Part 5 (1/2)
If memory serves him aright, this chronicler of sundry small happenings in the life and times of the Honorable William Pitman Priest has more than once heretofore commented upon the fact that among our circuit judge's idiosyncrasies was his trick, when deeply moved, of talking to himself. This night as he went slowly homeward through the soft and velvety cool of the summer darkness he freely indulged himself in this habit. Oddly enough, he punctuated his periods, as it were, with lamp-posts. When he reached a street light he would speak musingly to himself, then fall silent until he had trudged along to the next light.
Something after this fas.h.i.+on:
Corner of Chickasaw Drive and Exall Boulevard:
”Well, sir, the older I git the more convinced I am that jest about the time a man decides he knows a little something about human nature it's a sh.o.r.e sign he don't know nothin' a-tall about it, 'specially human nature ez it applies to the female of the species. Now, f'rinstance, you take this here present instance: A woman turns aginst the woman she thinks is her own mother. Then she finds out the other woman ain't her own mother a-tall, and she swings right back round agin and--well, it's got me stumped. Now ef in her place it had 'a' been a man. But a woman--oh, shuckin's, whut's the use?”
Corner of Chickasaw Drive and Sycamore Avenue:
”Still, of course we've got to figger the baby as a prime factor enterin' into the case and helpin' to straighten things out. Spry little trick fur three days old, goin' on four, wuzn't she? Ought to be purty, too, when she gits herself some hair and a few teeth and plumps out so's she taken up the slack of them million wrinkles, more or less, that she's got now. Babies, now--great inst.i.tutions anyway you take 'em.”
Corner of Sycamore Avenue, turning into Clay Street:
”And still, dog-gone it, you'll find folks in this world so blind that they'll tell you destiny or fate, or whutever you want to call it, jest goes along doin' things by haphazard without no workin' plans and no fixed designs. But me, I'm different--me. I regard the scheme of creation ez a h.e.l.l of a success. Look at this affair fur a minute. I go meddlin' along like an officious, absent-minded idiot, which I am, and jest when it looks like nothin' is goin' to result frum my interference but fresh heartaches fur one of the n.o.blest souls that ever lived on this here footstool, why the firm of Providence, Pedaloski and Poindexter steps in, and bang, there you are! It wouldn't happen agin probably in a thousand years, but it sh.o.r.e happened this oncet, I'll tell the world. Let's see, now, how does that there line in the hymn book run?--'moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.' Ain't it the truth?”
Last street lamp on Clay Street before you come to Judge Priest's house:
”And they call 'em the opposite s.e.x! I claim the feller that fust coined that there line wuz a powerful conservative pusson. Opposite? Huh!
Listen here to me: They're so dad-gum opposite they're plum'
cater-cornered!”
CHAPTER III
A SHORT NATURAL HISTORY
If ever a person might be said to have dedicated his being to the pursuit of leisure, that selfsame was Red Hoss Shackleford, of color, and highly so. He was one who specialized in the deft and fine high art of doing nothing at all. With him leisure was at once a calling to be followed regularly and an ideal to be fostered. But also he loved to eat, and he had a fancy for wearing gladsome gearings, and these cravings occasionally interfered with the practice of his favorite vocation. In order that he might enjoy long periods of manual inactivity it devolved upon him at intervals to devote his reluctant energies to gainful labor. When driven to it by necessity, which is said to be the mother of invention and which certainly is the full sister to appet.i.te, Red Hoss worked. He just naturally had to--sometimes.
You see, in the matter of being maintained vicariously he was less fortunately circ.u.mstanced than so many of his fellows in our town were, and still are. He had no ministering parent doing cookery for the white folks, and by night, in accordance with a time-hallowed custom with which no sane housekeeper dared meddle, bringing home under a dolman cape loaded tin buckets and filled wicker baskets. Ginger Dismukes, now--to cite a conspicuous example--was one thus favored by the indulgent fates.
Aunt Ca'line Dismukes, mother of the above, was as honest as the day was long; but when the evening of that day came, such trifles, say, as part of a ham or a few left-over slices of cake fell to her as a legitimate if unadvertised salvage. Every time the quality in the big house had white meat for their dinner, Ginger, down the alley, enjoyed drumsticks and warmed-up stuffing for his late supper. He might be like the tapeworm in that he rarely knew in advance what he would have to eat, but still, like the tapeworm, he gratefully absorbed what was put before him and asked no questions of the benefactor. Without prior effort on his part he was fed even as the Prophet Elijah was fed by the ravens of old. This simile would acquire added strength if you'd ever seen Aunt Ca'line, her complexion being a crow's-wing sable.
Red Hoss had no dependable helpmate, such as Luther Maydew had, with a neatly lettered sign in her front window: GOING-OUT WAs.h.i.+NG TAKEN IN HERE. Luther's wife was Luther's only visible means of support, yet Luther waxed fat and s.h.i.+ny and larded the earth when he walked abroad.
Neither had Red Hoss an indulgent and generous patron such as Judge Priest's Jeff--Jeff Poindexter--boasted in the person of his master.
Neither was he gifted in the manipulation of the freckled bones as the late Smooth Crumbaugh had been; nor yet possessed he the skill of shadow boxing as that semiprofessional pugilist, Con Lake, possessed it. Con could lick any shadow that ever lived, and the punching bag that could stand up before his onslaughts was not manufactured yet; wherefore he figured in exhibition bouts and boxing benefits, and between these lived soft and easy. He enjoyed no such sinecure as fell to the lot of Uncle Zack Matthews, who waited on the white gentlemen's poker game at the Richland House, thereby harvesting many tips and whose otherwise nimble mind became a perfect blank twice a year when he was summoned before the grand jury.
Red Hoss did, indeed, have a sister, but the relations between them were strained since the day when Red Hoss' funeral obsequies had been inopportunely interrupted by the sudden advent among the mourners of the supposedly deceased, returning drippingly from the river which presumably had engulfed him. His unexpected and embarra.s.sing reappearance had practically spoiled the service for his chief relative.
She never had forgiven Red Hoss for his failure to stay dead, and he long since had ceased to look for free pone bread and poke chops in that quarter.
So when he had need to eat, or when his wardrobe required replenis.h.i.+ng, he worked at odd jobs; but not oftener. Ordinarily speaking, his heart was not in it at all. But at the time when this narrative begins his heart was in it. One speaks figuratively here in order likewise to speak literally. A romantic enterprise carried on by Red Hoss Shackleford through a period of months promised now a delectable climax. As between him and one Melissa Grider an engagement to join themselves together in the bonds of matrimony had been arranged.
Before he fell under Melissa's spell Red Hoss had been regarded as one of the confirmed bachelors of the Plunkett's Hill younger set. He had never noticeably favored marriage and giving in marriage--especially giving himself in marriage. It may have been--indeed the forked tongue of gossip so had it--that the fervor of Red Hoss' courting, when once he did turn suitor, had been influenced by the fortuitous fact that Melissa ran as chambermaid on the steamboat _Jessie B._ The fact outstanding, though, was that Red Hoss, having ardently wooed, seemed now about to win.
But Melissa, that comely and comfortable person, remained practical even when most loving. The grandeur of Red Hoss' dress-up clothes may have entranced her, and certainly his conversational brilliancy was altogether in his favor, but beyond the glamour of the present, Melissa had the vision to appraise the possibilities of the future. Before finally committing herself to the hymeneal venture she required it of her swain that he produce and place in her capable hands for safe-keeping, first, the money required to purchase the license; second, the amount of the fee for the officiating clergyman; and third, cash sufficient to pay the expenses of a joint wedding journey to St. Louis and return. It was specified that the traveling must be conducted on a mutual basis, which would require round-trip tickets for both of them.
Melissa, before now, had heard of these one-sided bridal tours. If Red Hoss went anywhere to celebrate being married she meant to go along with him.
Altogether, under these headings, a computed aggregate of at least eighty dollars was needed. With his eyes set then on this financial goal, Red Hoss sought service in the marts of trade. Perhaps the unwonted eagerness he displayed in this regard may have been quickened by the prospect that the irksomeness of employment before marriage would be made up to him after the event in a vacation more prolonged than any his free spirit had ever known. Still, that part of it is none of our affair. For our purposes it is sufficient to record that the campaign for funds had progressed to a point where practically fifty per cent of the total specified by his prudent inamorata already had been earned, collected and, in accordance with the compact, intrusted to the custodians.h.i.+p of one who was at once fiancee and trustee.
On a fine autumnal day Red Hoss made a beginning at the task of ama.s.sing the remaining half of the prenuptial sinking fund by accepting an a.s.signment to deliver a milch cow, newly purchased by Mr. d.i.c.k Bell, to Mr. Bell's dairy farm three miles from town on the Blandsville Road.