XXXI
XXXI
For some weeks the town of Smyrna had been witnessing something very like a bear-baiting.
Cap'n Aaron Sproul, first selectman, again played the rôle of the bear, as he had on occasions previous.
They had stalked him; they had flanked him; they had surrounded him; they had driven him to centre; he was at bay, bristling with a sullen rage that was excusable, if viewed from the standpoint of an earnest town officer. Viewed from the standpoint of the populace, he was a selfish, cross-grained old obstructionist.
Here was the situation: By thrift and shrewd management he had accumulated during his reign nearly enough funds to pay off the town debt and retire interest-bearing notes. He had proposed to make that feat the boast and the crowning point of his tenure of office. He had announced that on a certain day he would have a bonfire of those notes in the village square. After that announcement he had listened for plaudits. What he did hear were resentful growls from taxpayers who now discovered that they had been assessed more than the running expenses of the town called for; and they were mad about it. The existence of that surplus seemed to worry Smyrna. There were many holders of town notes for small amounts, a safe investment that paid six per cent. and escaped taxation. These people didn't want to be paid. In many cases their fathers had loaned the money to the town, and the safe and sound six per cent. seemed an heirloom too sacred to be disturbed.
Cap'n Sproul's too-zealous thrift annoyed his townsmen. To have the town owe money made individual debtors feel that owing money was not a particularly heinous offence. To have the town free of debt might start too enterprising rivalry in liquidation.
Therefore, for the first time in his life, Consetena Tate found one of his wild notions adopted, and gasped in profound astonishment at the alacrity of his townsmen. Consetena Tate had unwittingly stumbled upon a solution of that "surplus" difficulty. He wasn't thinking of the surplus. He was too utterly impractical for that. He was a tall, gangling, effeminate, romantic, middle-aged man whom his parents still supported and viewed with deference as a superior personality. He was Smyrna's only literary character.
He made golden weddings gay with lengthy epics that detailed the lives of the celebrants; he brought the dubious cheer of his verses to house-warmings, church sociables, and other occasions when Smyrna found itself in gregarious mood; he soothed the feelings of mourners by obituary lines that appeared in print in the county paper when the mourners ordered enough extra copies to make it worth the editor's while. Added to this literary gift was an artistic one. Consetena had painted half a dozen pictures that were displayed every year at the annual show of the Smyrna Agricultural Fair and Gents' Driving Association; therefore, admiring relatives accepted Mr. Tate as a genius, and treated him as such with the confident prediction that some day the outside world would know him and appreciate him.
A flicker of this coming fame seemed to dance on Consetena's polished brow when he wrote a piece for the county paper, heralding the fact that Smyrna was one hundred years old that year.
Mr. Tate, having plenty of leisure to meditate on those matters, had thought of this fact before any one else in town remembered it. He wrote another article urging that the town fittingly celebrate the event. The Women's Temperance Workers discussed the matter and concurred. It would give them an opportunity to have a tent-sale of food and fancy-work, and clear an honest penny.
The three churches in town came into the project heartily. They would "dinner" hungry strangers in the vestries, and also turn an honest penny. The Smyrna Ancient and Honorable Firemen's Association, Hiram Look foreman, was very enthusiastic. A celebration would afford opportunity to parade and hold a muster.
The three uniformed secret societies in town, having an ever-lurking zest for public exhibition behind a brass-band, canvassed the prospect delightedly. The trustees of the Agricultural Fair and Gents' Driving Association could see a most admirable opening for a June horse-trot.
In fact, with those inducements and with motives regarding the "surplus" spurring them on secretly, all the folks of Smyrna rose to the occasion with a long, loud shout for the celebration—and suggested that the "surplus" be expended in making a holiday that would be worth waiting one hundred years for.
After that shout, and as soon as he got his breath, the voice of First Selectman Aaron Sproul was heard. He could not make as much noise as the others, but the profusion of expletives with which he garnished his declaration that the town's money should not be spent that way made his talk well worth listening to.
It was then that the bear-baiting began.
Every society, every church, every organization in town got after him, and Hiram Look—a betrayal of long friendship that touched the Cap'n's red anger into white heat—captained the whole attack.
The final clinch was in the town office, the Cap'n at bay like the boar in its last stronghold, face livid and hairy fists flailing the scattered papers of his big table. But across the table was Hiram Look, just as intense, the unterrified representative of the proletariat, his finger jabbing the air.
"That money was paid into the treasury o' this town by the voters," he shouted, "and, by the Sussanified heifer o' Nicodemus, it can be spent by 'em! You're talkin' as though it was your own private bank-account."
"I want you to understand," the Cap'n shouted back with just as much vigor—"it ain't any jack-pot, nor table-stakes, nor prize put up for a raffle. It's town money, and I'm runnin' this town."
"Do you think you're an Emp'ror Nero?" inquired Hiram, sarcastically. "And even that old cuss wa'n't so skin-tight as you be. He provided sports for the people, and it helped him hold his job. Hist'ry tells you so."
"There ain't any hist'ry about this," the selectman retorted with emphasis. "It's here, now, present, and up to date. And I can give you the future if you want any predictions. That money ain't goin' to be throwed down a rat-hole in any such way."
"Look here, Cap'n Sproul," said the showman, grinding his words between his teeth, "you've been talkin' for a year past that they'd pushed this job of selectman onto you, and that you didn't propose to hold it."
"Mebbe I did," agreed the Cap'n. "Most like I did, for that's the way I feel about it."
"Then s'pose you resign and let me take the job and run it the way it ought to be run?"
"How would that be—a circus every week-day and a sacred concert Sundays? Judging from your past life and your present talk I don't reckon you'd know how to run anything any different!" This taunt as to his life-work in the show business and his capability stirred all of Hiram's venom.
"I've come here to tell ye," he raged, "that the citizens of this town to a man want ye to resign as first selectman, and let some one in that don't wear brustles and stand with both feet in the trough."
"That's just the reason I won't resign—because they want me to," returned the Cap'n with calm decisiveness. "They got behind me when I wasn't lookin', and picked me up and rammed me into this office, and I've been wantin' to get out ever since. But I'll be cussed if I'll get out, now that they're tryin' to drive me out. I'm interested enough now to stay."
"Say, did you ever try to drive a hog?" demanded the irate old circus-man.
"Yes," said the Cap'n, imperturbably, "I'm tryin' it now—tryin' to drive a whole litter of 'em away from the trough where they want to eat up at one meal what it's taken me a whole year to scrape together."
Persiflage of this sort did not appear to be accomplishing anything. Hiram relieved his feelings by a smacking, round oath and stamped out of the town-house.
As they had done once before in the annals of his office, the other two selectmen made a party with Sproul's opposers. They signed a call for a special town-meeting. It was held, and an uproariousviva-vocevote settled the fate of the surplus. In the rush of popular excitement the voters did not stop to reflect on the legal aspects of the question. Law would not have sanctioned such a disposal of town money, even with such an overwhelming majority behind the movement. But Cap'n Sproul still held to his ancient and ingrained fear of lawyers. He remained away from the meeting and let matters take their course.
Hiram, still captain of the revolutionists, felt his heart grow softer in victory. Furthermore, Cap'n Sproul, left outside the pale, might conquer dislike of law and invoke an injunction.
The next morning, bright and early, he trudged over to the first selectman's house and bearded the sullen autocrat in his sitting-room. He felt that the peace of the Cap'n's home was better suited to be the setting of overtures of friendship than the angular interior of the town office.
"Cap," he said, appealingly, "they've gone and done it, and all the sentiment of the town is one way in the matter. What's the use of buckin' your own people as you are doin'? Get onto the band-wagon along with the rest of us. It's goin' to be a good thing for the town. It will bring a lot of spenders in here that day. They'll leave money here. It will be a good time all 'round. It will give the town a good name. Now, that money is goin' to be spent! I've made you chairman of the whole general committee—as first selectman. You'll have the principal say as to how the money is goin' to be spent. As long's it's goin' to be spent that ought to be some satisfaction to you."
"You take that money—you and your gang of black-flaggers that has captured this town on the high seas—and you rub it onto your carkisses where it will do the most good," snorted the Cap'n. "Light cigars with it—feed it to your elephant—send it up in a balloon—I don't give a kihooted dam what you do with it. But don't you try to enlist me under the skull and cross-bones!"
After this unpromising fashion did the conference begin. It was in progress at noon—and Hiram remained to dinner. Breaking bread with a friend has a consolatory effect—that cannot be denied. When they were smoking after dinner, the first selectman grudgingly consented to take charge of spending the money. He agreed finally with Hiram that with him—the Cap'n—on the safety-valve, mere wasteful folderols might be avoided—and the first selectman had seen enough of the temper of his constituents to fear for consequences should they get their hands into the treasury when he was not standing by.
"Now," said Hiram, in conclusion, "the committee is well organized. There's a representative from each of the societies in town to act with you and advise."
"I'd ruther try to steer a raft of lashed hen-coops from here to Bonis Airs and back, under a barkentine rig," snapped the Cap'n. "I know the kind o' critters they be. We won't get nowhere!"
"I had to put 'em onto the committee," apologized the people's representative. "But, you see, you and the secretary will do practically all the work. All you've got to do is just to make 'em think they're workin'. But you and the secretary will be the whole thing."
"Who is this secretary that I've got to chum with?" demanded the Cap'n, suspiciously.
"You see"—Hiram choked and blinked his eyes, and looked away as he explained—"it sort of had to be done, to please the people, because he's the feller that thought it up—and he's the only lit'ry chap we've got in town, and he—"
Cap'n Sproul got up and held his pipe away from his face so that no smoke-cloud could intervene.
"Do you mean to tell me," he raved, "that you've gone to work and pinned me into the same yoke with that long-legged cross between a blue heron and a monkey-wrench that started this whole infernal treasury steal?"
"Consetena—" began Hiram.
The Cap'n dashed his clay pipe upon the brick hearth and ground the bits under his heel.
"I ain't any hand to make love to Portygee sailors," he cried; "I don't believe I could stand it to hold one on my knee more'n half an hour at a time. I don't like a dude. I hate a land-pirut lawyer. But a critter I've al'ays reckoned I'd kill on sight is a grown man that writes portry and lets his folks support him. I've heard of that Concert—whatever his name is—Tate. I ain't ever wanted to see him. I've been afraid of what might happen if I did. Him and me run this thing together? Say, look here, Hiram! You say a few more things like that to me and I shall reckon you're tryin' to give me apoplexy and get rid of me that way!"
Hiram sighed. His car of hopes so laboriously warped to the top summit of success had been sluiced to the bottom. But he understood the temper of the populace of Smyrna in those piping days better than Cap'n Sproul did. Consetena Tate was not to be put aside with a wave of the hand.
Hiram began again. At first he talked to deaf ears. He even had to drown out contumely. But his arguments were good! Consetena Tate could write the many letters that would be necessary. There were many organizations to invite to town, many prominent citizens of the county to solicit, for the day would not shine without the presence of notables. There was all the work of that sort to be done with the delicate touch of the literary man—work that the Cap'n could not do. Mr. Tate had earned the position—at least the folks in town thought he had—and demanded him as the man through whom they could accomplish all epistolary effects.
In the end Hiram won the Cap'n over even to this concession. The Cap'n was too weary to struggle farther against what seemed to be his horrid destiny.
"I'll have him at town office to-morrow mornin'," declared Hiram, grabbing at the first growl that signified submission. "You'll find him meek and humble and helpful—I know you will." Then he promptly hurried away before the Cap'n revived enough to change his mind.
Cap'n Sproul found his new secretary on the steps of the town office the next morning, and scowled on him. Mr. Tate wore a little black hat cocked on his shaggy mane, and his thin nose was blue in the crisp air of early May. He sat on the steps propping a big portfolio on his knees. His thin legs outlined themselves against his baggy trousers with the effect of broomsticks under cloth.
He arose and followed the sturdy old seaman into the office. He sat down, still clinging to the portfolio, and watched the Cap'n build a fire in the rusty stove. The selectman had returned no answer to the feeble attempts that Mr. Tate had made to open conversation.
"Far asunder your life aims and my life aims have been, Cap'n Sproul," observed the secretary at last. "But when ships hail each other out of the darkness—"
"Three-stickers don't usually luff very long when they're hailed by punts," grunted the old skipper.
"There is a common ground on which all may meet," insisted Mr. Tate; "I frequently inaugurate profitable conversations and lay the foundations of new friendships this way: Who are your favorite poets?"
"Say, now, look here!" blurted the Cap'n, coming away from the stove and dusting his hard hands together; "you've been rammed into my throat, and I'm havin' pretty blamed hard work to swallow you. I may be able to do it if you don't daub on portry. Now, if you've got any idea what you're here for and what you're goin' to do, you get at it. Do you know?"
"I had ventured upon a little plan," said Mr. Tate, meekly. "I thought that first of all I would arrange the literary programme for the day, the oration, the poem, the various addresses, and I already have a little schedule to submit to you. I have a particular request to make, Cap'n Sproul. I wish that you, as chairman of the committee, would designate me as poet-laureate of the grand occasion."
"You can be any kind of a pote you want to," said the selectman, promptly. "And I'll tell you right here and now, I don't give a continental thunderation about your programmy or your speech-makers—not even if you go dig up old Dan'l Webster and set him on the stand. I didn't start this thing, and I ain't approvin' of it. I'm simply grabbin' in on it so that I can make sure that the fools of this town won't hook into that money with both hands and strew it galley-west. That's me! Now, if you've got business, then 'tend to it! And I'll be 'tendin' to mine!"
It was not an encouraging prospect for a secretary who desired to be humble and helpful. Cap'n Sproul busied himself with a little pile of smudgy account-books, each representing a road district of the town. He was adding "snow-bills." Mr. Tate gazed forlornly on the fiercely puckered brow and "plipping" lips, and heard the low growl of profanity as the Cap'n missed count on a column and had to start over again. Then Mr. Tate sighed and opened his portfolio. He sat staring above it at the iron visage of the first selectman, who finally grew restive under this espionage.
"Say, look-a-here, Pote Tate," he growled, levelling flaming eyes across the table, "if you think you're goin' to set there lookin' at me like a Chessy cat watchin' a rat-hole, you and me is goin' to have trouble, and have it sudden and have it vi'lent!"
"I wanted to ask you a question—some advice!" gasped the secretary.
"Haven't I told you to pick out your business and 'tend to it?" demanded the Cap'n, vibrating his lead-pencil.
"But this is about spending some money."
"Well, mebbe that's diff'runt." The selectman modified his tone. "Go ahead and stick in your paw! What's this first grab for?" he asked, resignedly.
"To make my letters official and regular," explained Mr. Tate, "I've got to have stationery printed with the names of the committee on it—you as chairman, per Consetena Tate, secretary."
"Go across to the printin'-office and have some struck off," directed the selectman. "If havin' some paper to write on will get you busy enough so't you won't set there starin' me out of countenance, it will be a good investment."
For the next few days Mr. Tate was quite successful in keeping himself out from under foot, so the Cap'n grudgingly admitted to Hiram. He found a little stand in a corner of the big room and doubled himself over it, writing letters with patient care. The first ones he ventured to submit to the Cap'n before sealing them. But the chairman of the committee contemptuously refused to read them or to sign. Therefore Mr. Tate did that service for his superior, signing: "Capt. Aaron Sproul, Chairman. Per Consetena Tate, Secretary." He piled the letters, sealed, before the Cap'n, and the latter counted them carefully and issued stamps with scrupulous exactness. Replies came in printed return envelopes; but, though they bore his name, Cap'n Sproul scornfully refused to touch one of them. The stern attitude that he had assumed toward the Smyrna centennial celebration was this: Toleration, as custodian of the funds; but participation, never!
During many hours of the day Mr. Tate did not write, but sat and gazed at the cracked ceiling with a rapt expression that made the Cap'n nervous. The Cap'n spoke of this to Hiram.
"That feller ain't right in his head," said the selectman. "He sets there hours at a time, like a hen squattin' on duck-eggs, lookin' up cross-eyed. I was through an insane horsepittle once, and they had patients there just like that. I'd just as soon have a bullhead snake in the room with me."
"He's gettin' up his pome, that's all," Hiram explained. "I've seen lit'ry folks in my time. They act queer, but there ain't any harm in 'em."
"That may be," allowed the Cap'n, "but I shall be almighty glad when this centennial is over and I can get Pote Tate out of that corner, and put the broom and poker back there, and have something sensible to look at."
Preparations for the great event went on smartly. The various societies and interests conferred amicably, and the whole centennial day was blocked out, from the hundred guns at early dawn to the last sputter of the fireworks at midnight. And everything and every one called for money; money for prizes, for souvenirs for entertainment of visitors, for bands, for carriages—a multitude of items, all to be settled for when the great event was over. If Cap'n Sproul had hoped to save a remnant of his treasure-fund he was soon undeceived. Perspiring over his figures, he discovered that there wouldn't be enough if all demands were met. But he continued grimly to apportion.
One day he woke the poet out of the trance into which he had fallen after delivering to his chairman a great pile of sealed letters to be counted for stamps.
"What do I understand by all these bushels of epistles to the Galatians that you've been sluicin' out?" he demanded. "Who be they, and what are you writin' to 'em for? I've been lookin' over the names that you've backed on these envelopes, and there isn't one of 'em I ever heard tell of, nor see the sense in writin' to."
Mr. Tate untangled his twisted legs and came over to the table, quivering in his emotion.
"Never heard of them? Never heard of them?" he repeated, gulping his amazement. He shuffled the letters to and fro, tapping his thin finger on the superscriptions. "Oh, you must be joking, Captain Sproul, dear sir! Never heard of the poets and orators andsavantswhose names are written there? Surely, 'tis a joke."
"I ain't feelin' in no very great humorous state of mind these days," returned the Cap'n with vigor. "If you see any joke in what I'm sayin' you'd better not laugh. I tell ye, I never heard of 'em! Now you answer my question."
"Why, they are great poets, authors, orators—the great minds of the country. They—"
"Well, they ain't all mind, be they? They're hearty eaters, ain't they? They'll want three square meals when they get here, won't they? What I want to know now is, how many thousands of them blasted grasshoppers you've gone to work and managed to tole in here to be fed? I'm just wakin' up to the resks we're runnin', and it makes me sweat cold water." He glanced apprehensively at the papers bearing his computations.
"All the replies I have received so far have been regrets," murmured Mr. Tate, sorrowfully. "I took the greatest names first. I was ambitious for our dear town, Captain. I went directly to the highest founts. Perhaps I looked too high. They have all sent regrets. I have to confess that I have not yet secured the orator of the day nor any of the other speakers. But I was ambitious to get the best."
"Well, that's the first good news I've heard since we started on this lunatic fandango," said the Cap'n, with soulful thanksgiving. "Do you think there's any in this last mess that 'll be li'ble to come if they're asked?"
"I have been gradually working down the scale of greatness, but I'm afraid I have still aimed too high," confessed Mr. Tate. "Yet the effort is not lost by any means." His eyes kindled. "All my life, Captain Sproul, I have been eager for the autographs of great men—that I might gaze upon the spot of paper where their mighty hands have rested to write. I have succeeded beyond my fondest dreams. I have a collection of autograph letters that make my heart swell with pride."
"So that's how you've been spendin' the money of this town—writin' to folks that you knew wouldn't come, so as to get their autographs?"
He touched the point better than he realized. Poet Tate's face grew paler. After his first batch of letters had brought those returns from the regretful great he had been recklessly scattering invitations from the Atlantic to the Pacific—appealing invitations done in his best style, and sanctioned by the aegis of a committee headed by "Captain Sproul, Chairman." Such unbroken array of declinations heartened him in his quest, and he was reaping his halcyon harvest as rapidly as he could.
"I was going to put them on exhibition at the centennial, and make them the great feature of the day," mumbled the poet, apologetically.
"So do! So do!" advised the Cap'n with bitter irony. "I can see a ramjam rush of the people away from the tub-squirt, right in the middle of it, to look at them autographs. I can see 'em askin' the band to stop playin' so that they can stand and meditate on them letters. It'll bust up the hoss-trot. Folks won't want to get away from them letters long enough to go down to the track. I wish I'd 'a' knowed this sooner, Pote Tate. Take them letters and your pome, and we wouldn't need to be spendin' money and foolin' it away on the other kind of a programmy we've got up! Them Merino rams from Vienny, Canaan, and surroundin' towns that 'll come in here full of hell and hard cider will jest love to set down with you and study autographs all day!"
Mr. Tate flushed under the satire by which the Cap'n was expressing his general disgust at Smyrna's expensive attempt to celebrate. He exhibited a bit of spirit for the first time in their intercourse.
"The literary exercises ought to be the grand feature of the day, sir! Can a horse-trot or a firemen's muster call attention to the progress of a hundred years? I fear Smyrna is forgetting the main point of the celebration."
"Don't you worry any about that, Pote," snapped the selectman. "No one round here is losin' sight of the main point. Main point is for churches and temperance workers and wimmen's auxiliaries to sell as much grub as they can to visitors, and for citizens to parade round behind a brass-band like mules with the spring-halt, and to spend the money that I had ready to clear off the town debt. And if any one thinks about the town bein' a hundred years old, it'll be next mornin' when he wakes up and feels that way himself. You and me is the losin' minority this time, Pote. I didn't want it at all, and you want it something diff'runt." He looked the gaunt figure up and down with a little of the sympathy that one feels for a fellow-victim. Then he gave out stamps for the letters. "As long as it's got to be spent, this is about the innocentest way of spendin' it," he muttered.
XXXII
XXXII
As the great occasion drew nearer, Mr. Tate redoubled his epistolary efforts. He was goaded by two reasons. He had not secured his notables for the literary programme; he would soon have neither excuse nor stamps for collecting autographs. He descended into the lower levels of genius and fame. He wound up his campaign of solicitation with a stack of letters that made the Cap'n gasp. But the chairman gave out the stamps with a certain amount of savage satisfaction in doing it, for some of the other hateful treasury-raiders would have to go without, and he anticipated that Poet Tate, suggester of the piracy, would meet up with proper retribution from his own ilk when the committee in final round-up discovered how great an inroad the autograph-seeker had made in the funds. The Cap'n had shrewd fore-vision as to just how Smyrna would view the expenditure of money in that direction.
For the first time, he gazed on his secretary with a sort of kindly light in his eyes, realizing and relishing the part that Consetena was playing. On his own part, Poet Tate welcomed this single gleam of kindly feeling, as the Eskimo welcomes the first glimpse of the vernal sun. He ran to his portfolio.
"I have it finished, Captain!" he cried. "It is the effort of my life. To you I offer it first of all—you shall have the first bloom of it. It begins"—he clutched the bulky manuscript in shaking hands—"it begins:
"Ethereal Goddess, come, oh come, I pray,And press thy fingers, on this festal day,Upon my fevered brow and—"
"May I ask what you're settin' about to do, there?" inquired Cap'n Sproul, balefully.
"It is my poem! I am about to read it to you, to offer it to you as head of our municipality. I will read it to you."
The Cap'n waited for the explanation patiently. He seemed to want to make sure of the intended enormity of the offence. He even inquired: "How much do you reckon there is of it?"
"Six thousand lines," said Mr. Tate, with an author's pride.
"Pote Tate," he remarked, solemnly, "seein' that you haven't ever been brought in very close touch with deep-water sailors, and don't know what they've had to contend with, and how their dispositions get warped, and not knowin' my private opinion of men-grown potes, you've set here day by day and haven't realized the chances you've been takin'. Just one ordinary back-handed wallop, such as would only tickle a Portygee sailor, would mean wreaths and a harp for you! Thank God, I haven't ever forgot myself, not yet. Lay that pome back, and tie them covers together with a hard knot."
The Cap'n's ominous calm, his evident effort to repress even a loud tone, troubled Poet Tate more than violence would have done. He took himself and his portfolio away. As he licked his stamps in the post-office he privately confided to the postmistress his conviction that Cap'n Sproul was not exactly in his right mind at all times, thus unconsciously reciprocating certain sentiments of his chairman regarding the secretary's sanity.
"I don't think I'll go back to the office," said Mr. Tate. "I have written all my letters. All those that come here in printed envelopes for Captain Sproul I will take, as secretary."
At the end of another ten days, and on the eve of the centennial, Mr. Tate had made an interesting discovery. It was to the effect that although genius in the higher altitudes is not easily come at, and responds by courteous declinations and regrets, genius in the lower levels is still desirous of advertising and an opportunity to shine, and can be cajoled by promise of refunded expenses and lavish entertainment as guest of the municipality.
The last batch of letters of invitation, distributed among those lower levels of notability, elicited the most interesting autograph letters of all; eleven notables accepted the invitation to deliver the oration of the day; a dozen or so announced that they would be present and speak on topics connected with the times, and one and all assured Captain Aaron Sproul that they thoroughly appreciated his courtesy, and looked forward to a meeting with much pleasure, and trusted, etc., etc.
Poet Tate, mild, diffident, unpractical Poet Tate, who in all his life had never been called upon to face a crisis, did not face this one.
The bare notion of going to Cap'n Aaron Sproul and confessing made his brain reel. The memory of the look in the Cap'n's eyes, evoked by so innocent a proposition as the reading of six thousand lines of poetry to him, made Mr. Tate's fluttering heart bang against his ribs. Even when he sat down to write a letter, making the confession, his teeth chattered and his pen danced drunkenly. It made him so faint, even to put the words on paper, that he flung his pen away.
A more resourceful man, a man with something in his head besides dreams, might have headed off the notables. But in his panic Poet Tate became merely a frightened child with the single impulse to flee from the mischief he had caused. With his poem padding his thin chest, he crept out of his father's house in the night preceding the great day, and the blackness swallowed him up. Uneasy urchins in the distant village were already popping the first firecrackers of the celebration. Poet Tate groaned, and fled.
Cap'n Aaron Sproul arrived at the town office next morning in a frame of mind distinctly unamiable. Though his house was far out of the village, the unearthly racket of the night had floated up to him—squawking horns, and clanging bells, and exploding powder. The hundred cannons at sunrise brought a vigorous word for each reverberation. At an early hour Hiram Look had come over, gay in his panoply as chief of the Ancient and Honorables, and repeated his insistent demand that the Cap'n ride at the head of the parade in an imported barouche, gracing the occasion as head of the municipality.
"The people demand it," asseverated Hiram with heat. "The people have rights over you."
"Same as they had over that surplus in the town treasury, hey?" inquired the Cap'n. "What's that you're luggin' in that paper as though 'twas aigs?"
"It's one of my plug hats that I was goin' to lend you," explained his friend, cheerily. "I've rigged it up with a cockade. I figger that we can't any of us be too festal on a day like this. I know you ain't no ways taken to plug hats; but when a man holds office and the people look to him for certain things, he has to bow down to the people. We're goin' to have a great and glorious day of this, Cap," he cried, all his showman's soul infected by gallant excitement, and enthusiasm glowing in his eyes. It was a kind of enthusiasm that Cap'n Sproul's gloomy soul resented.
"I've had consid'able many arguments with you, Hiram, over this affair, first and last, and just at present reck'nin' I'm luggin' about all the canvas my feelin's will stand. Now I won't wear that damnation stove-funnel hat; I won't ride in any baroosh; I won't make speeches; I won't set up on any platform. I'll simply set in town office and 'tend to my business, and draw orders on the treasury to pay bills, as fast as bills are presented. That's what I started out to do, and that's all I will do. And if you don't want to see me jibe and all go by the board, you keep out of my way with your plug hats and barooshes. And it might be well to inform inquirin' friends to the same effect."
He pushed away the head-gear that Hiram still extended toward him, and tramped out of the house and down the hill with his sturdy sea-gait. Dodging firecrackers that sputtered and banged in the highway about his feet, and cursing soulfully, he gained the town office and grimly sat himself down.
He knew when the train from down-river and the outside world had arrived by the riotous accessions to the crowds without in the square. Firemen in red shirts thronged everywhere. Men who wore feathered hats and tawdry uniforms filled the landscape. He gazed on them with unutterable disgust.
A stranger awakened him from his reverie on the vanities of the world. The stranger had studied the sign
SELECTMEN'S OFFICE
SELECTMEN'S OFFICE
and had come in. He wore a frock coat and shiny silk hat, and inquired whether he had the pleasure of speaking to Captain Aaron Sproul, first selectman of Smyrna.
"I'm him," said the Cap'n, glowering up from under knotted eyebrows, his gaze principally on the shiny tile.
"I was just a little surprised that there was no committee of reception at the station to meet me," said the stranger, in mild rebuke. "There was not even a carriage there. But I suppose it was an oversight, due to the rush of affairs to-day."
The Cap'n still scowled at him, not in the least understanding why this stranger should expect to be carted into the village from the railroad.
"I will introduce myself. I am Professor William Wilson Waverley, orator of the day; I have had some very pleasant correspondence with you, Captain Sproul, and I'm truly glad to meet you face to face."
"You've got the advantage of me," blurted the Cap'n, still dense. "I never heard of you before in my life, nor I never wrote you any letter, unless I got up in my sleep and done it."
With wonderment and some irritation growing on his face, the stranger pulled out a letter and laid it before the Cap'n.
The selectman studied it long enough to see that it was an earnest invitation to honor the town of Smyrna with a centennial oration, and that the town would pay all expenses; and the letter was signed, "Captain Aaron Sproul, First Selectman and Chairman of Committee, Per Consetena Tate, Secretary."
"I never saw that before," insisted the Cap'n.
"Do you mean that you disown it?"
"No, I reckon it's all official and regular. What I just said about not havin' seen it before might have sounded a little queer, but there's an explanation goes with it. You see, it's been this way. I—"
But at that moment fully a score of men filed into the office, all of them with set faces and indignant demeanors. The Cap'n was not well posted on the breed of literati, but with half an eye he noted that these were not the ordinary sort of men. There were more silk hats, there were broad-brimmed hats, there was scrupulousness in attire, there was the disarray of Bohemianism. And it was plainly evident that these later arrivals had had word of conference with each other. Each held a "Per Consetena Tate" letter in his hand.
"I have met with some amazing situations in my time—in real life and in romance," stated a hard-faced man who had evidently been selected as spokesman. "But this seems so supremely without parallel that I am almost robbed of expression. Here are ten of us, each having the same identical letter of invitation to deliver the oration of the day here on this occasion."
"Ten, did you say? Eleven," said the first-comer. "Here is my letter."
"And the others have invitations to deliver discourses," went on the spokesman, severely. "As your name is signed to all these letters, Captain Aaron Sproul, first selectman of Smyrna, perhaps you will deign to explain to us what it all means."
Cap'n Sproul arose and then sat down; arose and sat down again. He tried to speak, but only a husky croak came forth. Something seemed to have crawled into his throat—something fuzzy and filling, that would not allow language to pass.
"Here are more than twenty prominent men, seduced from their manifold duties, called away up here to satisfy the rural idea of a joke—or, at least, I can see no other explanation," proceeded the hard-faced man. "It might be remarked in passing that the joke will be an expensive one for this town. Eleven distinguished men called here to deliver one oration in a one-horse town!"
The Cap'n did not like the bitter irony of his tone, and recovered his voice enough to say,
"You might cut the cards or spit at a crack, gents, to see which one does deliver the oration." But the pleasantry did not evoke any smile from that disgusted assemblage.
"It is safe to say that after this hideous insult not one of us will speak," declared one of the group. "But I for one would like some light on the insane freak that prompted this performance. As you are at the head of this peculiar community, we'd like you to speak for it."
Somewhat to his own surprise, Cap'n Sproul did not find in himself any especially bitter animosity toward Mr. Tate, just then, search his soul as he might.
These "lit'ry fellows," cajoled by one of their own ilk into this unspeakable muddle, were, after all, he reflected, of the sort he had scorned with all his sailor repugnance to airs and pretensions. Cap'n Sproul possessed a peculiarly grim sense of humor. This indignant assemblage appealed to that sense.
"Gents," he said, standing up and propping himself on the table by his knuckles, "there are things in this world that are deep mysteries. Of course, men like you reckon you know most everything there is to be known. But you see that on the bottom of each letter you have, there are the words: 'Per Consetena Tate.' There's where the mystery is in this case."
"I imagine it isn't so deep a mystery but that we can understand it if you will explain," said the spokesman, coldly.
"There's where you are mistaken," declared the Cap'n. "It would take a long time to tell you the inside of this thing, and even then you wouldn't know which, what, or whuther about it." In his heart Cap'n Sproul was resolved that he would not own up to these strangers the part his own negligence had played. He reflected for his consolation that he had not projected the centennial celebration of Smyrna. It occurred to him with illuminating force that he had pledged himself to only one thing: to pay the bills of the celebration as fast as they were presented to him. Consetena Tate was the secretary the town had foisted on his committee. Consetena Tate had made definite contracts. His lips twisted into a queer smile under his beard.
"Gents," he said, "there isn't any mystery about them contracts, however. This town pays its bills. You say no one of you wants to orate? That is entirely satisfactory to me—for I ain't runnin' that part. I'm here to pay bills. Each one of you make out his bill and receipt it. Then come with me to the town treasurer's office."
The tumultuous throngs that spied Cap'n Sproul leading that file of distinguished men to Broadway's store—Broadway being treasurer of Smyrna—merely gazed with a flicker of curiosity and turned again to their sports, little realizing just what effect that file of men was to have on the financial sinews of those sports. Cap'n Sproul scarcely realized it himself until all the returns were in. He simply hoped, that's all! And his hopes were more than justified.
"My Gawd, Cap'n," gasped Odbar Broadway when the notables had received their money and had filed out, "what does this mean? There ain't more'n a hundred dollars left of the surplus fund, and there ain't any of the prizes and appropriations paid yet! Who be them plug-hatters from all over God's creation, chalkin' up railroad fares agin us like we had a machine to print money in this town?"
"Them vouchers is all right, ain't they?" demanded the Cap'n. "Them vouchers with letters attached?"
"Yes, they be," faltered the treasurer.
"So fur as who strangers may be, you can ask Pote Consetena Tate, secretary, about that. They're lit'ry gents, and he's done all the official business with them."
Broadway stared at him, and then began to make some hasty figures.
"See here, Cap'n," he said, plaintively, "there's just about enough of that fund left to settle the committee bill here at my store. Have I got to share pro raty?"
"Pay yourself and clean it out. I'll countersign your bill," declared the chairman, cheerfully. "If there ain't any fund, I can go home. I'm infernal sick of this hellitywhoop noise."
And he trudged back up the hill to the quietude of his farm, with deep content.
He had been some hours asleep that night when vigorous poundings on his door awoke him, and when at last he appeared on his piazza he found a large and anxious delegation of citizens filling his yard.
"Cap'n," bleated one of the committee, "Broadway says there ain't any money to pay prizes with."
"Vouchers is all right. Money paid on contracts signed by your official secretary, that you elected unanimous," said the Cap'n, stoutly.
"We know it," cried the committeeman, "but we don't understand it."
"Then hunt up the man that made the contracts—Pote Tate," advised the selectman. "All the business I've done was to pay out the money. You know what stand I've took right along."
"We know it, Cap'n, and we ain't blamin' you—but we don't understand, and we can't find Consetena Tate. His folks don't know where he is. He's run away."
"Potes are queer critters," sighed the Cap'n, compassionately. He turned to go in.
"But how are we goin' to get the money to pay up for the sports, the fireworks, and things?"
"Them that hires fiddlers and dances all day and night must expect to pay said fiddlers," announced the Cap'n, oracularly. "I reckon you'll have to pass the hat for the fiddlers."
"If that's the case," called the committeeman, heart-brokenly, "won't you put your name down for a little?"
"Since I've had the rheumatiz I ain't been any hand at all to dance," remarked the Cap'n, gently, through the crack of the closing door.
And they knew what he meant, and went away down the hill, as sober as the cricket when he was departing from the door of the thrifty ant.