XXXIA STRANGER TO LUCK
W
When I got off the train at Darbyville, which, as all will remember, is the junction of the L. M. & N. and O. P. & Q. railroads, and found that, owing to an accident, it would be an hour before the train came in on the latter road, I was vexed. Although ordinarily my own thoughts are agreeable companions, yet events of the past week, in which my good judgment had not borne a conspicuous part, made it likely that for the nonce these thoughts of mine would be more or less unpleasant, and so I cast about for some human nature to study.
At one end of the platform three or four farmers were seated upon trunks. Theywere alert-looking men, and, like me, were waiting for the train. As I neared them, one of their number, a tall, lanky, sharp-boned, knife-featured fellow, imperturbably good-natured-looking, and with an expression of more than ordinary intelligence in his eyes, left them and sauntered off down the road with long, irregular strides.
It was one of those calm, clear, dry days when sounds carry well, and although I did not join them, yet I heard every word of the conversation. Indeed, as their glances from time to time showed, they were not averse to having an auditor.
“It’s cur’us,” said one of them, a ruddy-faced man with a white beard, “how unlucky a man c’n be an’ yit manage to live.” His eyes followed the shambling figure that had just left them. “I’ll help myself to some of thet terbacker, Jed. Left mine to hum, an’ I have the teethache—awful.” This to a short, stout man with a smooth face, who had just taken a liberal mouthful of tobacco from a paper that he drew from his hip-pocket.
“He’p ’se’f!” said the one addressed. Then he added, “Meanin’ Seth, I s’pose?”
“Yes,” replied the other. “I b’lieve thet ef Seth was to hev anythin’ really fort’nit happen to him, it would throw him off his balance.”
“’N’ yit ther’ never was a feller thet better deserved good luck than Seth. Most obligin’ man I ever saw. Ain’t no fool, nuther,” remarked the third and last member of the group, a typical Uncle Sam in appearance, with prominent front teeth, and a habit of laughing dryly at everything that he or any one else said.
“He don’t suffer fer the actooal needs of life, doos he?” asked the stout man whom the others called Jed.
“No—oh, no,” answered Sam (for it turned out that so the typical Yankee was called). “No; he gits enough to eat and wear, but he never hez a cent to lay by, and never will.”
“Don’t drink, doos he?” asked Jed, who seemed to belong to a different town from the one wherein the others and Seth abode. His acquaintance with the oneunder discussion was evidently by no means intimate.
“No; he ain’t got no vices ’t I know of. Jes’ onlucky.”
“It’s s’prisin’ haow tantalizin’ly clus good fortin hez come to him—different times,” said the one who had asked for the tobacco, and whom the others called Silas.
“You’reright, Silas,” assented Sam. “He c’n come nearer to good luck ’thout techin’ it ’an any man I ever see.”
“Don’t seem to worrit him much,” said Jed. “He seems cheerful.”
“Don’t nothin’ worrithim,” Sam continued. “Most easy-goin’ man on the face of the airth.Hedon’t ask fer sympathy. He takes great doses of bad luck ’s ef ’twas good fer his health.”
“Never fergit,” said Silas, “the time when he bought a fine new milch Jarsey at auction fer five dollars. Why, he hed two offers fer her nex’ day, an’ Iknowone of ’em was forty dollars—”
“Well, naow I call that purty lucky,” interrupted Jed.
“Wait!” continued Silas, seating himself more comfortably on a trunk. “Seth he wouldn’t sell. Said he never did hev his fill of milk, an’ he was goin’ to keep her. Very nex’ day, b’ George! she choked on a turnip, an’ when he faound her she was cold. Man sympathized with him. ‘Too bad, Seth,’ says he; ‘ye ’r’ aout forty dollars.’ ‘Five’s all I figger it at,’ says Seth. ‘Didn’tkeerto sell.’
“Closest call ’at fortune ever made him was time his uncle Ralzemon aout West died and left him $5000. Everybody was glad, fer every one likes Seth. I was with him when he got the letter f’om the lawyer sayin’ it was all in gold, an’ hed be’n expressed to him, thet bein’ one of the terms of the will. Mos’ shif’less way of sendin’ it, I thought,” declared Silas, compressing his lips. “‘What ye goin’ to do with it, Seth?’ says I. ‘Putit in the bank?’ ‘Ain’t got it yit,’ says he; ‘an’, what’s more, I never will.’ ‘Why d’ ye think so?’ says I. ‘On gin’al principles,’ says he, a-laafin’.
“Sure ’nough, a few days later it was printed in the paper thet a train aout in Wisconsin hed be’n held up by robbers. I was in the post-office when I saw it in the paper, an’ Seth was there too. ‘Bet ye a cooky thet my $5000 was on thet train,’ says he. ‘Won’t take ye,’ says I; ‘fer I’ll bet ye five dollars ’twas, myse’f.’ ‘I’ll take ye,’ says he. B’ George! he lost the five and the $5000 too, fer’twason the train, an’ they never could git a trace of it. The robbers hed took to the woods, an’ they never found ’em.”
“Well, I swan!” ejaculated Jed, chewing hard, and regarding with ominous look a knot-hole in the platform.
Silas continued: “I says, ‘I’m sorry fer ye, Seth.’ Says he: ‘I ain’t no poorer ’an I was before I heard he’d left it to me.’”
“He was aout the five dollars he bet, though,” said Jed.
“Wa’n’t, nuther,” said Silas, rather shamefacedly. “I told him thet the bet was off.”
“Why didn’t he sue the comp’ny?” asked Jed.
“’At’s what I advised him doin’, but he said ’twa’n’t no use.”
“I think I heard ’baout his havin’ a fortin left him at the time, but I thought it was f’om a cousin down in South America,” Jed went on, looking inquiringly at Sam.
“Heh, heh! thet was another time,” said Sam, with his dry little laugh. “Good nation! ef all the luck thet’s threatened to hit him heddoneit, he’d be the richest man in this caounty. I tell ye, good luck’s allers a-sniffin’ at his heels, but he don’t never git bit. This time he got a letter f’om his cousin, tellin’ him he’d allers felt sorry he hed sech poor luck, an’ he’d made him sole heir of his estate, prob’ly wuth a couple o’ thousand dollars. He hed some oncurable disease, he wrote, an’ the doctors didn’t give him over three months to live—”
“S’pose he lived forever,” put in Jed, chuckling.
“No, sir; he died in good shape, an’ in fac’ he bettered his word, for he didn’t live two months f’om the time he wrote to Seth; but I’m blessed ef they didn’t find there was some claim against the estate thet et it all up. Well, sir, I never saw any one laugh so hard ez Seth when he heard the news. It struck him ez a dretful good joke.”
“He must hev a purty paowerful sense of the ridikerlus,” said Jed, dryly.
“Well, he hez,” assented Sam, rubbing his knees with his horny hands. “Ain’t no better comp’ny ’an Seth. Ain’t never daownhearted.”
After a moment’s silence Silas smiled, and, closing his eyes, pinched them between thumb and forefinger as if calling up some pleasing recollection. At last he said: “Ye know, Seth allers works by the day. He gin’ally has enough to do to keep him busy, an’ allers doos his work up slick, but he never hed stiddy employment, on’y once, an’ then it lasted on’yone day. ’Member that, Sam? Time he went to work at the Nutmeg State clock-shop?”
“Yes, yes,” laughed Sam, driving a loose nail into the platform with his heel.
“Stiddy employment fer a day, eh?” said Jed, grinning. “Thet’s ’baout ez stiddy ez my hired man, an’ he ain’t stiddy at all.”
“It was this way,” Silas went on. “Seth allers was purty slick at han’lin’ tools, an’ Zenas Jordan was foreman of the shop, an’ he offered Seth a place there at twelve dollars a week, which was purty good pay an’ more ’n Seth could make outside, ’thout it was hayin’-time. I met him on his way to work fust mornin’. ‘Well, luck’s with you this time, Seth,’ says I. ‘Sh!’ says he. ‘Don’t say thet, or I’ll lose my job sure. It’s jes better ’n nothin’, thet’s all.Don’tcall it good luck’; an’ he laafed an’ went along a-whistlin’. B’ Gosht! ef the blamed ol’ shop didn’t burn daown thet very night, an’, ez ye know, they never rebuilt. Seth he come to me nex’ day, an’ he says,kinder reproachful: ‘You’d orter held yer tongue, Silas. I’d be’n hopin’ thet was a stroke er luck thet hed hit me by mistake, an’ I wasn’t goin’ to whisper its name for fear it’d reckernize me an’ leave me, and you hed to go an’ yell it aout when ye met me.’” And Silas laughed heartily at recollection of the whimsicality.
“Cur’us, ain’t it, what a grudge luck doos hev against some men?” remarked Jed, rubbing his smooth chin meditatively.
Far down the valley I heard the faint whistle of a locomotive.
“Las’ story they tell ’baout Seth ’s this,” Silas said, rising and stretching himself, and then leaning against the wall of the station. “He’s a very good judge o’ poultry, an’, in fac’, he gin’ally judges at the caounty fair every fall. Well, a man daown in Ansony told him he’d pay him ten dollars apiece for a couple of fine thoroughbred Plymouth Rock roosters. Seth knowed a man daown Smithfield way named Jones thet owned some full-blooded stock, but ez he on’y kep’ ’em fer home use he didn’t set a fancy price on’em, an’ Seth knowed he could git ’em fer seventy-five cents or a dollar apiece. Well, it happened a day or two later he was engaged to do a day’s work fer this man Jones, an’ he went daown there. He see two all-fired fine roosters a-struttin’ raound the place, an’ he cal’lated to buy them; but fer some reason he didn’t say nothin’ ’baout it jes then to Jones, but went to work at choppin’ or sawin’ or whatever it was he was doin’.”
“Said nothin’, did he?Mustha’ sawed wood, then,” interrupted Jed, looking over at me and winking.
“Sure! Well, when it kem time fer dinner he hed got up a good appetite, an’ he was glad to set daown to table, fer Jones is a purty good feeder an’ likes to see people hev enough. Hed stewed chicken fer dinner, an’ Seth says he never enjoyed any so much in his life. After dinner he says, ‘By the way, Jones, what’ll ye take fer those two Plymouth Rock roosters ’t I saw this mornin’?’ Jones bust aout a-laafin’, an’ he says, ‘Ye kin take what’s left on ’em home in a basket an’ welcome!’Blamed ef Seth hedn’t be’n eatin’ a dinner that cost him nigh on to twenty dollars.”
“Thetmusthev riled him some,” remarked Jed.
“No, sir; he never seemed to realize the sitooation.”