AUTHOR'S NOTE—Another version of this story appeared in a book entitled “Danny's Own Story,” published in 1912 by Doubleday, Page & Co.
I'm not so sure about Prohibition and pledges and such things holding back a man that has got the liquor idea in his head. If meanness is in a man, it usually stays in him, in spite of all the pledges he signs and the promises he makes.
About the meanest man I ever knew was Hank Walters, a blacksmith in a little town in Illinois, the meanest and the whiskey-drinkingest. And I had a chance to know him well, for he and his wife Elmira brought me up. Somebody left me on their doorstep in a basket when I was a baby, and they took me in and raised me. I reckon they took me in so they could quarrel about me. They'd lived together a good many years and quarrelled about everything else under the sun, and were running out of topics to row over. A new topic of dissension sort of briskened things up for a while.
Not having any kids of his own to lick, Hank lambasted me when he was drunk and whaled me when he was sober. It was a change from licking his wife, I suppose. A man like Hank has just naturally got to have something he can cuss around and boss, so as to keep himself from finding out he don't amount to anything... although he must have known he didn't, too, way down deep in his inmost gizzards.
So I was unhappy when I was a kid, but not knowing anything else I never found out exactly how unhappy I was. There were worse places to live in than that little town, and there was one thing in our house that I always admired when I was a kid. That was a big cistern. Most people had their cisterns outside their houses, but ours was right in under our kitchen floor, and there was a trap door with leather hinges opened into it right by the kitchen stove. But that wasn't why I was so proud of it. It was because the cistern was full of fish—bullheads and redhorse and sunfish and pickerel.
Hank's father built the cistern. And one time he brought home some live fish in a bucket and dumped them in there. And they grew. And multiplied and refurnished the earth, as the Good Book says. That cistern full of fish had got to be a family custom. It was a comfort to Hank, for all the Walterses were great fish eaters, though it never went to brains any. We fed 'em now and then, and threw the little ones back in until they were grown, and kept the dead ones picked out as soon as we smelled anything wrong, and it never hurt the water any; and when I was a kid I wouldn't have taken anything for living in a house like that.
One time when I was a kid about six years old Hank came home drunk from Bill Nolan's barroom, and got to chasing Elmira's cat, because he said it was making faces at him. The cistern door was open, and Hank fell in. Elmira wasn't at home, and I was scared. Elmira had always told me not to fool around that cistern door any when I was a kid, for if I fell in there, she said, I'd be a corpse, quicker'n scatt.
So when Hank fell in and I heard him splash, being such a little fellow and awful scared because Elmira had always made it so strong, I supposed that Hank was probably a corpse already. I slammed the door shut over the cistern without looking in, for I heard Hank flopping around down there. I hadn't ever heard a corpse flop before and didn't know but what it might be somehow injurious to me, and I wasn't going to take any chances.
I went out and played in the front yard and waited for Elmira. But I couldn't seem to get my mind settled on playing I was a horse, or anything. I kept thinking of Hank being a corpse down in that cistern. And maybe that corpse is going to come flopping out pretty soon, I thought to myself, and lick me in some new and unusual way. I hadn't ever been licked by a corpse. Being young and innocent, I didn't rightly know what a corpse is, except I had the idea there was something about a corpse that kept them from being popular.
So after a while I sneaked back into the house and set all the flatirons on top of the cistern lid. I heard some flopping and splashing and fluttering, as if that corpse was trying to jump up and was falling back into the water, and I heard Hank's voice, and got scareder and scareder. When Elmira came along down the road she saw me by the gate crying and blubbering, and she asked me why.
“Hank is a corpse!” says I.
“A corpse!” says Elmira, dropping the pound of coffee she was carrying home from the general store and post-office. “Danny, what do you mean?”
I saw then I was to blame somehow, and I wished I hadn't said anything about Hank being a corpse. And I made up my mind I wouldn't say anything more. So when she grabbed hold of me and asked me again what I meant I blubbered harder, as a kid will, and said nothing. I wished I hadn't set those flatirons on the cistern lid, for it came to me all at once that even if Hank had turned into a corpse I hadn't any right to keep him in the cistern.
Just then old Mis' Rogers, one of our neighbours, came by, while Elmira was shaking me and yelling at me and asking how it happened, and had I seen it, and where was Hank's corpse.
“What's Danny been doing now?” asked Mis' Rogers—me being always up to something.
Elmira turned and saw her and gave a whoop and hollered out: “Hank is dead!” And she threw her apron over her head and sat right down in the path and boo-hooed like a baby. And I bellered and howled all the louder.
Mis' Rogers, she never waited to ask anything more. She saw she had a piece of news, and she wanted to be the first to spread it. She ran right across the road to where the Alexanderses lived. Mis' Alexander, she saw her coming and unhooked the screen door and Mis' Rogers hollered out before she reached the porch: “Hank Walters is dead!”
And then she went footing it up the street. There was a black plume on her bonnet, nodding the same as on a hearse, and she was into and out of seven front yards in less than five minutes.
Mis' Alexander she ran across the road to where we were, and kneeled down and put her arm around Elmira, who was still rocking back and forth in the path, and she said:
“How do you know he's dead, Elmira? I saw him not more than an hour ago.”
“Danny saw it all,” says Elmira.
Mis' Alexander turned to me and wanted to know what happened and how it happened and where it happened. But I didn't want to say anything about that cistern. So I busted out crying all over again and I said: “He was drunk and he came home drunk and he did it then, and that's how he did it.”
“And you saw him?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Where is he?” says she and Elmira, both together.
But I was scared to say anything about that cistern, so I just bawled some more.
“Was it in the blacksmith shop?” asks Mis' Alexander.
I nodded my head again, and let it go at that.
“Is he in there now?” she wants to know.
I nodded again. I hadn't meant to give out any untrue stories. But a kid will always lie, not meaning particular to lie, if you sort of invite him with questions like that, and get him scared by the way you're acting. Besides, I says to myself, so long as Hank has turned into a corpse, and being a corpse makes him dead, what's the difference whether he's in the blacksmith shop or in the cistern? I hadn't had any plain idea before that being a corpse meant the same thing as being dead. And I wasn't any too sure what being dead was like, either. Except I knew they had funerals over you then. I knew being a corpse must be a disadvantage from the way that Elmira has always said to keep away from that cistern, or I'd be one. And I began to see the whole thing was more important even than I had figured it was at first. I wondered if there'd be a funeral at our house. If there was one, that would be fine. They didn't have them every day in our town, and we hadn't ever had one of our own.
Mis' Alexander, she led Elmira into the house, both a-crying, and Mis' Alexander trying to comfort her, and me a-tagging along behind holding on to Elmira's skirts and sniffling into them. And in a few minutes all those women that Mis' Rogers had told came filing into the house, one at a time, looking sad and mournful. Only old Mis' Primrose, she was a little late getting there, because she stopped to put on the dress she always wore to funerals, with the black Paris lace on to it that her cousin Arminty White had sent her from Chicago.
When they found out that Hank had come home with liquor in him and done it himself they were all excited and they all crowded around and asked me questions, except two that were holding Elmira's hands where she sat moaning in a chair. And those questions scared me and egged me on to lies I hadn't had any idea of telling.
Says one woman: “Danny, you saw him do it in the blacksmith shop?”
I nodded.
“But how did he get in?” says another one. “The door was locked on the outside with a padlock just now when I came by. He couldn't have killed himself in there and then locked the door on the outside.”
I didn't see how he could have done that myself, so I began to bawl again and said nothing at all.
“He must have crawled into the shop through that little side window,” says Mis' Primrose. “That window was open when I came by, even if the door was locked. Did you see him crawl through the little side window, Danny?”
I nodded. There wasn't anything else I could think of to do.
“But you aren't tall enough to look through that window;” sings out Mis' Rogers. “How could you see into the shop, Danny?”
I didn't know, so I didn't say anything at all; I just sniffled.
“There's a store box right in under the window,” says another one. “Danny must have climbed on to that store box and looked in after he saw Hank crawl through the window. Did you scramble on to the store box and look in, Danny?”
I just nodded again.
“And what was it you saw him do? How did he kill himself?” they all asked together.
I didn't know. So I just bellered and boo-hooed some more. Things were getting past anything I could see the way out of.
“He might have hung himself to one of the iron rings in the joists above the forge,” says another woman.
“He climbed on to the forge and tied the rope to one of those rings, and tied the other end around his neck, and then he stepped off the forge and swung. Was that how he did it, Danny?”
I nodded. And I bellered louder than ever. I knew that Hank was down in that cistern below the kitchen, a corpse and a mighty wet corpse, all this time; but those women kind of got me to thinking he was hanging out in the blacksmith shop by the forge, too.
Pretty soon one woman says, shivery: “I wouldn't want to have the job of opening the door of the blacksmith shop the first one!”
And they all shivered, and looked at Elmira, and says to let some of the men open that door. And Mis' Alexander says she'll run and get her husband and make him do it. And all the time Elmira sits moaning in that chair. One woman says Elmira ought to have a cup of tea, and she'll lay off her bonnet and go to the kitchen and make it for her. But Elmira says no, she can't a-bear to think of tea, with poor Hennery hanging out there in the shop. But she was kind of enjoying all that fuss being made over her, too. And all the other women said: “Poor thing!” But most of them were mad because she said she didn't want any tea, for they wanted some and didn't feel free to take it without she took some. They coaxed her and made her see that it was her duty, and she said she'd have some finally.
So they all went out to the kitchen, taking along some of the best room chairs, Elmira coming, too, and me tagging along. The first thing they noticed was those flatirons on top of the cistern lid. Mis' Primrose says that looks funny. But Mis' Rogers says Danny must have been playing with them. “Were you playing they were horses, Danny?”
I was feeling considerable like a liar by this time, but I nodded. I couldn't see any use hurrying things up. I was bound to get a licking pretty soon anyhow. I could always bet on that. So they picked up the flatirons, and as they picked them up there came a splashing noise in the cistern. I thought to myself that Hank's corpse would be out of there in a minute, and then I'd catch it. One woman says: “Sakes alive! What's that noise?”
Elmira says the cistern is full of fish and it must be some of the biggest ones flopping around. If they hadn't been worked up and excited and talking all together and thinking of Hank hanging out in the blacksmith shop they might have suspicioned something, for that flopping and splashing kept up steady. Maybe I should have mentioned sooner it had been a dry summer and there was only three or four feet of water in the cistern and Hank wasn't in scarcely up to his big hairy chest. When Elmira says the cistern is full of fish that woman opens the trap door and looks in. Hank thinks it's Elmira come to get him out, he says afterward. And he allows he'll keep quiet in there and make believe he is drowned and give her a good scare and make her feel sorry for him.
But when the cistern door was opened he heard a lot of clacking tongues like a hen convention, and he allowed she had told the neighbours, and he'd scare them, too. So he laid low. And the woman that looked in, she sees nothing, for it's as dark down there as the insides of the whale that swallowed Jonah. But she left the door open and went on making tea, and there wasn't scarcely a sound from that cistern, only little ripply noises like it might have been fish. Pretty soon Mis' Rogers says:
“It has drawed, Elmira; won't you have a cup?” Elmira kicked some more, but she took hers. And each woman took hers. And one woman, a-sipping of hers, she says:
“The departed had his good points, Elmira.”
Which was the best thing had been said of Hank in that town for years and years.
Old Mis' Primrose, she always prided herself on being honest, no matter what come of it, and she ups and says: “I don't believe in any hypocritics at a time like this, any more'n any other time. The departed wasn't any good, and the whole town knows it, and Elmira ought to feel like it's good riddance of bad rubbish, and such is my sentiments and the sentiments of truth and righteousness.”
All the other women sings out: “W'y, Mis' Primrose, I never!” But down in underneath more of 'em agreed than let on to. Elmira she wiped her eyes and says:
“Hennery and me had our troubles, there ain't any use denying that, Mis' Primrose. It has often been give and take between us and betwixt us. And the whole town knows he has lifted his hand against me more'n once. But I always stood up to Hennery and I fit him back, free and fair and open. I give him as good as he sent on this earth and I ain't the one to carry a mad beyond the grave. I forgive Hennery all the orneriness he did to me, and there was a lot of it, as is becoming to a church member, which he never was.”
All the women but Mis' Primrose says: “Elmira, youhavegot a Christian sperrit!” Which did her a heap of good, and she cried considerable harder, leaking out tears as fast as she poured tea in. And each one present tried to think up something nice to say about Hank, only there wasn't much they could say. And Hank in that cistern, listening to every word of it.
Mis' Rogers, she says: “Before he took to drinking like a fish, Hank Walters was as likely a lookin' young feller as ever I see.”
Mis' White, she says: “Well, Hank he never was a stingy man, anyhow. Often and often White has told me about seeing Hank treating the crowd down in Nolan's saloon just as come-easy, go-easy as if it wasn't money he'd ought to have paid his honest debts with.”
They sat there that way telling of what good points they could think of for ten minutes, and Hank hearing it and getting madder and madder all the time. By and by Tom Alexander came busting into the house.
“What's the matter with all you women?” he says. “There's nobody hanging in that blacksmith shop. I broke the door down and went in, and it's empty.”
There was a pretty howdy-do, then, and they all sing out:
“Where's the corpse?”
Some thinks maybe someone has cut it down and taken it away, and all gabbled at once. But for a minute or two no one thought that maybe little Danny had been egged on to tell lies. And little Danny ain't saying a word. But Elmira grabbed me and shook me and said:
“You little liar, what do you mean by that story of yours?”
I thought that licking was about due then. But whilst all eyes were turned on me and Elmira, there came a voice from the cistern. It was Hank's voice, but it sounded queer and hollow, and it said:
“Tom Alexander, is that you?”
Some of the women screamed, for they thought it was Hank's ghost. But Mis' Primrose says: “What would a ghost be doing in a cistern?”
Tom Alexander laughed and yelled down into the cistern: “What in blazes you want to jump in there for, Hank?”
“You darned ijut!” said Hank, “you quit mocking me and get a ladder, and when I get out'n here I'll learn you to ask me what I wanted to jump in here for!”
“You never saw the day you could do it,” says Tom Alexander, meaning the day Hank could lick him. “And if you feel that way about it you can stay down there, for all of me. I guess a little water won't hurt you any, for a change.” And he left the house.
“Elmira,” sings out Hank, mad and bossy, “you go get me a ladder!”
But Elmira, her temper rose up, too, all of a sudden.
“Don't you dare order me around like I was the dirt under your feet, Hennery Walters,” she says.
Hank fairly roared, he was so mad. “When I get out'n here,” he shouted, “I'll give you what you won't forget in a hurry! I heard you a-forgivin' me and a-weepin' over me! And I won't be forgive nor weeped over by no one! You go and get that ladder!”
But Elmira only answered: “You was drunk when you fell in there, Hank Walters. And you can stay in there till you get a better temper on to you.” And all the women laughed and said: “That's right, Elmira! Spunk up to him!”
There was considerable splashing around in the water for a couple of minutes. And then, of a sudden, a live fish came a-whirling out of that hole in the floor, which he catched with his hands. It was a big bullhead, and its whiskers around its mouth was stiffened into spikes, and it landed kerplump on to Mis' Rogers' lap, a-wiggling, and it horned her on the hands. She was that surprised she fainted. Mis' Primrose, she got up and licked the fish back into the cistern and said, right decided:
“Elmira Walters, if you let Hank out of that cistern before he's signed the pledge and promised to jine the church, you're a bigger fool than I take you for. A woman has got to make a stand!”
And all the women sing out: “Send for Brother Cartwright! Send for Brother Cartwright!”
And they sent me scooting down the street to get him quick. He was the preacher. I never stopped to tell but two or three people on the way to his house, but they must have spread the news quick, for when I got back with him it looked like the whole town was at our house.
It was along about dusk by this time, and it was a prayer meeting night at the church. Mr. Cartwright told his wife to tell the folks that came to the prayer meeting he'd be back before long, and to wait for him. But she really told them where he'd gone, and what for.
Mr. Cartwright marched right into our kitchen. All the chairs in the house was in there, and the women were talking and laughing, and they had sent to the Alexanderses for their chairs, and to the Rogerses for theirs. Every once in a while there would be an awful burst of language come rolling up from the hole where that unregenerate old sinner was cooped up.
I have travelled around considerable since those days, and I have mixed up along with many kinds of people in many different places, and some of them were cussers to admire. But I never heard such cussing before or since as old Hank did that night. He busted his own records and he rose higher than his own water marks for previous years. I wasn't anything but a little kid then, not fit to admire the full beauty of it. They were deep down cusses that came from the heart. Looking back at it after these years, I can well believe what Brother Cartwright said himself that night—that it wasn'tnaturalcussing, and that some higher power, like a demon or an evil sperrit, must have entered into Hank's human carcase and given that terrible eloquence to his remarks. It busted out every few minutes, and the women would put their fingers into their ears until a spell was over. And it was personal, too. Hank would listen till he heard a woman's voice he knew, and then he would let loose on her family, going back to her grandfathers and working downward to her children's children.
Brother Cartwright steps up to the hole in the floor and says gentle and soothing like an undertaker when he tells you where to sit at a home funeral:
“Brother Walters! Oh, Brother Walters!”
“Brother!” yelled Hank, “don't ye brother me, you snifflin', psalm-singin', yaller-faced, pigeon-toed hyp-percrit, you! Get me a ladder, gol dern ye, and I'll mount out o'here and learn ye to brother me, I will!” Only that wasn't anything to what Hank really said; no more like than a little yellow fluffy canary is like a turkey buzzard.
“Brother Walters,” said the preacher, calm but firm, “we have all decided that you aren't going to get out of that cistern until you sign the pledge.”
Then Hank told him what he thought of him and pledges and church doings, and it wasn't pretty. He said if he was as deep in the eternal fire of hell as he was in rain water, and every fish that nibbled at his toes was a devil with a red-hot pitchfork sicked on by a preacher, they could jab at him until the whole hereafter turned into icicles before he'd sign anything that a man like Mr. Cartwright gave him to sign. Hank was stubborner than any mule he ever nailed shoes on to, and proud of being that stubborn. That town was a most awful religious town, and Hank knew he was called the most unreligious man in it, and he was proud of that, too; and if any one called him a heathen it just plumb tickled him all over.
“Brother Walters,” says the preacher, “we are going to pray for you.”
And they did it. They brought all the chairs close up around the cistern door, in a ring, and they all knelt down there with their heads on the chairs and prayed for Hank's salvation. They did it up in style, too, one at a time, and the others singing out, “Amen!” every now and then, and they shed tears down on to Hank.
The front yard was crowded with men, all laughing and talking and chawing and spitting tobacco, and betting how long Hank would hold out. Si Emery, that was the city marshal, and always wore a big nickel-plated star, was out there with them. Si was in a sweat, because Bill Nolan, who ran the saloon, and some more of Hank's friends were out by the front fence trying to get Si to arrest the preacher. For they said that Hank was being gradually murdered in that water and would die if he was held there too long, and it would be a crime. Only they didn't come into the house amongst us religious folks to say it. But Si, he says he don't dare to arrest anybody, because Hank's house is just outside the village corporation line; he's considerable worried about what his duty is, not liking to displease Bill Nolan.
Pretty soon the gang that Mrs. Cartwright had rounded up at the prayer meeting came stringing along in. They had brought their hymn books with them, and they sung. The whole town was there then, and they all sung. They sung revival hymns over Hank. And Hank, he would just cuss and cuss. Every time he busted out into another cussing spell they would start another hymn. Finally the men out in the front yard began to warm up and sing, too, all but Nolan's crowd, and they gave Hank up for lost and went back to the barroom.
The first thing they knew they had a regular old-fashioned revival meeting going there, and that preacher was preaching a regular revival sermon. I've been to more than one camp meeting, but for just naturally taking hold of the whole human race by the slack of the pants and dangling of it over hell fire, I never heard that sermon equalled. Two or three old backsliders in the crowd came right up and repented all over again. The whole kit-and-biling of them got the power, good and hard, and sung and shouted till the joints of the house cracked and it shook and swayed on its foundations. But Hank, he only cussed. He was obstinate, Hank was, and his pride and dander had risen up.
“Darn your ornery religious hides,” he says, “you're takin' a low-down advantage of me, you are! Let me out on to dry land, and I'll show you who'll stick it out the longest, I will!”
Most of the folks there hadn't had any suppers, so after all the sinners but Hank had either got converted or sneaked away, some of the women said why not make a kind of a love feast of it, and bring some victuals, like they do at church sociables. Because it seemed that Satan was going to wrestle there all night, like he did with the angel Jacob, and they ought to be prepared. So they did it. They went and they came back with things to eat and they made hot coffee and they feasted that preacher and themselves and Elmira and me, right in Hank's hearing.
And Hank was getting pretty hungry himself. And he was cold in that water. And the fish were nibbling at him. And he was getting cussed out and weak and soaked full of despair. There wasn't any way for him to sit down and rest. He was scared of getting cramps in his legs and sinking down with his head under water and being drowned.
He said afterward he would have done the last with pleasure if there had been any way of starting a lawsuit for murder against that gang. So along between ten and eleven o'clock that night he sings out:
“I give in, gosh dern ye, I give in! Let me out and I'll sign your pesky pledge!”
Brother Cartwright was for getting a ladder and letting him climb out right away. But Elmira said: “You don't know him like I do! If he gets out before he's signed the pledge, he'll never do it.”
So Brother Cartwright wrote out a pledge on the inside leaf of the Bible, and tied it on to a string, and a pencil on to another string, and let them down, and held a lantern down, too, and Hank made his mark, for he couldn't write. But just as Hank was making his mark that preacher spoke some words over Hank, and then he said:
“Now, Henry Walters, I have baptized you, and you are a member of the church.”
You might have thought that Hank would have broken out into profanity again at that, for he hadn't agreed to anything but signing the pledge. But he didn't cuss. When they got the ladder and he climbed up into the kitchen, shivering and dripping, he said serious and solemn to Mr. Cartwright:
“Did I hear you baptizing me in that water?”
Mr. Cartwright said he had.
“That was a low-down trick,” said Hank. “You knowed I always made my brags that I'd never jined a church and never would. You knowed I was proud of that. You knowed it was my glory to tell it, and that I set a heap of store by it, in every way. And now you've gone and took that away from me! You've gone and jined me to the church! You never fought it out fair and square, man strivin' to outlast man, like we done with the pledge, but you sneaked it on to me when I wasn't lookin'!”
And Hank always thought he had been baptized binding and regular. And he sorrowed and grieved over it, and got grouchier and meaner and drunkener. No pledge nor no Prohibition could hold Hank. He was a worse man in every way after that night in the cistern, and took to licking me harder and harder.
Irequest of you a razor, and you present me with this implement! A safety razor! One cannot gash oneself with your invention. Do you think I rush to your apartment with the desire to barber myself? No,milles diables, no! I 'ave embrace you for my friend, and you mock at my despair. This tool may safely abolish the 'air from the lip of the drummer when the train 'ave to wiggle, but it will not gash the jugular; it will not release the bluest blood of France that courses through one's veins.
Oui,I will restrain myself. I will 'ave a drink.Merci!I will make myself of a calmness. I will explain.
Yes, it is a woman. What else? At the insides of all despair it is a woman ever. That is always the—the—w'at you call 'im?—the one best bet.
Listen. I love 'er. She own the 'ouse of which I am one of the lodgers, in'abiting the chamber beneath the skylight. She is a widow, and I love 'er. Of such a roundness is she!—and she 'ave the restaurant beyond the street. Of such a beauty!—and 'er 'usband, who was a Monsieur Flanagan, 'e leave 'er w'at you call well fix with life-insurance. So well fix, so large, so brilliant of the complexion, so merry of the smile, so competent of the ménage, of such a plumpness! 'Ow should it be that one did not love 'er?
But she? Does she smile on the 'andsome Frenchman who in'abit 'er skylight chamber and paint and paint and paint all day long, and sell, oh, so little of 'is paintings?Hélas!She scarcely know that 'e exist! She 'ave scarcely notice 'im. 'Ow is genius of avail? W'at is wit, w'at is gallantry, w'at is manner—w'at is all these things w'en one does not possess the—the—w'at you call 'im?—the front?Hélas!I love, but I 'ave not the front! My trousers are all of a fringe at the bottom, and my collars are all of a frowsiness at the top. My sleeves are of such a shine! And my 'at——
Ten thousand curses for the man that invented 'ats! You are my friend—'ave you a pistol? Yes, I will be calm. I will 'ave a drink. I will restrain myself.Merci, monsieur.
My sleeves are of a sleekness; and my 'at——My 'at, I look at 'im. 'E is—w'at you call 'im?—on the boom! I contemplate 'im sadly. I regard 'im with reproach. 'E is ridiculous. 'E look like 'e been kicked. With such a 'at, who can enact the lover? With such a 'at, who can win 'imself a widow? I fly into a rage. I tear from my 'air. I shake my fist at the nose of fate. I become terrible. I dash my 'at upon the floor, and jump upon 'im with fury. Then I look at 'im with 'atred. 'E look back at me with sorrow in 'is wrinkles. And,Voilà!—as I look at 'im I 'ave a thought. The 'at, 'e straighten out from my jump. W'en my feet is off, 'e rise a little way from 'is wrinkles where I crush 'im. 'E lift 'imself slowly like a jack-in-the-box up from 'is disgrace. And I 'ave an idea.
Monsieur, we Frenchmen are a people of resource!
I take my thought to an agent of the advertising profession. I say I 'ave come to the place where I am willing to degrade my genius for gold. I wish to eat more often. I wish to marry the widow I love. I will forget my art; I will make some dollars; I will degrade myself temporarily. The agent of advertising 'e say 'e 'ave no need of any degradation, to take 'im somewhere else. But I explain, and behold! I am engaged to go to work. They furnish me with clothes of a design the most fashionable, and with a 'at of which I am myself the architect, and I go to work. I 'ate it, but I go to work.
The manner of my work is this. The 'at, 'e does it all. (Accursed 'at!) 'E is so built that on the outside 'e look like any other silk 'at. But 'e 'ave 'is secrets. 'E 'ave 'is surprises. On 'is inside there is a clockwork and a spring. At intervals 'e separate 'imself in two in the middle, and the top part of 'im go up in the air, slowly, one inch, two inch, three inch, four inch, five inch, six inch—like a telescope that open 'imself out. And w'at 'ave we then?Voila!We 'ave a white silk place, and on it is printed in grand letters:
You see, my friend? It is now my profession, every afternoon for three hours, to join the promenade; to display my 'at; to make fast in the minds of the people 'ow fortunate a discovery is the anti-fat of Monsieur Blinn.
Monsieur, I am always the gentleman. Am I forced into a vulgar role? Well, then, there is something about me that redeems it from vulgarity. I am a movable advertisement, but none the less I am an advertisement of dignity. Those clothes they furnish, I 'ave made under my own direction. I adorn my foot in the most poetical of boots. Only a Frenchman might 'ave created my coat. My trousers are poems. I am dressed with that inspiration of elegance which only a man of my imagination might devise.
Monsieur, I am always the artist. That 'at, I nevaire let 'im go up with a pop like a jacking-jump. 'E is not to startle the most sensitive of ladies. W'en 'e arise, 'e arise slowly. 'E is majestic in 'is movement. 'E ascend with gravity. 'E go up with dignity.
For three hours each day, I thus set aside my finer emotions. And all the town smile; and many 'undreds rush to buy the anti-fat of Monsieur Blinn. 'Ow is it that the Widow Flanagan——
Curses upon the perfidy of woman! Do not 'old me, I say! Let me go! I will leap from your window to the stones below! Well, I will restrain myself. Yes, I will 'ave a drink.Merci!
'Ow is it that the Widow Flanagan does not perceive that I thus make of my 'ead a billboard three hours each day? Monsieur, all Frenchmen are of an originality w'en driven to it by fate, and not the least of them am I! To 'er I am still the poor but 'andsome artist. It is in the parlours of the agent of advertising that I dress myself, I don the 'at, each day. I wear before my eyes a thick spectacles; I 'ide my black 'air beneath a gray wig; I 'ave shave my own beard and each day put on moustache and royal of a colour the same with the wig. There is no danger that the grave foreigner, so courteous, so elegant, so much the statesman, who condescend to advertise the anti-fat of Monsieur Blinn, shall be—shall be—w'at you call 'im?—spotted by the Widow Flanagan. She does not connect 'im with the 'andsome artist who in'abit 'er skylight chamber. To do so would be to kill my 'opes. For love is not to be made ridiculous.
I prosper. I 'ave money each week. I eat. I acquire me some clothes which are not the same with those worn by the employee of Monsieur Blinn. I buy me a silk 'at which 'ave no clockwork in 'is inside. I acquire the—w'at you call 'im?—the front. I dine at the café of the Widow Flanagan beyond the street. I chat with the Widow Flanagan w'en I pay my check. Monsieur, the Widow Flanagan at las' know the 'andsome Frenchman exist! The front, 'e work like a charm. 'E give the genius beneath 'im the chance to show w'at 'e can do. The front, 'e make—'ow you call 'im?—'e make good.
'Ave I said enough? You are my friend; you see me, w'at I am. Is it possible that the Widow Flanagan should look upon me and not be of a flutter throughout? I 'ave said enough. She see me; she love me. With women, it is always so!
The day is name; we will marry. Already I look forward to the time that I am no longer compelled to the service of the anti-fat of Monsieur Blinn. Already I indulge my fancy in my 'appiness with the beautiful Widow Flanagan, whose 'usband 'ave fortunately die and leave 'er so ver' well fix. But,hélas!
Grasp me! Restrain me! Again my grief 'ave overpower! 'Ave you a rough-on-rats in the 'ouse? 'Ave you a poison? Yes, you are my friend. Yes, I will restrain myself. Yes, I will 'ave a drink.Merci!
The day is name. The day arrive. I 'ave shave. I 'ave bathe. I am 'appy. I skip; I dance; I am exalt; all the morning I 'urn a little tune—O love, love, love! And such a widow—so plump and so well fix!
The wedding is at the 'ome of Madame Flanagan. Meantime, I am with a friend. The hour approach. The guests are there; the priest is there; the mother of the Widow Flanagan, come from afar, is there. We arrive, my friend and me. It is at the door that we are met by the mother of the Widow Flanagan. It is at the door she grasp my 'and; she smile, and then, before I 'ave time to remove my 'at——
Accursed 'at! Restrain me! I will do myself a mischief! Well, yes, I will be calm. I will 'ave a drink.Merci, my friend.
I see 'er face grow red. She scream. She lift 'er and as if to strike me. She scream again. I know not w'at I must think. The Widow Flanagan she 'ear 'er mother scream. She rush downstairs. I turn to the Widow Flanagan, but she 'as no eyes for me. She is gazing on my 'at. Monsieur, then I know. I 'ave got the wrong one in dressing; and I feel that accursed thing are lifting itself up to say to my bride and her mother:
And be'ind the Widow Flanagan and 'er mother come crowding fifty guests, and everyone 'as seen my 'at make those remarks! Accursed widow! The door is slam in my face! I am jilted!
Ah, laugh, you pigs of guests, laugh, till you shake down the dwelling of the Widow Flanagan! Were it not that I remember that I once loved you, Madame Flanagan, that 'ouse would now be ashes.
Monsieur, I 'ave done. I 'ave spoken. Now I will die. 'Ave you a rope? Well, I will calm myself.Oui, I will 'ave a drink.Merci,monsieur!
Football,” said Big Joe, the friendly waiter, laying down the sporting page of my paper with a reminiscent sigh, “ain't what it was twenty years ago. When I played the game it was some different from wood-tag and pump-pump-pull-away. It's went to the dogs.”
“Used to be a star, huh?” said I. “What college did you play with, Joe?”
“No college,” said Joe, “can claim me for its alma meter.”
He seated himself comfortably across the table from me, as the more sociably inclined waiters will do in that particular place. “I don't know that I ever was a star. But I had the punch, and I was as tough as that piece of cow you're trying to stick your fork into. And I played in one game the like of which has never been pulled off before or since.”
“Tell me about it,” said I, handing him a cigar. Joe sniffed and tasted it suspiciously, and having made sure that it wasn't any brand sold on the premises, lighted it. There was only one other customer, and it was near closing time.
“No, sir,” he said, “it wasn't any kissing game in my day. Ever hear of a place called Kingstown, Illinois? Well, some has and some hasn't. It's a burg of about five thousand souls and it's on the Burlington. Along about the time of the Spanish war it turned out a football team that used to eat all them little colleges through there alive.
“The way I joined was right unexpected to me. I happened into the place on a freight train, looking for a job, and got pinched for a hobo. When they started to take me to the lock-up I licked the chief of police and the first deputy chief of police, and the second deputy, but the other member of the force made four, and four was too many for me. I hadn't been incarcerated ten minutes before a pleasant looking young fellow who had seen the rumpus comes up to the cell door with the chief, and says through the bars:
“'How much do you weigh?'
“'Enough,' says I, still feeling sore, 'to lick six longhaired dudes like you.'
“'Mebby,' says he, very amiable, 'mebby you do. And if you do, I've got a job for you.'
“He was so nice about it that he made me ashamed of my grouch...
“'No offence meant,' says I. 'I only weigh 230 pounds now. But when I'm getting the eats regular I soon muscles up to 250 stripped.'
“'I guess you'll do,' says he, 'judging by the fight you put up. We need strength and carelessness in the line.'
“'What line is that?' says I, suspicious.
“'From now on,' says he, 'you're right tackle on the Kingstown Football Team. I'm going to get you a job with a friend of mine that runs a livery stable, but your main duty will be playing football. Are you on?'
“'Lead me to the training table,”' says I. And he paid me loose and done it.
“This fellow was Jimmy Dolan, and he had once played an end on Yale, and couldn't forget it. He and a couple of others that had been off to colleges had started the Kingstown Team. One was an old Michigan star, and the other had been a half-back at Cornell. The rest of us wasn't college men at all, but as I remarked before, we were there with the punch.
“There was Tom Sharp, for instance. Tom was thought out and planned and preforedestinated for a centre rush by Nature long before mankind ever discovered football. Tom was about seventeen hands high, and his style of architecture was mostly round about. I've seen many taller men, but none more circumferous as to width and thickness. Tom's chest was the size and shape of a barrel of railroad spikes, but a good deal harder. You couldn't knock him off his feet, but if you could have, it wouldn't have done you any good, for he was just as high one way as he was another—and none of it idle fat. Tom was a blacksmith during his leisure hours, and every horse and mule for miles around knowed him and trembled at his name. He had never got hold of nothing yet that was solid enough to show him how strong he was.
“But the best player was a big teamster by the name of Jerry Coakley. Jerry was between six and eight feet high, and to the naked eye he was seemingly all bone. He weighed in at 260 poundsad valorem, and he was the only long bony man like that I ever seen who could get himself together and start quick. Tom Sharp would roll down the field calm and thoughtful and philosophic, with the enemy clinging to him and dripping off of him and crumpling up under him, with no haste and no temper, like an absent-minded battleship coming up the bay; but this here Jerry Coakley was sudden and nefarious and red-headed like a train-wreck. And the more nefarious he was, the more he grinned and chuckled to himself. 'For two years that team had been making a reputation for itself, and all the pride and affection and patriotism in the town was centred on to it. I joined on early in the season, but already the talk was about the Thanksgiving game with Lincoln College. This Lincoln College was a right sizable school. Kingstown had licked it the year before, and there were many complaints of rough play on both sides. But this year Lincoln had a corking team. They had beat the state university, and early in the season they had played Chicago off her feet, and they were simply yearning to wipe out the last year's disgrace by devastating the Kingstown Athletic Association, which is what we called ourselves. And in the meantime both sides goes along feeding themselves on small-sized colleges and athletic associations, hearing more and more about each other, and getting hungrier and hungrier.
“Things looked mighty good for us up to about a week before Thanksgiving. Then one day Jerry Coakley turned up missing. We put in 48 hours hunting him, and at the end of that time there was a meeting of the whole chivalry and citizenry of Kingstown in the opery hall to consider ways and means of facing the public calamity. For the whole town was stirred up. The mayor himself makes a speech, which is printed in full in the KingstownRecordthe next day along with a piece that says: 'Whither are we drifting?'
“Next day, after practice, Jimmy Dolan is looking pretty blue.
“'Cheer up,' says I, 'Jerry wasn't the whole team.'
“'He was about a fifth of it,' says Captain Dolan, very sober.
“'But the worst was yet to come. The very next day, at practice, a big Swede butcher by the name of Lars Olsen, who played right guard, managed to break his ankle. This here indignity hit the town so hard that it looked for a while like Lars would be mobbed. Some says Lars has sold out to the enemy and broke it on purpose, and the KingstownRecordhas another piece headed: 'Have we a serpent in our midst?'
“That night Dolan puts the team in charge of Berty Jones, the Cornell man, with orders to take no risks on anything more injurious than signal practice, and leaves town. He gets back on Wednesday night, and two guys with him. They are hustled from the train to a cab and from the cab to the American House, and into their rooms, so fast no one gets a square look at them.
“But after dinner, which both of the strangers takes in their rooms, Dolan says to come up to Mr. Breittmann's room and get acquainted with him, which the team done. This here Breittmann is a kind of Austro-Hungarian Dutchman looking sort of a great big feller, with a foreign cast of face, like he might be a German baron or a Switzer waiter, and he speaks his language with an accent. Mr. Rooney, which is the other one's name, ain't mentioned at first. But after we talk with the Breittmann person a while Jimmy Dolan says:
“'Boys, Mr. Rooney has asked to be excused from meeting any one to-night, but you'll all have an opportunity to meet him to-morrow—after the game.'
“'But,' says I, 'Cap, won't he go through signal practice with us?'
“Dolan and Breittmann, and Berty Jones, who was our quarterback and the only one in the crowd besides Dolan who had met Mr. Rooney, looked at each other and kind of grinned. Then Dolan says: 'Mr. Breittmann knows signals and will run through practice with us in the morning, but not Mr. Rooney. Mr. Breittmann, boys, used to be on the Yale scrub.'
“'Dem vas goot days, Chimmie,' says this here Breittmann, 'but der naturalist, Chimmie, he is also the good days. What?'
“The next day, just before the game, I got my first glimpse of this Rooney when he come downstairs with Breittmann and they both piled into a cab. He wore a long overcoat over his football togs, and he had so many headpieces and nose guards and things on to him all you could see of his face was a bit of reddish looking whisker at the sides.
“'He's Irish by the name,' says 1, 'and the way he carries them shoulders and swings his arms he must have learned to play football by carrying the hod.' He wasn't a big man, neither, and I thought he handled himself kind of clumsy.
“When we got out to the football field and that Lincoln College bunch jumped out of their bus and began to pass the ball around, the very first man we see is that there Jerry Coakley.
“Yes, sir, sold out!
“Dolan and me ran over to the Lincoln captain.
“'You don't play that man!' says Dolan, mad as a hornet, pointing at Jerry. Jerry, he stood with his arms crossed, grinning and chuckling to himself, bold as Abraham Lincoln on the burning deck and built much the same.
“'Why not?' says the college captain, 'he's one of our students.'
“'Him?' says I. 'Why, he's the village truck-driver here!' And that there Jerry had the nerve to wink at me.
“'Mr. Coakley matriculated at Lincoln College a week ago,' says the captain, Jerry he grinned more and more, and both teams had gathered into a bunch around us.
“'Matriculated? Jerry did?' says Jimmy Dolan. 'Why, it's all Jerry can do to write his name.'
“'Mr. Coakley is studying the plastic arts, and taking a special course in psychology,' says the captain.
“'Let him play, Dolan,' says Tom Sharp. 'Leave him to me. I'll learn him some art. I'll fix him!'
“'O, you Tom!' says Jerry, grinning good-natured.
“'O, you crook!' says Tom. And Jerry, still grinning good-natured, hands Tom one. It took the rest of the two teams to separate them, and they both started the game with a little blood on their faces. We made no further kick about Jerry playing. All our boys wanted him in the game. 'Get him!' was the word passed down the line. And after that little mix-up both sides was eager to begin.
“We kicked off. I noticed this here Rooney person got down after the kick-off rather slow, sticking close to his friend Breittmann. He was at left tackle, right, between Breittmann at guard, and Dolan, who played end.
“Jerry, he caught the kick-off and come prancing up the field like a prairie whirlwind. But Dolan and me got to him about the same time, and as we downed him Tom Sharp, quite accidental, stepped on to his head with both feet.
“'Foul!' yells the referee, running up and waving his hand at Tom Sharp. 'Get off the field, you! I penalize Kingstown thirty yards for deliberate foul play!'
“But Jerry jumped up—it took more'n a little thing like that to feaze Jerry—and shoved the referee aside.
“'No, you don't put him out of this game,' says Jerry. 'I want him in it. I'll put him out all right!'
“Then there was a squabble, that ended with half of both teams ordered off the field. And the upshot of which was that everybody on both sides agreed to abolish all umpires and referees, and get along without any penalties whatever, or any officials but the time-keeper. No, sir, none of us boys was in any temper by that time to be interfered with nor dictated to by officials.
“No, what followed wasn't hampered any by technicalities. No, sir, it wasn't drop the handkerchief. There wasn't any Hoyle or Spalding or Queensberry about it. It was London prize ring,savate, jiu juitsi and Græco-Roman, all mixed up, with everybody making his own ground rules. The first down, when Tom Sharp picked up that Lincoln College Captain and hit Jerry Coakley over the head with him, five Lincoln College substitutes give a yell and threw off their sweaters and run on to the field. Then we heard another yell, and our substitutes come charging into the fray and by the end of the first half there was eighteen men on each side, including three in citizens' clothes who were using brass knucks and barrel staves.”
Joe paused a moment, dwelling internally upon memories evidently too sweet for words. Then he sighed and murmured: “No, sir, the game ain't what it was in them days. Kick and run and forward pass and such darned foolishness! Football has went to the dogs!
“Well,” he resumed, flexing his muscles reminiscently, “neither side wasted any time on end runs or punts. It was punch the line, and then punch the line some more, and during the first ten minutes of play the ball didn't move twenty yards either way from the centre of the field, with a row on all the time as to whose ball it ought to be. As a matter of fact, it was whoever's could keep his hands on to it.
“It was the third down before I noticed this fellow Rooney particular. Then our quarterback sent a play through between guard and tackle. It was up to Rooney to make the hole for it.
“As the signal was give, and the ball passed back, Breittmann laid his arm across Rooney's shoulders, and I heard him say something in Dutch to him. They moved forward like one man, not fast, but determined like. A big college duffer tried to get through Rooney and spill the play. This here Rooney took him around the waist and slammed him on to the ground with a yell like a steamship that's discovered fire in her coal bunkers, and then knelt on the remains, while the play went on over 'em. I noticed Breittmann had a hard time getting Rooney off of him. They carried the fellow off considerably sprained, and two more Lincoln College fellows shucked their wraps and run in to take his place.
“The very next play went through the same hole, only this time the fellow that went down under Rooney got up with blood soaking through his shoulder padding and swore he'd been bit. But nobody paid any attention to him, and the Lincoln boys put Jerry Coakley in opposite Rooney.
“'You cross-eyed, pigeon-toed Orangeman of a hod-carrier, you,' says Jerry, when we lined up, trying to intimidate Rooney, 'I'll learn you football.'
“But Rooney, with his left hand hold of Breittmann's, never said a word. He just looked sideways up at Breittmann like he was scared, or mebby shy, and Breittmann said something in Dutch to him.
“That play we made five yards, and we made it through Jerry Coakley, too, Mr. Rooney officiating. When Breittmann got his friend off Jerry, Jerry set up and tried to grin, but he couldn't. He felt himself all over, surprised, and took his place in the line without saying a word.
“Then we lost the ball on a fumble, which is to say the Lincoln centre jumped on to Tom Sharp's wrists with both feet when he tried to pass it, and Jerry Coakley grabbed it. The first half closed without a score, with the ball still in the centre of the field.
“The second half, I could see right away, Jerry Coakley had made up his mind to do up Rooney. The very first play Lincoln made was a guard's back punch right at Rooney. I reckon the whole Lincoln team was in that play, with Jerry Coakley in the van.
“We got into it, too. All of us,” Joe paused again, with another reflective smile. Pretty soon he continued.
“Yes, sir, that was some scrimmage. And in the midst of it, whoever had the ball dropped it. But for a minute, nobody seemed to care. And then we discovered that them unsportsmanlike Lincoln College students had changed to baseball shoes with metal spikes between the halves. We hadn't thought of that.
“After about a minute of this mauling, clawing mess, right out of the midst of it rolled the ball. And then came this here Rooney crawling after it—crawlingI say!—on his hands and feet.
“He picked it up and straightened himself.
“'Run, Rooney, run!' says I. And he had a clear field. But he didn't seem to realize it. He just tucked that ball under one arm, and ambled.
“Half a dozen of us fell in and tried to make interference for him—but he wouldn't run; he just dog-trotted, slow and comfortable. And in a second Jerry Coakley sifted through and tackled him.
“Rooney stopped. Stopped dead in his track, as if he was surprised. And then, using only one hand—only one hand, mind you—he picked that there Jerry Coakley up, like he was an infant, give him one squeeze, and slung him. Yes, sir, Jerry was all sort of crumpled up when he lit!
“And he kept on, slow and easy and gentle. The Lincoln gang spilled the interference. But that didn't bother Rooney any. Slow and certain and easy he went down that field. And every time he was tackled he separated that tackier from himself and treated him like he had Jerry.
“Yes, sir, he strung behind him ten men out of the nineteen players Lincoln College had in that game, as he went down the field. From where I was setting on top of the Lincoln centre rush, I counted 'em as he took 'em. Slow and solemn and serious like an avenging angel, Mr. Rooney made for them goal posts, taking no prisoners, and leaving the wounded and dead in a long windrow behind him. It wasn't legalized football, mebby, but it was a grand and majestic sight to see that stoop-shouldered feller with the red whiskers proceeding calmly and unstoppably forward like the wrath of God.
“Yes, sir, the game was ours. We thought it was, leastways. All he had to do was touch that there ball to the ground! The whole of Kingstown was drawing in its breath to let out a cheer as soon as he done it.
“But it never let that yell. For when he reached the goal——”
Here Joe broke off again and chuckled.
“Say,” he said, “you ain't going to believe what I'm telling you now. It's too unlikely. I didn't believe it myself when I seen it. But it happened. Yes, sir, that nut never touched the ground with the ball!
“Instead, with the ball still under one arm, he climbed a goal post. Climbed it, I tell you, with both legs and one arm. And setting straddle of that cross bar believe me or not, he began to shuck. In front of all that crowd, dud after dud, he shucked.
“And there wasn't no cheers then, for in a minute there he set,a monkey!Yes, sir, the biggest blamed monkey you ever seen, trying to crack that football open on a goal post under the belief that it was a cocoa-nut. Monkey, did I say? Monkey ain't any word for it! He was a regular ape; he was one of these here orang-outang baboons! Yes, sir, a regular gosh-darned Darwinian gorilla!”
Joe took a fresh light for his cigar, and cocked his eye again at my sporting supplement. “I notice,” he said, sarcastically, “Princeton had a couple of men hurt yesterday in the Yale game. Well, accidents is bound to happen even in ring-around-the-rosy or prisoner's base. What?”