feast befitting a Majishun such as he. Lemmy tried hard not to gobble, but the chicken was oh, so tender, and he had never before tasted what the Cap’n called “kumquats.” There was so much he couldn’t possibly eat it all. He finally gave up trying when the Cap’n assured him that there would be more tomorrow.
Up on the bridge again Lemmy watched the busy engine haul in the cables which held the freighter to the dock. A capable little tug, which the Cap’n called familiarly “Sultana,” came to help them head the boat into the channel.
“We’re off,” cried the Cap’n as the Sultana chug-chugged away, while with slow majesty the Northern Star made its way out into the lake.
“Look behind at the Diamond Necklace,” Andy called to him. Turning to look back, Lemmy saw the Allouez ore docks glittering, palpitating, in the fast gathering purple of the night. Upon the hill electric signs blazed out fantastically; here a red sun rising over a green hill, and farther on a multicolored fan opening and closing with a bewildering flash; then came a comical, twinkling bucket of shiny paint which would bubble over. Past thesigns came rows and rows of lights set regularly like soldiers.
The Northern Star was moving faster now, passing between the big piers of the canal under the Aërial Bridge past the lighthouse with revolving signals.
A big passenger boat coming into the harbor passed them swiftly, giving two long whistles by way of greeting. Lemmy caught the tinkle of music and the sound of people laughing on board—then suddenly they were gone.
Out—out—past all the lights went the Northern Star straight into the silver white moon path stretching endlessly across the water.
Lemmy looked up at the winking stars and leaned comfortably back against the Cap’n’s arm.
“I’m safe now from the ’Dopters,” he whispered exultantly.
“We’ve given them the slip,” the Cap’n assured him. “They’ll never get you now.”
Dreamily, with his head upon the Cap’n’s shoulder, Lemmy happily fingered the ebony ring which had somehow “got majicked” into his pocket.
Aileen Cleveland Higgins.
Prem Singh had company. When I went in the gathering dusk to feed the cow I noticed, instead of the usual solitary figure crouched above the little camp fire in the open, two lean forms silhouetted against the dancing flames, while a flow of guttural conversation that broke occasionally into seemingly excited treble argument mingled with the fragrant smoke from burning greasewood roots.
“He probably has a letter from India,” I told the Lady of the Castle, when I went back into the little stone house, “and has rung in a chap from the gang below to read it to him.”
“From his brother, probably,” said the Lady. “He’ll be all excited over it. You’ll have to do the milking.”
Her surmise as to the letter was correct, though I didn’t have to do the milking.
“Letter come China country! My brother!” Prem Singh announced exultantly, when he came for the milk pail. “Pretty good!” He ducked his head sideways in a delighted nod. “I go milk now.”
We had known of this brother ever since the Hindu had become our devoted and isolated adherent. He was Prem Singh’s family, the only relative he had in the world.
“My father, mammy, been die,” he had explained to me. “Both. My father, my mammy,two my sister, my little brother: all one time die. Too much sick. All my uncle, my auntie, everybody die. Too many people. Just me, my big brother, live. Thass all.” From which we gathered that a cholera epidemic had left the two boys orphans: Prem Singh, now our vassal, and Kala Singh, half a dozen years older, at present a British policeman at Shanghai.
It was a poor life, this brother’s, but highly treasured by the younger brother, who, curiously enough, proved to be the stable member of the family. Kala Singh had left a bad record behind him in India, including a year’s jail sentence for knifing a co-conspirator in a bank robbery.
“My brother pretty much been marry,” Prem Singh told me one time, his face clouding over. “One time twelve hundred, one time fifteen hundred, dollar—my country rupee. All go.” He snapped his fingers to illustrate the disappearance of the marriage money into thin air. “Too much drink. Too much gambler.”
Evidence that the black sheep had never mended his ways was furnished abundantly in the repeated requests that came for money, which Prem Singh never refused.
“Mester,” he would usually ask me on the day succeeding the arrival of a letter from “China country,” “you two hundred dollar today bank take off, mice.” I had never been able to teach him the use of the possessive “mine”; it was invariably mice. “I send money China country. My brother.” Once or twice I remonstrated with him about this, to no purpose. After all, it was his own money: the two dollars a day which, with practically no outgo, added up month by month in thebank. A letter from India, which he told me came from one of his brother’s deserted wives, proved equally futile, though troubling him for several days. Its only ultimate result was to prejudice his young mind still further against womankind and the institution of marriage.
“Me? Not any been marry!” he assured me, his eyes flashing. “Never! All time too much trouble! No good.”
Yet he was engaged, one of those betrothals arranged in infancy by Hindu parents, binding till death. It hung over Prem Singh like a sword of Damocles, exiling him forever from his native land.
“This country pretty good,” he told me often. “Girl wait all time my country. Twenty year old now, I guess, maybe. I stay America! Pretty good. Not any go back!” He shook his head emphatically. “Maybe some time my brother come this country. Thass good!” His eyes gleamed at the pleasant vision.
It was this dream of a reunion with his beloved black sheep of a brother in the great and good land of America, far from the cloudy danger of marriage that overhung all India, that more than any other illumined his long days and lonely evenings on the California mesa. He kept aloof from the other Hindus, from the large camps where they congregated, twenty and thirty together, for the clearing work that in time was to transform mesa into orchard land. He preferred to remain alone, apart, as my man.
“You pretty good man, Mester,” he told me. “I all time stay here, please. I your man. My life!” Then he smiled. “Maybe some time my brother come; then two your men! Both. Thass pretty good!”
And now the dream seemed likely to materialize. When he returned with the full milk pail, Prem Singh had a question to ask. He fidgeted awkwardly about it, remaining in the kitchen an unconscionable length of time, resting one foot and then the other. It came out at last with a rush.
“Mester, how much you think cost ticket, Shanghai this country?”
“I don’t know, Prem Singh. I’ll find out in Los Angeles, if you want. Steerage?”
“No, Sair!” He was indignant. “Not any! Maybe my brother come this country. Second class, sure. Thass pretty good.”
I learned the amount, and it went forward on the next boat by money order to Kala Singh, care Sikh Temple, Shanghai. Then followed for Prem Singh a protracted period of pleasant anticipation that ended dismally two months later when another letter arrived from China country, announcing that the money was gone.
“Too much gambler, my brother,” Prem Singh confided to me sadly. “I guess ticket more better.”
It was a good idea; and the next registered letter carried no additional money order, but instead a one-way ticket, second class, from Shanghai.
This was efficacious; and when, six weeks later, another letter arrived from Shanghai, Prem Singh came to the house in a tremble of excitement.
“Mester, you know Salina Cruz? This country? Canada? I guess not. Meeseeco? I guess maybe! My brother come Salina Cruz. English read.” He always used the word “read” indiscriminately for read or write, reading or writing.
Inclosed with the sheet covered with Indian script was a small slip bearing a message inEnglish. “Arrive Salina Cruz November 29,” it read. “Send money.”
“I guess my brother read maybe, himself,” announced Prem Singh, scanning it closely. “Pretty smart man, my brother. English pretty good speak. My country read easy, English read little. Me not any. Not smart, me.” Then he shook his head. “I guess this not any my brother read.”
I guessed not either. It was a very fair handwriting indeed.
“You think all right send money Salina Cruz, Mester?”
I did not think so, emphatically not. Prem Singh was in doubt. His natural caution warned him against such a move. On the other hand his affection for his brother, his instinctive generosity, his desire to hasten in any way possible his brother’s approach to the land of promise, urged him on. In the end he decided to wait for a more definite request.
It was not long in coming, arriving in the form of a telegram almost on the heels of the letter. “Send seventy dollars, Kala Singh, care British Consul, Salina Cruz, Mexico,” the message ran. Evidently this brother was no fool.
Prem Singh immediately dispatched a hundred by registered mail, bemoaning only the fact that the telegraph company would not transmit money to that point.
Followed another period of waiting—anxious this time, for why should there be so much delay?—and then the end.
It is no easy matter for Hindus to enter this country, though there is as yet no definite Hindu exclusion act. The immigration laws already inexistence can be so construed, in accordance with the desires of a certain rabid element of whites on the Pacific Coast, that it is almost impossible for a turbaned citizen of Great Britain to enter the United States. For the most part those that now drift into this country of ours land in Canada or Mexico, and straggle across the international line, running the gauntlet to escape detection.
This Kala Singh attempted. It was at Christmas time, we learned through a Hindu who had made the voyage from Shanghai with him. Landed at Salina Cruz, they had taken boat again for Ensenada; thence, working overland, had come to the American border in the vicinity of Yuma. The pair had been detected by the border patrol, pursued, captured, and locked up for the night in a small jail. Participating, before daylight, with men held for greater offenses, in a general jail break, they had been ordered to halt, and fired upon in the darkness. Kala Singh had been found by a chance bullet, and killed instantly.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” the Lady of the Castle asked me when I told her about it. “Isn’t there anything?”
I went out to where Prem Singh crouched alone over his little fire of greasewood roots under the great vault of heaven.
“Hello, Mester!” he called listlessly, as I approached awkwardly.
“Hello, Prem Singh!” I answered.
There was a pause. “I make my country bread,” he announced at length, clearing his throat, obviously manufacturing conversation in order to put me at my ease; and then, after a little: “I think maybe go back my country pretty soon.”
“Go back to India, Prem Singh?” I was genuinely surprised.
He nodded affirmation. “Next month, maybe, I go,” he said wearily. “America not very good. My country more better. Maybe bime-by been marry.”
John Amid.
It all happened a century ago. “On this day,” the village minister of those other years wrote in his slow, regular hand—the pages of his journal are yellow as saffron now, and the ink is faded brown—“on this day did Captain Hastings sail in command of the Amaryllis, taking with him as hitherto, poor Christine Widmer, concerning whom there has been so much talk. For my own part I cannot be properly scandalized by their relation. Certainly the thought of marriage with one in her condition is not to be tolerated, and I believe her to be happier with him than elsewhere.” Christian charity, indeed!
There have always been men of the Hastings name in the village. They came in the days of its first settlement. There are a score of them living here at this very minute. And, like the most of them in the early years of the republic, Donald Hastings followed the sea. Holiest, impetuous, young, as were so many of those sea captains in that golden era of the early nineteenth century, he left but one shadow on his memory—perhaps not altogether a shadow. Therein lies the story.