Chapter II (1)

During a not inconsiderable period Mr. Fluker indulged the honorable conviction that at last he had found the vein in which his best talents lay, and he was happy in foresight of the prosperity and felicity which that discovery promised to himself and his family. His native activity found many more objects for its exertion than before. He rode out to the farm, not often, but sometimes, as a matter of duty, and was forced to acknowledge that Sam was managing better than could have been expected in the absence of his own continuous guidance. In town he walked about the hotel, entertained the guests, carved at the meals, hovered about the stores, the doctors’ offices, the wagon and blacksmith shops, discussed mercantile, medical, mechanical questions with specialists in all these departments, throwing into them all more and more of politics as the intimacy between him and his patron and chief boarder increased.

Now as to that patron and chief boarder. The need of extending his acquaintance seemed to press upon Mr. Pike with ever-increasing weight. He was here and there, all over the county; at the county-seat, at the county villages, at justices’ courts, at executors’ and administrators’ sales, at quarterly and protracted religious meetings, at barbecues of every dimension, on hunting excursions and fishing frolics, at social parties in all neighborhoods. It got to be said of Mr. Pike that a freer acceptor of hospitable invitations, or a better appreciator of hospitable intentions, was not and needed not to be found possibly in the whole state. Nor was this admirable deportment confined to the county in which he held so high official position. He attended, among other occasions less public, the spring sessions of the supreme and county courts in the four adjoining counties: the guest of acquaintance old and new over there. When starting upon such travels, he would sometimes breakfast with his traveling companion in the village, and, if somewhat belated in the return, sup with him also.

Yet, when at Flukers’, no man could have been a more cheerful and otherwise satisfactory boarder than Mr. Matt Pike. He praised every dish set before him, bragged to their very faces of his host and hostess, and in spite of his absences was the oftenest to sit and chat with Marann when her mother would let her go into the parlor. Here and everywhere about the house, in the dining-room, in the passage, at the foot of the stairs, he would joke with Marann about her country beau, as he styled poor Sim Marchman, and he would talk as though he was rather ashamed of Sim, and wanted Marann to string her bow for higher game.

Brer Sam did manage well, not only the fields, but the yard. Every Saturday of the world he sent in something or other to his sister. I don’t know whether I ought to tell it or not, but for the sake of what is due to pure veracity I will. On as many as three different occasions Sim Marchman, as if he had lost all self-respect, or had not a particle of tact, brought in himself, instead of sending by a negro, a bucket of butter and a coop of spring chickens as a free gift to Mrs. Fluker. I do think, on my soul, that Mr. Matt Pike was much amused by such degradation—however, he must say that they were all first-rate. As for Marann, she was very sorry for Sim, and wished he had not brought these good things at all.

Nobody knew how it came about; but when the Flukers had been in town somewhere between two and three months, Sim Marchman, who (to use his own words) had never bothered her a great deal with his visits, began to suspect that what few he made were received by Marann lately with less cordiality than before; and so one day, knowing no better, in his awkward, straightforward country manners, he wanted to know the reason why. Then Marann grew distant, and asked Sim the following question:

“You know where Mr. Pike’s gone, Mr. Marchman?”

Now the fact was, and she knew it, that Marann Fluker had never before, not since she was born, addressed that boy as _Mister_.

The visitor’s face reddened and reddened.

“No,” he faltered in answer; “no—no—_ma’am_, I should say. I—I don’t know where Mr. Pike’s gone.”

Then he looked around for his hat, discovered it in time, took it into his hands, turned it around two or three times, then, bidding good-bye without shaking hands, took himself off.

Mrs. Fluker liked all the Marchmans, and she was troubled somewhat when she heard of the quickness and manner of Sim’s departure; for he had been fully expected by her to stay to dinner.

“Say he didn’t even shake hands, Marann? What for? What you do to him?”

“Not one blessed thing, ma; only he wanted to know why I wasn’t gladder to see him.” Then Marann looked indignant.

“Say them words, Marann?”

“No, but he hinted ’em.”

“What did you say then?”

“I just asked, a-meaning nothing in the wide world, ma—I asked him if he knew where Mr. Pike had gone.”

“And that were answer enough to hurt his feelin’s. What you want to know where Matt Pike’s gone for, Marann?”

“I didn’t care about knowing, ma, but I didn’t like the way Sim talked.”

“Look here, Marann. Look straight at me. You’ll be mighty fur off your feet if you let Matt Pike put things in your head that hain’t no business a-bein’ there, and special if you find yourself a-wantin’ to know where he’s a-perambulatin’ in his everlastin’ meanderin’s. Not a cent has he paid for his board, and which your pa say he have a’ understandin’ with him about allowin’ for his absentees, which is all right enough, but which it’s now goin’ on to three mont’s, and what is comin’ to us I need and I want. He ought, your pa ought to let me bargain with Matt Pike, because he know he don’t understan’ figgers like Matt Pike. He don’t know exactly what the bargain were; for I’ve asked him, and he always begins with a multiplyin’ of words and never answers me.”

On his next return from his travels Mr. Pike noticed a coldness in Mrs. Fluker’s manner, and this enhanced his praise of the house. The last week of the third month came. Mr. Pike was often noticed, before and after meals, standing at the desk in the hotel office (called in those times the bar-room) engaged in making calculations. The day before the contract expired Mrs. Fluker, who had not indulged herself with a single holiday since they had been in town, left Marann in charge of the house, and rode forth, spending part of the day with Mrs. Marchman, Sim’s mother. All were glad to see her, of course, and she returned smartly, freshened by the visit. That night she had a talk with Marann, and oh, how Marann did cry!

The very last day came. Like insurance policies, the contract was to expire at a certain hour. Sim Marchman came just before dinner, to which he was sent for by Mrs. Fluker, who had seen him as he rode into town.

“Hello, Sim,” said Mr. Pike as he took his seat opposite him. “You here? What’s the news in the country? How’s your health? How’s crops?”

“Jest mod’rate, Mr. Pike. Got little business with you after dinner, ef you can spare time.”

“All right. Got a little matter with Pink here first. ’Twon’t take long. See you arfter amejiant, Sim.”

Never had the deputy been more gracious and witty. He talked and talked, outtalking even Mr. Fluker; he was the only man in town who could do that. He winked at Marann as he put questions to Sim, some of the words employed in which Sim had never heard before. Yet Sim held up as well as he could, and after dinner followed Marann with some little dignity into the parlor. They had not been there more than ten minutes when Mrs. Fluker was heard to walk rapidly along the passage leading from the dining-room, to enter her own chamber for only a moment, then to come out and rush to the parlor door with the gig-whip in her hand. Such uncommon conduct in a woman like Mrs. Pink Fluker of course needs explanation.

When all the other boarders had left the house, the deputy and Mr. Fluker having repaired to the bar-room, the former said:

“Now, Pink, for our settlement, as you say your wife think we better have one. I’d ’a’ been willin’ to let accounts keep on a-runnin’, knowin’ what a straightforrards sort o’ man you was. Your count, ef I ain’t mistakened, is jes’ thirty-three dollars, even money. Is that so, or is it not?”

“That’s it, to a dollar, Matt. Three times eleben make thirty-three, don’t it?”

“It do, Pink, or eleben times three, jes’ which you please. Now here’s my count, on which you’ll see, Pink, that not nary cent have I charged for infloonce. I has infloonced a consider’ble custom to this house, as you know, bo’din’ and transion. But I done that out o’ my respects of you an’ Missis Fluker, an’ your keepin’ of a fa’r—I’ll say, as I’ve said freckwent, a _very_ fa’r house. I let them infloonces go to friendship, ef you’ll take it so. Will you, Pink Fluker?”

“Cert’nly, Matt, an’ I’m a thousand times obleeged to you, an’—”

“Say no more, Pink, on that p’int o’ view. Ef I like a man, I know how to treat him. Now as to the p’ints o’ absentees, my business as dep’ty sheriff has took me away from this inconsider’ble town freckwent, hain’t it?”

“It have, Matt, er somethin’ else, more’n I were a expectin’, an’—”

“Jes’ so. But a public officer, Pink, when jooty call on him to go, he got to go; in fack he got to _goth_, as the Scripture say, ain’t that so?”

“I s’pose so, Matt, by good rights, a—a official speakin’.”

Mr. Fluker felt that he was becoming a little confused.

“Jes’ so. Now, Pink, I were to have credics for my absentees ’cordin’ to transion an’ single-meal bo’ders an’ sleepers; ain’t that so?”

“I—I—somethin’ o’ that sort, Matt,” he answered vaguely.

“Jes’ so. Now look here,” drawing from his pocket a paper. “Itom one. Twenty-eight dinners at half a dollar makes fourteen dollars, don’t it? Jes’ so. Twenty-five breakfasts at a quarter makes six an’ a quarter, which make dinners an’ breakfasts twenty an’ a quarter. Foller me up, as I go up, Pink. Twenty-five suppers at a quarter makes six an’ a quarter, an’ which them added to the twenty an’ a quarter makes them twenty-six an’ a half. Foller, Pink, an’ if you ketch me in any mistakes in the kyarin’ an’ addin’, p’int it out. Twenty-two an’ a half beds—an’ I say _half_, Pink, because you ’member one night when them A’gusty lawyers got here ’bout midnight on their way to co’t, rather’n have you too bad cramped, I ris to make way for two of ’em; yit as I had one good nap, I didn’t think I ought to put that down but for half. Them makes five dollars half an’ seb’n pence, an’ which kyar’d on to the t’other twenty-six an’ a half, fetches the whole cabool to jes’ thirty-two dollars an’ seb’n pence. But I made up my mind I’d fling out that seb’n pence, an’ jes’ call it a dollar even money, an’ which here’s the solid silver.”

In spite of the rapidity with which this enumeration of counter-charges was made, Mr. Fluker commenced perspiring at the first item, and when the balance was announced his face was covered with huge drops.

It was at this juncture that Mrs. Fluker, who, well knowing her husband’s unfamiliarity with complicated accounts, had felt her duty to be listening near the bar-room door, left, and quickly afterwards appeared before Marann and Sim as I have represented.

“You think Matt Pike ain’t tryin’ to settle with your pa with a dollar? I’m goin’ to make him keep his dollar, an’ I’m goin’ to give him somethin’ to go ’long with it.”

“The good Lord have mercy upon us!” exclaimed Marann, springing up and catching hold of her mother’s skirts, as she began her advance towards the bar-room. “Oh, ma! for the Lord’s sake!—Sim, Sim, Sim, if you care _any_thing for me in this wide world, don’t let ma go into that room!”

“Missis Fluker,” said Sim, rising instantly, “wait jest two minutes till I see Mr. Pike on some pressin’ business; I won’t keep you over two minutes a-waitin’.”

He took her, set her down in a chair trembling, looked at her a moment as she began to weep, then, going out and closing the door, strode rapidly to the bar-room.

“Let me help you settle your board-bill, Mr. Pike, by payin’ you a little one I owe you.”

Doubling his fist, he struck out with a blow that felled the deputy to the floor. Then catching him by his heels, he dragged him out of the house into the street. Lifting his foot above his face, he said:

“You stir till I tell you, an’ I’ll stomp your nose down even with the balance of your mean face. ’Tain’t exactly my business how you cheated Mr. Fluker, though, ’pon my soul, I never knowed a trifliner, lowdowner trick. But _I_ owed you myself for your talkin’ ’bout and your lyin’ ’bout me, and now I’ve paid you; an’ ef you only knowed it, I’ve saved you from a gig-whippin’. Now you may git up.”

“Here’s his dollar, Sim,” said Mr. Fluker, throwing it out of the window. “Nervy say make him take it.”

The vanquished, not daring to refuse, pocketed the coin, and slunk away amid the jeers of a score of villagers who had been drawn to the scene.

In all human probability the late omission of the shaking of Sim’s and Marann’s hands was compensated at their parting that afternoon. I am more confident on this point because at the end of the year those hands were joined inseparably by the preacher. But this was when they had all gone back to their old home; for if Mr. Fluker did not become fully convinced that his mathematical education was not advanced quite enough for all the exigencies of hotel-keeping, his wife declared that she had had enough of it, and that she and Marann were going home. Mr. Fluker may be said, therefore, to have followed, rather than led, his family on the return.

As for the deputy, finding that if he did not leave it voluntarily he would be drummed out of the village, he departed, whither I do not remember if anybody ever knew.

FOOTNOTES:

[20] From _The Century Magazine_, June, 1886; copyright, 1886, by The Century Co.; republished in the volume, _Mr. Absalom Billingslea, and Other Georgia Folk_ (1888), by Richard Malcolm Johnston (Harper & Brothers).

THE NICE PEOPLE[21]

By Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855–1896)

“They certainly are nice people,” I assented to my wife’s observation, using the colloquial phrase with a consciousness that it was anything but “nice” English, “and I’ll bet that their three children are better brought up than most of——”

“_Two_ children,” corrected my wife.

“Three, he told me.”

“My dear, she said there were _two_.”

“He said three.”

“You’ve simply forgotten. I’m _sure_ she told me they had only two—a boy and a girl.”

“Well, I didn’t enter into particulars.”

“No, dear, and you couldn’t have understood him. Two children.”

“All right,” I said; but I did not think it was all right. As a nearsighted man learns by enforced observation to recognize persons at a distance when the face is not visible to the normal eye, so the man with a bad memory learns, almost unconsciously, to listen carefully and report accurately. My memory is bad; but I had not had time to forget that Mr. Brewster Brede had told me that afternoon that he had three children, at present left in the care of his mother-in-law, while he and Mrs. Brede took their summer vacation.

“Two children,” repeated my wife; “and they are staying with his aunt Jenny.”

“He told me with his mother-in-law,” I put in. My wife looked at me with a serious expression. Men may not remember much of what they are told about children; but any man knows the difference between an aunt and a mother-in-law.

“But don’t you think they’re nice people?” asked my wife.

“Oh, certainly,” I replied. “Only they seem to be a little mixed up about their children.”

“That isn’t a nice thing to say,” returned my wife. I could not deny it.

* * * * *

And yet, the next morning, when the Bredes came down and seated themselves opposite us at table, beaming and smiling in their natural, pleasant, well-bred fashion, I knew, to a social certainty, that they were “nice” people. He was a fine-looking fellow in his neat tennis-flannels, slim, graceful, twenty-eight or thirty years old, with a Frenchy pointed beard. She was “nice” in all her pretty clothes, and she herself was pretty with that type of prettiness which outwears most other types—the prettiness that lies in a rounded figure, a dusky skin, plump, rosy cheeks, white teeth and black eyes. She might have been twenty-five; you guessed that she was prettier than she was at twenty, and that she would be prettier still at forty.

And nice people were all we wanted to make us happy in Mr. Jacobus’s summer boarding-house on top of Orange Mountain. For a week we had come down to breakfast each morning, wondering why we wasted the precious days of idleness with the company gathered around the Jacobus board. What joy of human companionship was to be had out of Mrs. Tabb and Miss Hoogencamp, the two middle-aged gossips from Scranton, Pa.—out of Mr. and Mrs. Biggle, an indurated head-bookkeeper and his prim and censorious wife—out of old Major Halkit, a retired business man, who, having once sold a few shares on commission, wrote for circulars of every stock company that was started, and tried to induce every one to invest who would listen to him? We looked around at those dull faces, the truthful indices of mean and barren minds, and decided that we would leave that morning. Then we ate Mrs. Jacobus’s biscuit, light as Aurora’s cloudlets, drank her honest coffee, inhaled the perfume of the late azaleas with which she decked her table, and decided to postpone our departure one more day. And then we wandered out to take our morning glance at what we called “our view”; and it seemed to us as if Tabb and Hoogencamp and Halkit and the Biggleses could not drive us away in a year.

I was not surprised when, after breakfast, my wife invited the Bredes to walk with us to “our view.” The Hoogencamp-Biggle-Tabb-Halkit contingent never stirred off Jacobus’s veranda; but we both felt that the Bredes would not profane that sacred scene. We strolled slowly across the fields, passed through the little belt of woods and, as I heard Mrs. Brede’s little cry of startled rapture, I motioned to Brede to look up.

“By Jove!” he cried, “heavenly!”

We looked off from the brow of the mountain over fifteen miles of billowing green, to where, far across a far stretch of pale blue lay a dim purple line that we knew was Staten Island. Towns and villages lay before us and under us; there were ridges and hills, uplands and lowlands, woods and plains, all massed and mingled in that great silent sea of sunlit green. For silent it was to us, standing in the silence of a high place—silent with a Sunday stillness that made us listen, without taking thought, for the sound of bells coming up from the spires that rose above the tree-tops—the tree-tops that lay as far beneath us as the light clouds were above us that dropped great shadows upon our heads and faint specks of shade upon the broad sweep of land at the mountain’s foot.

“And so that is _your_ view?” asked Mrs. Brede, after a moment; “you are very generous to make it ours, too.”

Then we lay down on the grass, and Brede began to talk, in a gentle voice, as if he felt the influence of the place. He had paddled a canoe, in his earlier days, he said, and he knew every river and creek in that vast stretch of landscape. He found his landmarks, and pointed out to us where the Passaic and the Hackensack flowed, invisible to us, hidden behind great ridges that in our sight were but combings of the green waves upon which we looked down. And yet, on the further side of those broad ridges and rises were scores of villages—a little world of country life, lying unseen under our eyes.

“A good deal like looking at humanity,” he said; “there is such a thing as getting so far above our fellow men that we see only one side of them.”

Ah, how much better was this sort of talk than the chatter and gossip of the Tabb and the Hoogencamp—than the Major’s dissertations upon his everlasting circulars! My wife and I exchanged glances.

“Now, when I went up the Matterhorn” Mr. Brede began.

“Why, dear,” interrupted his wife, “I didn’t know you ever went up the Matterhorn.”

“It—it was five years ago,” said Mr. Brede, hurriedly. “I—I didn’t tell you—when I was on the other side, you know—it was rather dangerous—well, as I was saying—it looked—oh, it didn’t look at all like this.”

A cloud floated overhead, throwing its great shadow over the field where we lay. The shadow passed over the mountain’s brow and reappeared far below, a rapidly decreasing blot, flying eastward over the golden green. My wife and I exchanged glances once more.

Somehow, the shadow lingered over us all. As we went home, the Bredes went side by side along the narrow path, and my wife and I walked together.

“_Should you think_,” she asked me, “that a man would climb the Matterhorn the very first year he was married?”

“I don’t know, my dear,” I answered, evasively; “this isn’t the first year I have been married, not by a good many, and I wouldn’t climb it—for a farm.”

“You know what I mean,” she said.

I did.

* * * * *

When we reached the boarding-house, Mr. Jacobus took me aside.

“You know,” he began his discourse, “my wife she uset to live in N’ York!”

I didn’t know, but I said “Yes.”

“She says the numbers on the streets runs criss-cross-like. Thirty-four’s on one side o’ the street an’ thirty-five on t’other. How’s that?”

“That is the invariable rule, I believe.”

“Then—I say—these here new folk that you ’n’ your wife seem so mighty taken up with—d’ye know anything about ’em?”

“I know nothing about the character of your boarders, Mr. Jacobus,” I replied, conscious of some irritability. “If I choose to associate with any of them——”

“Jess so—jess so!” broke in Jacobus. “I hain’t nothin’ to say ag’inst yer sosherbil’ty. But do ye _know_ them?”

“Why, certainly not,” I replied.

“Well—that was all I wuz askin’ ye. Ye see, when _he_ come here to take the rooms—you wasn’t here then—he told my wife that he lived at number thirty-four in his street. An’ yistiddy _she_ told her that they lived at number thirty-five. He said he lived in an apartment-house. Now there can’t be no apartment-house on two sides of the same street, kin they?”

“What street was it?” I inquired, wearily.

“Hundred ’n’ twenty-first street.”

“May be,” I replied, still more wearily. “That’s Harlem. Nobody knows what people will do in Harlem.”

I went up to my wife’s room.

“Don’t you think it’s queer?” she asked me.

“I think I’ll have a talk with that young man to-night,” I said, “and see if he can give some account of himself.”

“But, my dear,” my wife said, gravely, “_she_ doesn’t know whether they’ve had the measles or not.”

“Why, Great Scott!” I exclaimed, “they must have had them when they were children.”

“Please don’t be stupid,” said my wife. “I meant _their_ children.”

After dinner that night—or rather, after supper, for we had dinner in the middle of the day at Jacobus’s—I walked down the long verandah to ask Brede, who was placidly smoking at the other end, to accompany me on a twilight stroll. Half way down I met Major Halkit.

“That friend of yours,” he said, indicating the unconscious figure at the further end of the house, “seems to be a queer sort of a Dick. He told me that he was out of business, and just looking round for a chance to invest his capital. And I’ve been telling him what an everlasting big show he had to take stock in the Capitoline Trust Company—starts next month—four million capital—I told you all about it. ‘Oh, well,’ he says, ‘let’s wait and think about it.’ ‘Wait!’ says I, ‘the Capitoline Trust Company won’t wait for _you_, my boy. This is letting you in on the ground floor,’ says I, ‘and it’s now or never.’ ‘Oh, let it wait,’ says he. I don’t know what’s in-_to_ the man.”

“I don’t know how well he knows his own business, Major,” I said as I started again for Brede’s end of the veranda. But I was troubled none the less. The Major could not have influenced the sale of one share of stock in the Capitoline Company. But that stock was a great investment; a rare chance for a purchaser with a few thousand dollars. Perhaps it was no more remarkable that Brede should not invest than that I should not—and yet, it seemed to add one circumstance more to the other suspicious circumstances.

* * * * *

When I went upstairs that evening, I found my wife putting her hair to bed—I don’t know how I can better describe an operation familiar to every married man. I waited until the last tress was coiled up, and then I spoke:

“I’ve talked with Brede,” I said, “and I didn’t have to catechize him. He seemed to feel that some sort of explanation was looked for, and he was very outspoken. You were right about the children—that is, I must have misunderstood him. There are only two. But the Matterhorn episode was simple enough. He didn’t realize how dangerous it was until he had got so far into it that he couldn’t back out; and he didn’t tell her, because he’d left her here, you see, and under the circumstances——”

“Left her here!” cried my wife. “I’ve been sitting with her the whole afternoon, sewing, and she told me that he left her at Geneva, and came back and took her to Basle, and the baby was born there—now I’m sure, dear, because I asked her.”

“Perhaps I was mistaken when I thought he said she was on this side of the water,” I suggested, with bitter, biting irony.

“You poor dear, did I abuse you?” said my wife. “But, do you know, Mrs. Tabb said that _she_ didn’t know how many lumps of sugar he took in his coffee. Now that seems queer, doesn’t it?”

It did. It was a small thing. But it looked queer, Very queer.

* * * * *

The next morning, it was clear that war was declared against the Bredes. They came down to breakfast somewhat late, and, as soon as they arrived, the Biggleses swooped up the last fragments that remained on their plates, and made a stately march out of the dining-room, Then Miss Hoogencamp arose and departed, leaving a whole fish-ball on her plate. Even as Atalanta might have dropped an apple behind her to tempt her pursuer to check his speed, so Miss Hoogencamp left that fish-ball behind her, and between her maiden self and contamination.

We had finished our breakfast, my wife and I, before the Bredes appeared. We talked it over, and agreed that we were glad that we had not been obliged to take sides upon such insufficient testimony.

After breakfast, it was the custom of the male half of the Jacobus household to go around the corner of the building and smoke their pipes and cigars where they would not annoy the ladies. We sat under a trellis covered with a grapevine that had borne no grapes in the memory of man. This vine, however, bore leaves, and these, on that pleasant summer morning, shielded from us two persons who were in earnest conversation in the straggling, half-dead flower-garden at the side of the house.

“I don’t want,” we heard Mr. Jacobus say, “to enter in no man’s _pry_-vacy; but I do want to know who it may be, like, that I hev in my house. Now what I ask of _you_, and I don’t want you to take it as in no ways _personal_, is—hev you your merridge-license with you?”

“No,” we heard the voice of Mr. Brede reply. “Have you yours?”

I think it was a chance shot; but it told all the same. The Major (he was a widower) and Mr. Biggle and I looked at each other; and Mr. Jacobus, on the other side of the grape-trellis, looked at—I don’t know what—and was as silent as we were.

Where is _your_ marriage-license, married reader? Do you know? Four men, not including Mr. Brede, stood or sat on one side or the other of that grape-trellis, and not one of them knew where his marriage-license was. Each of us had had one—the Major had had three. But where were they? Where is _yours_? Tucked in your best-man’s pocket; deposited in his desk—or washed to a pulp in his white waistcoat (if white waistcoats be the fashion of the hour), washed out of existence—can you tell where it is? Can you—unless you are one of those people who frame that interesting document and hang it upon their drawing-room walls?

Mr. Brede’s voice arose, after an awful stillness of what seemed like five minutes, and was, probably, thirty seconds:

“Mr. Jacobus, will you make out your bill at once, and let me pay it? I shall leave by the six o’clock train. And will you also send the wagon for my trunks?”

“I hain’t said I wanted to hev ye leave——” began Mr. Jacobus; but Brede cut him short.

“Bring me your bill.”

“But,” remonstrated Jacobus, “ef ye ain’t——”

“Bring me your bill!” said Mr. Brede.

* * * * *

My wife and I went out for our morning’s walk. But it seemed to us, when we looked at “our view,” as if we could only see those invisible villages of which Brede had told us—that other side of the ridges and rises of which we catch no glimpse from lofty hills or from the heights of human self-esteem. We meant to stay out until the Bredes had taken their departure; but we returned just in time to see Pete, the Jacobus darkey, the blacker of boots, the brasher of coats, the general handy-man of the house, loading the Brede trunks on the Jacobus wagon.

And, as we stepped upon the verandah, down came Mrs. Brede, leaning on Mr. Brede’s arm, as though she were ill; and it was clear that she had been crying. There were heavy rings about her pretty black eyes.

My wife took a step toward her.

“Look at that dress, dear,” she whispered; “she never thought anything like this was going to happen when she put _that_ on.”

It was a pretty, delicate, dainty dress, a graceful, narrow-striped affair. Her hat was trimmed with a narrow-striped silk of the same colors—maroon and white—and in her hand she held a parasol that matched her dress.

“She’s had a new dress on twice a day,” said my wife, “but that’s the prettiest yet. Oh, somehow—I’m _awfully_ sorry they’re going!”

But going they were. They moved toward the steps. Mrs. Brede looked toward my wife, and my wife moved toward Mrs. Brede. But the ostracized woman, as though she felt the deep humiliation of her position, turned sharply away, and opened her parasol to shield her eyes from the sun. A shower of rice—a half-pound shower of rice—fell down over her pretty hat and her pretty dress, and fell in a spattering circle on the floor, outlining her skirts—and there it lay in a broad, uneven band, bright in the morning sun.

Mrs. Brede was in my wife’s arms, sobbing as if her young heart would break.

“Oh, you poor, dear, silly children!” my wife cried, as Mrs. Brede sobbed on her shoulder, “why _didn’t_ you tell us?”

“W-W-W-We didn’t want to be t-t-taken for a b-b-b-b-bridal couple,” sobbed Mrs. Brede; “and we d-d-didn’t _dream_ what awful lies we’d have to tell, and all the aw-awful mixed-up-ness of it. Oh, dear, dear, dear!”

* * * * *

“Pete!” commanded Mr. Jacobus, “put back them trunks. These folks stays here’s long’s they wants ter. Mr. Brede”—he held out a large, hard hand—“I’d orter’ve known better,” he said. And my last doubt of Mr. Brede vanished as he shook that grimy hand in manly fashion.

The two women were walking off toward “our view,” each with an arm about the other’s waist—touched by a sudden sisterhood of sympathy.

“Gentlemen,” said Mr. Brede, addressing Jacobus, Biggle, the Major and me, “there is a hostelry down the street where they sell honest New Jersey beer. I recognize the obligations of the situation.”

We five men filed down the street. The two women went toward the pleasant slope where the sunlight gilded the forehead of the great hill. On Mr. Jacobus’s veranda lay a spattered circle of shining grains of rice. Two of Mr. Jacobus’s pigeons flew down and picked up the shining grains, making grateful noises far down in their throats.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] From _Puck_, July 30, 1890. Republished in the volume, _Short Sixes: Stories to Be Read While the Candle Burns_ (1891), by Henry Cuyler Bunner; copyright, 1890, by Alice Larned Bunner; reprinted by permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner’a Sons.

THE BULLER-PODINGTON COMPACT[22]

BY FRANK RICHARD STOCKTON (1834–1902)

“I tell you, William,” said Thomas Buller to his friend Mr. Podington, “I am truly sorry about it, but I cannot arrange for it this year. Now, as to _my_ invitation—that is very different.”

“Of course it is different,” was the reply, “but I am obliged to say, as I said before, that I really cannot accept it.”

Remarks similar to these had been made by Thomas Buller and William Podington at least once a year for some five years. They were old friends; they had been schoolboys together and had been associated in business since they were young men. They had now reached a vigorous middle age; they were each married, and each had a house in the country in which he resided for a part of the year. They were warmly attached to each other, and each was the best friend which the other had in this world. But during all these years neither of them had visited the other in his country home.

The reason for this avoidance of each other at their respective rural residences may be briefly stated. Mr. Buller’s country house was situated by the sea, and he was very fond of the water. He had a good cat-boat, which he sailed himself with much judgment and skill, and it was his greatest pleasure to take his friends and visitors upon little excursions on the bay. But Mr. Podington was desperately afraid of the water, and he was particularly afraid of any craft sailed by an amateur. If his friend Buller would have employed a professional mariner, of years and experience, to steer and manage his boat, Podington might have been willing to take an occasional sail; but as Buller always insisted upon sailing his own boat, and took it ill if any of his visitors doubted his ability to do so properly, Podington did not wish to wound the self-love of his friend, and he did not wish to be drowned. Consequently he could not bring himself to consent to go to Buller’s house by the sea.

To receive his good friend Buller at his own house in the beautiful upland region in which he lived would have been a great joy to Mr. Podington; but Buller could not be induced to visit him. Podington was very fond of horses and always drove himself, while Buller was more afraid of horses than he was of elephants or lions. To one or more horses driven by a coachman of years and experience he did not always object, but to a horse driven by Podington, who had much experience and knowledge regarding mercantile affairs, but was merely an amateur horseman, he most decidedly and strongly objected. He did not wish to hurt his friend’s feelings by refusing to go out to drive with him, but he would not rack his own nervous system by accompanying him. Therefore it was that he had not yet visited the beautiful upland country residence of Mr. Podington.

At last this state of things grew awkward. Mrs. Buller and Mrs. Podington, often with their families, visited each other at their country houses, but the fact that on these occasions they were never accompanied by their husbands caused more and more gossip among their neighbors both in the upland country and by the sea.

One day in spring as the two sat in their city office, where Mr. Podington had just repeated his annual invitation, his friend replied to him thus:

“William, if I come to see you this summer, will you visit me? The thing is beginning to look a little ridiculous, and people are talking about it.”

Mr. Podington put his hand to his brow and for a few moments closed his eyes. In his mind he saw a cat-boat upon its side, the sails spread out over the water, and two men, almost entirely immersed in the waves, making efforts to reach the side of the boat. One of these was getting on very well—that was Buller. The other seemed about to sink, his arms were uselessly waving in the air—that was himself. But he opened his eyes and looked bravely out of the window; it was time to conquer all this; it was indeed growing ridiculous. Buller had been sailing many years and had never been upset.

“Yes,” said he; “I will do it; I am ready any time you name.”

Mr. Buller rose and stretched out his hand.

“Good!” said he; “it is a compact!”

Buller was the first to make the promised country visit. He had not mentioned the subject of horses to his friend, but he knew through Mrs. Buller that Podington still continued to be his own driver. She had informed him, however, that at present he was accustomed to drive a big black horse which, in her opinion, was as gentle and reliable as these animals ever became, and she could not imagine how anybody could be afraid of him. So when, the next morning after his arrival, Mr. Buller was asked by his host if he would like to take a drive, he suppressed a certain rising emotion and said that it would please him very much.

When the good black horse had jogged along a pleasant road for half an hour Mr. Buller began to feel that, perhaps, for all these years he had been laboring under a misconception. It seemed to be possible that there were some horses to which surrounding circumstances in the shape of sights and sounds were so irrelevant that they were to a certain degree entirely safe, even when guided and controlled by an amateur hand. As they passed some meadow-land, somebody behind a hedge fired a gun; Mr. Buller was frightened, but the horse was not.

“William,” said Buller, looking cheerfully around him,

“I had no idea that you lived in such a pretty country. In fact, I might almost call it beautiful. You have not any wide stretch of water, such as I like so much, but here is a pretty river, those rolling hills are very charming, and, beyond, you have the blue of the mountains.”

“It is lovely,” said his friend; “I never get tired of driving through this country. Of course the seaside is very fine, but here we have such a variety of scenery.”

Mr. Buller could not help thinking that sometimes the seaside was a little monotonous, and that he had lost a great deal of pleasure by not varying his summers by going up to spend a week or two with Podington.

“William,” said he, “how long have you had this horse?”

“About two years,” said Mr. Podington; “before I got him, I used to drive a pair.”

“Heavens!” thought Buller, “how lucky I was not to come two years ago!” And his regrets for not sooner visiting his friend greatly decreased.

Now they came to a place where the stream, by which the road ran, had been dammed for a mill and had widened into a beautiful pond.

“There now!” cried Mr. Buller. “That’s what I like. William, you seem to have everything! This is really a very pretty sheet of water, and the reflections of the trees over there make a charming picture; you can’t get that at the seaside, you know.”

Mr. Podington was delighted; his face glowed; he was rejoiced at the pleasure of his friend. “I tell you, Thomas,” said he, “that——”

“William!” exclaimed Buller, with a sudden squirm in his seat, “what is that I hear? Is that a train?”

“Yes,” said Mr. Podington, “that is the ten-forty, up.”

“Does it come near here?” asked Mr. Buller, nervously. “Does it go over that bridge?”

“Yes,” said Podington, “but it can’t hurt us, for our road goes under the bridge; we are perfectly safe; there is no risk of accident.”

“But your horse! Your horse!” exclaimed Buller, as the train came nearer and nearer. “What will he do?”

“Do?” said Podington; “he’ll do what he is doing now; he doesn’t mind trains.”

“But look here, William,” exclaimed Buller, “it will get there just as we do; no horse could stand a roaring up in the air like that!”

Podington laughed. “He would not mind it in the least,” said he.

“Come, come now,” cried Buller. “Really, I can’t stand this! Just stop a minute, William, and let me get out. It sets all my nerves quivering.”

Mr. Podington smiled with a superior smile. “Oh, you needn’t get out,” said he; “there’s not the least danger in the world. But I don’t want to make you nervous, and I will turn around and drive the other way.”

“But you can’t!” screamed Buller. “This road is not wide enough, and that train is nearly here. Please stop!”

The imputation that the road was not wide enough for him to turn was too much for Mr. Podington to bear. He was very proud of his ability to turn a vehicle in a narrow place.

“Turn!” said he; “that’s the easiest thing in the world. See; a little to the right, then a back, then a sweep to the left and we will be going the other way.” And instantly he began the maneuver in which he was such an adept.

“Oh, Thomas!” cried Buller, half rising in his seat, “that train is almost here!”

“And we are almost——” Mr. Podington was about to say “turned around,” but he stopped. Mr. Buller’s exclamations had made him a little nervous, and, in his anxiety to turn quickly, he had pulled upon his horse’s bit with more energy than was actually necessary, and his nervousness being communicated to the horse, that animal backed with such extraordinary vigor that the hind wheels of the wagon went over a bit of grass by the road and into the water. The sudden jolt gave a new impetus to Mr. Buller’s fears.

“You’ll upset!” he cried, and not thinking of what he was about, he laid hold of his friend’s arm. The horse, startled by this sudden jerk upon his bit, which, combined with the thundering of the train, which was now on the bridge, made him think that something extraordinary was about to happen, gave a sudden and forcible start backward, so that not only the hind wheels of the light wagon, but the fore wheels and his own hind legs went into the water. As the bank at this spot sloped steeply, the wagon continued to go backward, despite the efforts of the agitated horse to find a footing on the crumbling edge of the bank.

“Whoa!” cried Mr. Buller.

“Get up!” exclaimed Mr. Podington, applying his whip upon the plunging beast.

But exclamations and castigations had no effect upon the horse. The original bed of the stream ran close to the road, and the bank was so steep and the earth so soft that it was impossible for the horse to advance or even maintain his footing. Back, back he went, until the whole equipage was in the water and the wagon was afloat.

This vehicle was a road wagon, without a top, and the joints of its box-body were tight enough to prevent the water from immediately entering it; so, somewhat deeply sunken, it rested upon the water. There was a current in this part of the pond and it turned the wagon downstream. The horse was now entirely immersed in the water, with the exception of his head and the upper part of his neck, and, unable to reach the bottom with his feet, he made vigorous efforts to swim.

Mr. Podington, the reins and whip in his hands, sat horrified and pale; the accident was so sudden, he was so startled and so frightened that, for a moment, he could not speak a word. Mr. Buller, on the other hand, was now lively and alert. The wagon had no sooner floated away from the shore than he felt himself at home. He was upon his favorite element; water had no fears for him. He saw that his friend was nearly frightened out of his wits, and that, figuratively speaking, he must step to the helm and take charge of the vessel. He stood up and gazed about him.

“Put her across stream!” he shouted; “she can’t make headway against this current. Head her to that clump of trees on the other side; the bank is lower there, and we can beach her. Move a little the other way, we must trim boat. Now then, pull on your starboard rein.”

Podington obeyed, and the horse slightly changed his direction.

“You see,” said Buller, “it won’t do to sail straight across, because the current would carry us down and land us below that spot.”

Mr. Podington said not a word; he expected every moment to see the horse sink into a watery grave.

“It isn’t so bad after all, is it, Podington? If we had a rudder and a bit of a sail it would be a great help to the horse. This wagon is not a bad boat.”

The despairing Podington looked at his feet. “It’s coming in,” he said in a husky voice. “Thomas, the water is over my shoes!”

“That is so,” said Buller. “I am so used to water I didn’t notice it. She leaks. Do you carry anything to bail her out with?”

“Bail!” cried Podington, now finding his voice. “Oh, Thomas, we are sinking!”

“That’s so,” said Buller; “she leaks like a sieve.”

The weight of the running-gear and of the two men was entirely too much for the buoyancy of the wagon body. The water rapidly rose toward the top of its sides.

“We are going to drown!” cried Podington, suddenly rising.

“Lick him! Lick him!” exclaimed Buller. “Make him swim faster!”

“There’s nothing to lick,” cried Podington, vainly lashing at the water, for he could not reach the horse’s head. The poor man was dreadfully frightened; he had never even imagined it possible that he should be drowned in his own wagon.

“Whoop!” cried Buller, as the water rose over the sides. “Steady yourself, old boy, or you’ll go overboard!” And the next moment the wagon body sunk out of sight.

But it did not go down very far. The deepest part of the channel of the stream had been passed, and with a bump the wheels struck the bottom.

“Heavens!” exclaimed Buller, “we are aground.”

“Aground!” exclaimed Podington, “Heaven be praised!”

As the two men stood up in the submerged wagon the water was above their knees, and when Podington looked out over the surface of the pond, now so near his face, it seemed like a sheet of water he had never seen before. It was something horrible, threatening to rise and envelop him. He trembled so that he could scarcely keep his footing.

“William,” said his companion, “you must sit down; if you don’t, you’ll tumble overboard and be drowned. There is nothing for you to hold to.”

“Sit down,” said Podington, gazing blankly at the water around him, “I can’t do that!”

At this moment the horse made a slight movement. Having touched bottom after his efforts in swimming across the main bed of the stream, with a floating wagon in tow, he had stood for a few moments, his head and neck well above water, and his back barely visible beneath the surface. Having recovered his breath, he now thought it was time to move on.

At the first step of the horse Mr. Podington began to totter. Instinctively he clutched Buller.

“Sit down!” cried the latter, “or you’ll have us both overboard.” There was no help for it; down sat Mr. Podington; and, as with a great splash he came heavily upon the seat, the water rose to his waist.

“Ough!” said he. “Thomas, shout for help.”

“No use doing that,” replied Buller, still standing on his nautical legs; “I don’t see anybody, and I don’t see any boat. We’ll get out all right. Just you stick tight to the thwart.”

“The what?” feebly asked the other.

“Oh, the seat, I mean. We can get to the shore all right if you steer the horse straight. Head him more across the pond.”

“I can’t head him,” cried Podington. “I have dropped the reins!”

“Good gracious!” cried Mr. Buller, “that’s bad. Can’t you steer him by shouting ‘Gee’ and ‘Haw’?”

“No,” said Podington, “he isn’t an ox; but perhaps I can stop him.” And with as much voice as he could summon, he called out: “Whoa!” and the horse stopped.

“If you can’t steer him any other way,” said Buller, “we must get the reins. Lend me your whip.”

“I have dropped that too,” said Podington; “there it floats.”

“Oh, dear,” said Buller, “I guess I’ll have to dive for them; if he were to run away, we should be in an awful fix.”

“Don’t get out! Don’t get out!” exclaimed Podington. “You can reach over the dashboard.”

“As that’s under water,” said Buller, “it will be the same thing as diving; but it’s got to be done, and I’ll try it. Don’t you move now; I am more used to water than you are.”

Mr. Buller took off his hat and asked his friend to hold it. He thought of his watch and other contents of his pockets, but there was no place to put them, so he gave them no more consideration. Then bravely getting on his knees in the water, he leaned over the dashboard, almost disappearing from sight. With his disengaged hand Mr. Podington grasped the submerged coat-tails of his friend.

In a few seconds the upper part of Mr. Buller rose from the water. He was dripping and puffing, and Mr. Podington could not but think what a difference it made in the appearance of his friend to have his hair plastered close to his head.

“I got hold of one of them,” said the sputtering Buller, “but it was fast to something and I couldn’t get it loose.”

“Was it thick and wide?” asked Podington.

“Yes,” was the answer; “it did seem so.”

“Oh, that was a trace,” said Podington; “I don’t want that; the reins are thinner and lighter.”

“Now I remember they are,” said Buller. “I’ll go down again.”

Again Mr. Buller leaned over the dashboard, and this time he remained down longer, and when he came up he puffed and sputtered more than before.

“Is this it?” said he, holding up a strip of wet leather.

“Yes,” said Podington, “you’ve got the reins.”

“Well, take them, and steer. I would have found them sooner if his tail had not got into my eyes. That long tail’s floating down there and spreading itself out like a fan; it tangled itself all around my head. It would have been much easier if he had been a bob-tailed horse.”

“Now then,” said Podington, “take your hat, Thomas, and I’ll try to drive.”

Mr. Buller put on his hat, which was the only dry thing about him, and the nervous Podington started the horse so suddenly that even the sea-legs of Buller were surprised, and he came very near going backward into the water; but recovering himself, he sat down.

“I don’t wonder you did not like to do this, William,” said he. “Wet as I am, it’s ghastly!”