The Storyteller

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXI, Issue 33, 13 August 1903, Page 23

The Storyteller

PAYING AN OLD SCORE

It was one Qt those days when the elemental forces of both the inorganic and organic worlds seem to conspire to thwart a single tiny atom— man. The heavens had disgorged themselves of floods of rain, making the pavements wet and slippery. Two of the people whom 1 had gone to Indianapolis to see were out of town, and the rest were too busy or cross to talk freely with me. I sat in the lobby of the Blank House meditating on the perversity of nature and human nature, scowling over the failure of my plans and the chagrin which I knew my clients would experience when I made my report. For a long time 1 was too absorbed with my own troubles to take the slightest interest in thel throngs of men who scuffled across the marble floor, or sat in the easy chairs, smoking, reading, screaming regretting, hoping, fearing. At last 1 looked up, and began ,to (wonder whether any one of them was as miserable as I. ' What were they all struggling after ? ' I asked myself, cynically. How absurd they seemed — fussing, fuming, caressing and pluming themselves ! Of course they would fail in the long run, no matter what they were struggling after. Nature always ' wins the game 'at last, however ardently the gamblers play. I made these comments in a general way as I swept my eyes over the mass, and then began to single out individuals and to say to myself, ' That old fellow all huddled up in the corner has got his solar plexus blow ! Anybody can see that ! He'll never stand up for another round.' ' That nabob over there with his back to me (the stout man with the Prince Albert and two rolls of fat over his collar) is a millionaire ; I can tell it even from a rear view ! Nothing is so demonstrative as success. Its capacity for self-revelation is infinite. But no matter ! That blood-vessel in the left lobe of his brain is getting too thin ! Some day while he is sitting in his oflice like a spider waiting for his preyclick I the vessel will burst and all is over ! ' ' And that young swell in his dress suit (going to a reception I suppose) thinks the world is his oyster, does he ? Well— so did I when I was Ins age.'

Suddenly my attention was attracted to a stout old gentleman of three score and ten, or thereabouts, who sat right next to me in an easy, rocking-chair. He had just taken his hat off, and was rubbing his bald head with a silk handkerchief ; after he had made it shine like a door-knob he polished his spectacles, then he smoothed his knees caressingly with his hands, and finally rubbed them together in that universal gesture by which men give silent expression to absolute contentment. I now looked at hffe face ; it was wrinkled, but ruddy and rubicund, and was lighted by a happy smile. The smile that exasperated me. I was in one of those moods when even harmony is discord, when even the song of a bird rasps the nerves like the filing of a saw. What was this old fool smiling at ? A man of his years ought to know better than to assume that silly grin ! There's nothing in life to make a man genuinely happy, and it is sheer hypocrisy to try to appear so !

Blissfully unconscious of the cynical comments of mine, the old man smiled on, and after a while polished his forehead again, then his spectacles, then caressed his knee, then rubbed his hands together as before. My lip curled, I had hard work to keep from telling him what I thought. But after he had repeated this pantomime as many as six times my mood began to change and I at last found myself unconsciously smiling with him. I suppose, if he had cried, I should have wept with him— so mysteriously do these instruments in the great human orchestra tune each other to their own keys. In a surprisingly short time my interest in the old man had become so deep that I actually forgot my own troubles and determined to find out what had made him so happy.

' Excuse me,' said I, touching his arm, ' but I cannot restrain my curiosity any longer. I am suffering from a horrible attack of the blues, and you seem so happy that I would like to share your pleasure.' He turned suddenly, eyed me sharply (and I noticed that his eyes could pierce as well as twinkle), and replied : ' How did you know I was happy ? ' ' Oh— you have been rubbing your hands together and smiling in a perfectly unmistakable way,' I said.

' Have I 9 I didn't know it. But say, stranger, you hit the nail on the head— l am happy. And if you want to hear about it, I'll just read you a chapter out of my life,' he said. 1 I do,' I answered eagerly. 1 It may be a long one and a dull one — to you.'

•I'll take my chances. It couldn't be so dull as my own thoughts.'

' Well, 'here goes ! ' he said, lightingr a cigar and settling himself in an easy attitude.

' When I was a little cub twelve years old my mother died, and the next ining I knew my father had married again. He didn't consult me— you understand. The woman might have suited his taste, but she didn't suit mine a little bit. I stood her for a year, and then one night I just pulled out. So far as I know even my father never took the trouble to hunt me up— l walked northward from Cincinnati until I saw the first signs of morning, and then, tired and cold, I crawled under a cock of hay and fell asleep. I'll bet the world never looked bigger and emptier and more inhospitable to any man that ever breathed than it did to me in the gray light. I felt like a little fly on the great, pale, dead face of the universe. It makes me shudder yet. It was almost noon when I woke, stiff, hungry, and scared. At first I wished I hadn't come. Then I remembered how I had been abused and gritted my teeth. I've always found that gritting my teeth has a moral value. I don't know just why. It's like whistling— which "screws ypur courage up, I s'pose. Alter that I crawled out into the highway and walked on. There was a farmhouse a little way down the road, and I thought I'd stop and ask for something to eat ; but when I got to it my heart failed me. Such little boys as I was lose heart mighty easy, stranger. I've always felt for 'em. You have to feel with folks before you can feel for 'em. Well, I passed the door and then looked back. In the garden there was a little baieheaded and barefooted girl about my own age. She was looking at me, and our eyes met. When they met, something seemed to flash inside me like an electric spark. I've felt it often— when women looked at me. S'pose you have, eh ? ' 1 Yes.' ' I thought so. Well, she smiled and I smiled, and I forgot all about being tired and miserable, and climbed light over the fence and went straight towards her. She was picking roses off a bush, and when I got close we stood and looked at each othsr a minute, and then she smiled again, and so did I. "Do you live here ? " says I. And she said she did. "Do you think your ma would give me some bread ? " says I. You ought to have seen her face ! That little tow-headed girl (she wasn't as old as 1 was) seemed to see right through the whole business. Women are queer about that— you know. Stone walls are nothing. They can see plump through them — and then, again, they can't seem to see through a French plate-glass window. " Let's go and see," she said, and I followed her straight into the kitchen. " Ma," says she to a kind-looking woman (I remember wishing my old governor had chosen one like her), " ma, this boy is hungry. Can he have some bread and butter and a little sugar ? " "I didn't ask, for butter and sugar, but only for bread," says I. That made her smile, and she looked in a nice way at the little gul, and then said to me, " Who are you ? " And I told her plump and fair about my stepmother. " Was she cross and did she whip you ? " she asked, and I told her she did. " Are you a good boy ? Do you love God and say your prayers ? " she, said ; and I hung my head down and scratched my ankle with my toe. " You ought to," she. said, and went right into the pantry and cut off four great slices of bread, and put butter and sugar on them, and I ate them like a wolf. Lord ! but they tasted good ! I've never tasted anything like them since. " Poor dear ! " she said, when she saw me eat, and just bent over and kissed me. That kiss broke me and I put my head down on the table and cried. She patted it kindly, and when I looked up I saw two tears on the little girl's cheek.'

The old man paused to blow a ring of smoke. 'After I had oaten enough,' he continued, ' the woman made ma tell my whole story and seemed to believe me. And when her husband came in to dinner she made me tell it again, and he didn't believe me. I knew he didn't, though he didn't say so. He wasn't the same kind as his wife ; but he wasn't bad. He'd seen more of life, I suppose. Sometimes I think the more we see of it the less we know about it. Anyway, after dinner I helped the woman and the little girl to wash up the dishes, and then she and I went out to play. I'll never forget that afternoon. It seemed forever and it didn't seem a minute. We went into the garden and picked flowers ; and then into the barn and hunted eggs ; and then into a meadow where she had a playhouse in some elderberry bushes, and she served a dinner on some cracked dishes. I teh member hearing a meadow lark sing as we stepped outside to go homo. I had heard millions before and never thought much about them ; but somehow or other that one's song went down into me and made me tremble. Why do you suppose that was ? I reckon there are times when the strings in us are keyed up mighty high and the hand that strikes them at the right moment makes them jingle. Anyway, I've never heard a meadow lark sing since that day without being in that meadow and feeling that little girl beside me.'

The old man paused again, blew a wreath of smoke caressed the knee of his trousers, rubbed his hands, and looked into space.' 1 What next ? ' I asked. He appeared to come back from a great distance, and looking at me as if trying to connect the present with the past, said : 'Oh-I forgot! Well, I stayed all night, and the next morning, after breakfast, the man told me that I had better be moving. It seemed hard to me, but children just accept the inevitable. He wasn't hard and rough about it. He said they were poor people and couldn t afford to feed me ; that I wasn't big enough to work on a farm, and so on. The woman cried. They're different, women are. She'd have kept me. Well, I didn t have any trunk to pack, and so I just packed myself, and when I shook hands with the girl I just choked up a little. But I got out in the best shape I could and pushed on, my heart feeling like a lump of lead I s 'pose I'd gone about a hundred rods when I heard a sound behind me and turned around. And what do you think ? That little girl was coming down the road with a bundle, her bare feet pattering in the hot sand and sounding like music. '"I thought you. might get hungry," she said, handing it to me. 1 " Maybe I would," says I. ! !! Good-bye," says she, stretching out her hand. '"Good-bye, 1 says I, taking it and holding it a minute I wanted to kiss her, but somehow I didn't, dare. I always thought she felt disappointed : her lips kind of pouted out like a rosebud, but when I dropped her hand the corners of them sunk down a little and the tears stood in her eyes. After she turned around and walked home I could have killed myself for a coward and I feel the same way now. But— well— I'm spinning this yarn out pretty fine. I reckon you've heard enough ' ' Not if there's more,' I said. 1 Oh, yes, there's more,' he continued. ' I struck Chicago at last and hustled. I had a notion that I'd get rich and go back and marry that little gnl But it takes time for a poor little chap like me to get nch I did it, though ! But long 'fore 1 was rich (I think it was when I was about twenty) I'd sa\ed up a thousand dollars, and I went back on my trail to find her ' He knocked the ashes from his cigar 1 Well,' said I. * "

She was gone,' he said, and then, after waiting a moment, continued : ' Her father had died, and her mother and she had left the country. 1 hunted for them high and low, far and wide, but they hadn't lett any more trace of themselves than two birds flying through the air. It nearly killed me; but I got o\er the woist of it in time and met another girl and fell in lo\e and married her and raised a family and got, richer and richer, and lived happy and all that; but I ne\er could get reconciled to the idea that while I was living in luxury that little girl might be poor and maybe suffering.'

At this point he went through that pantomime which had first attracted my attention.

' I'm coming to the point now,' he said, taking a couple of long whiffs. ' This morning I was walking around Indianapolis to see what kind of a town it was, and strayed out into the edge of the city Suddenly I came on an old woman sitting on a dooistep ciying " What's up ? " says Ito myself— and then I saw an auction flag hanging out of a window. There was always .something about an auction flag that hurt me You know how a red flag affects a bull ? Well, I don t get mad but I feel sad. Bad luck, you know— trouble failure' Gracious ! I can't stand it » Well, I just stopped and loaned over the gate, and, says I, " Excuse me madam can I help you ? " She looked up, and I saw that she" was old and poor, but decent-looking— might ha\e been handsome when she was young, I thought (I'm partial to good looks and it didn't hurt her case any). ' " No, thank you," says she. ' " Being sold out' " I asked (I'm blunt). " Yes, sir. I've had trouble,"' she said ' " What's the matter ? "

"My husband was an invalid for fnc years and when he died the other day I had to gne up the place for the mortgage, and must sell the goods to pay for the funeral." ' " How long have you lived here ? " said I. ' " Twenty years," says she. ' " Where do you come from ? " ' " Indiana." '"Indiana? What part?" said I, pricking up my ears. J 1 " Doddsville." 1 " Was that where you were born ? " 1 " No, I was born near Ferguson." '" On a farm ? " • " Yes." c " On the paddock road ? "

1 " Yes." | || Was your name Beardsley ? " ,' Q + Ifc was >" s «e answered, surprised like he sa^Sng'S/rands 7 " 1 " 0 ' but * JUmped lhe eager*" ** lhat hUle glrl ?' J asked > leailin S forward < WeH^welM 1 whTL^ rep! , ied ' rubbin S his knee " breathlessly ' What dld yOU do ?' I t int i uired almost <UfT \ ?i? id i he l aft ° r a minute - '* bou S ht U P th e ■sLull and got the house back and gave il to her and put five thousand dollars in the bank in her name. He look nff m h?V? c 01 , d u U^ n P erfor med "i* pantomime. tTcles M ~«£ )? ' P° llshed his bald head, then his spectacles cares Sed his knee, rubbed his hands, and smiled. »,,.„ guess th t t Wlll see her through , but if it don't heres more where it came from ' 'he said rising and brushing the ashes of his cigar from his coat S