Chapter V: The Instructive Group (2)

The dishes were passed and emptied, as were likewise huge jugs of yellow cider. Every one recounted his dealings--his buying and selling. They gave news of the crops. The weather was good for greens, but somewhat wet for wheat.

All at once a drum rolled in the court before the house. Almost everybody save the too indifferent, immediately sprang to their feet and ran to the door, or to the windows, with mouth still full and napkin in hand.

After the public crier had stopped his racket, he launched forth in a jerky voice, making his pauses at the wrong time:

"Be it known to the inhabitants of Goderville, and in general to all persons present at the market, that there was lost this morning on the Beauzeville road, between nine and ten o'clock, a black leather pocketbook containing five hundred francs and business papers. You are requested to return it to the mayor's office at once, or to Master Fortune Houlbreque, of Manneville. There will be twenty francs reward."

Then the man went away. They heard once more from afar the dull drum-beats and the fading voice of the crier.

After that, they began to discuss this event, counting the chances Master Houlbreque yet had of recovering or not recovering his pocketbook.

And the meal went on.

They were finishing their coffee when the corporal of police appeared on the threshold.

He asked:

"Master Hauchecorne, of Bréauté--is he here?"

Hauchecorne, seated at the other end of the table, answered:

"Here I am."

And the corporal resumed:

"Master Hauchecorne, will you have the kindness to come with me to the mayor's office? The mayor would like to speak to you."

The peasant, surprised and disturbed, tossed off his drink and arose, worse bent than in the morning; because the first steps after a rest were always especially difficult. He started off, repeating:

"Here I am; here I am."

And he followed the corporal.

The mayor was awaiting him, seated in his official chair. He was the notary of the place, a large, grave man of pompous speech.

"Master Hauchecorne," he said, "you were seen this morning, on the Beauzeville road, to pick up the pocket-book lost by Master Houlbreque, of Manneville."

The countryman, confused, stared at the mayor, already frightened by this suspicion attaching to him--why he could not understand.

"I--I--I picked up that pocket-book?"

"Yes, you."

"On my word of honour, I didn't even know nothing about it."

"You were seen."

"They saw me--me? Who's they what saw me?" said Master Hauchecorne.

"Master Malandain, the harness-maker."

Then the old man remembered, understood, and reddened with anger.

"Ah! he saw me, did he, the rascal? He saw me pick up this here string. Look, your worship."

And, rummaging at the bottom of his pocket, he pulled out the little piece of string.

But the incredulous mayor shook his head.

"You will not make me believe, Master Hauchecorne, that Master Malandain, who is a man worthy of all respect, has taken this bit of cord for a pocket-book."

The peasant, furious, raised his hand, and spit at his side to bear witness to his honour, repeating:

"F'r all that, it's God's truth, holy truth, your worship. There! My soul and my salvation knows it's true!"

The mayor resumed:

"After having picked the article up, you even searched also a long while in the mud to make sure if money had fallen out of it."

The good man choked with rage and terror.

"If them can say--if them can say--such lies as that to take away an honest man's name! If them can say--"

However he might protest, he was not believed.

He was confronted by Master Malandain, who repeated and supported his statement. They railed at each other for an hour. Master Hauchecorne demanded that they search his pockets. Nothing was found upon him.

Finally, the mayor, very much perplexed, let him go with the warning that he would inform the public prosecutor, and ask for orders.

The news had spread abroad. When he came out of the mayor's office, the old man was the centre of curiosity and questioning, both serious and jeering, but into which not the least resentment entered. And he began recounting the long rigmarole of the string. They did not believe him. They grinned.

He went along, stopped by every one, or accosting his acquaintances, going over and over his story and his protestations, pointing to his pockets turned inside out to prove he had nothing.

They said to him:

"Come now, you old rascal!"

And he became angry, exasperated, feverish, disconsolate at being doubted, and forever telling his story.

Night fell. It became time to go home. He started out with three of his neighbours, to whom he pointed out the spot where he had picked up the bit of string; and, all along the road, he recited his adventure.

That evening he made a round of the village of Bréauté so as to tell everyone. He found only unbelievers.

He was ill of it all through the night.

The next day about one in the afternoon, Marius Paumelle, a farm helper of Master Breton, the market-gardener at Ymauville, returned the pocket-book and its contents to Master Houlbreque of Manneville.

This man maintained he had found it on the road, but, not knowing how to read, had carried it home and turned it over to his master.

The news spread to the suburbs. Master Hauchecorne was informed. Immediately he set himself the task of going about relating his story, capping it with this climax. He was triumphant.

"What hurt me the mostest," he said, "was not the thing itself, don't you see, but the lies. Nothing hurts so as when lies 's told about you."

All day long he talked of his adventure. He told it on the roads to the people passing, at the tavern to people who were drinking, and then to the people coming out of church the next Sunday. He even stopped strangers to tell them the tale. He felt relieved by this time, yet something troubled him without his knowing just what it was. People had a mocking manner as they listened.

They did not appear convinced. He almost felt their tattle behind his back.

Tuesday of the next week, he went to the Goderville market, solely impelled by the need of recounting his affair.

Malandain, standing in his doorway, began to laugh as he saw him pass. For what?

He accosted a farmer of Criquetot who did not permit him to finish, but, landing him a thump in the pit of the stomach, cried in his face, "Get out, you great rogue!" Then he turned on his heel.

Master Hauchecorne, altogether abashed, grew more and more disturbed. Why had he been dubbed "a great rogue?"

When seated at table in Jourdain's tavern, he again began to explain the particulars.

A Montvilliers horse-dealer yelled at him:

"Don't tell me, you old fox! I know your piece of string yarn!"

Hauchecorne stammered, "B--b--but it's found, the pocket-book!"

To which the other retorted:

"That'll do, daddy! There's one who finds, and another who gives up. Neither is no one the wiser."

The peasant was choked off. At last he understood. They accused him of having had the pocket-book returned by a crony--by an accomplice.

He tried to protest. The whole table started to laugh.

He could not finish his meal, and took his leave amidst their mocking and derision.

He returned to his home, ashamed and indignant, stifled with rage, with confusion; all the more dejected because, with his Norman cunning, he was capable of having done what they accused him of, and even of bragging of it as a good trick. His innocence vaguely appeared to him as impossible to prove; his roguery was too well known. And he felt struck to the heart by the injustice of the suspicion.

Again he commenced to tell of his adventure; every day its recital lengthened, each time containing new proofs, more energetic protestations, and more solemn oaths which he prepared in his solitary hours. His mind was altogether occupied by the story of the piece of string. He was believed all the less as his defense grew more complicated and his arguments more artful.

"Now, those are the proofs of a liar," they said behind his back.

He felt this. It consumed his strength. He exhausted himself in useless efforts.

He went into a visible decline.

The jokers now made him detail the story of "The Piece of String" to amuse them, just as you persuade a soldier who has come through a campaign to tell his version of a battle. At last his mind began to give way.

Near the end of December he took to his bed.

He died the first week in January, and, in the delirium of the throes of death he protested his innocence, repeating, "A little piece of string--little piece of string--see, here it is, your worship."

--Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant.

"Little Masterpieces of Fiction," Vol. VI (Doubleday, Page & Co.).

=A Social Error=

The little kindergarten teacher turned hastily from the office window.

"Miss Adams," she said abruptly, "I'm worried."

The "Lady Head" looked up from her ledger.

"Worried," she repeated, with an odd little smile, "are you ever anything so plebeian?"

The other woman tossed her chin impatiently.

"Really, Miss Adams," she said stiffly, "I wish you had given that class of Italians to--well, anyone but Caroline."

The lady at the desk stiffened perceptibly.

"And why not?" she inquired tersely. "You certainly must be aware that the reason I chose Caroline to fill the vacancy was because I thought her fitted--particularly fitted," she added, with deliberate emphasis.

The little woman looked down at her excited chief with a quietly speculative smile.

"Do you think," she said slowly, "that Caroline has the real social instinct?"

The Lady Head was becoming annoyed.

"One might think," she snapped, "that the training Caroline has received in her own home would amply fit her to meet--"

"Any of the men of her own set," interrupted the other woman. "But as for managing a club of hot-headed Italians--"

"Well, doesn't she manage them?" reiterated the woman at the desk, half rising from her low chair. "I should like to have you name a club that is more orderly--more--"

"Indeed, it is orderly enough," admitted the little kindergartner.

"There!" sniffed the Lady Head triumphantly, then with a sudden change of tone, "I really do not understand your objection. As for the boys--they adore her!"

"That is where the trouble lies." The little kindergartner leaned forward over the desk and her voice was very serious. "Miss Adams," she began slowly, "you have been here five weeks--I have worked in this district for fifteen years. I know every boy and girl, every man and woman, who comes to this house. And I also know"--the speaker paused impressively--"that when a girl who is as young and as good-looking as Caroline treats the young men of her club with the same informality that she would show to the callers in her father's home--believe me, there will be disastrous consequences."

"Do you mean--Do you dare--" the Lady Head's lifted eyebrows completed her question.

This little kindergartner stood firm. "I think Caroline should be warned," she insisted quietly. "Her Italians are so young--so hot-blooded, and I'm afraid she has been encouraging them a little, too--"

"Nonsense!" the other woman sprang quickly to her feet. "I have never heard anything so ridiculous--so utterly preposterous! Do my years of experience count for nothing in comparison with yours? Am I entirely lacking in good judgment--in common sense? My dear woman, I have always made friends of my club boys, invited them to my home--even young anarchists! Falling in love with her! Preposterous!" She paused for a moment breathless, and then began a fresh onslaught.

"If Caroline has not sufficient tact--"

A girl's blonde head appeared in the office doorway.

"Did you call met?" she lisped sweetly. "I was passing through the hall and I thought I heard my name spoken." She paused, with a questioning glance at the two women.

The Lady Head was the first to recover her composure, and she rustled across the room with outstretched hands. "My dear Caroline," she said. "We were just speaking of you--and your charming little club," she added, with a side glance at her assistant.

The girl threw back her dark furs with a smile. "How good of you," she said gratefully. "I'm frightfully late to-day, but to-night is our party, and I stopped down town for the boys."

The Lady Head patted the girl's plump fingers. "Are you going to dance, too?" she inquired.

The girl laughed. "Indeed I am. But I really don't know how I'm going to manage it. The boys are all so jealous, and Tony--oh, Tony is the grandest dancer!"

She flitted out of the tiny office, and the two women watched her as she climbed the broad stairs followed closely by her chattering, gesticulating pupils.

As the last peal of laughter floated down over the balusters the little kindergartner turned to the Lady Head.

"You see?" she said simply.

The Lady Head turned upon her a sweet, uncomprehending smile. "I think it is lovely!" she breathed.

The night lamp burned steadily in the office of the settlement. The wind howled through the deserted street, flinging the rain in noisy gusts against the window panes and shrieking dismally down the empty corridors. From somewhere on the floor above came the rhythmic banging of a piano and the shuffle and stamp of dancing feet.

The Lady Head closed her book with a yawn.

"What a stupid evening," she sighed. The kindergarten teacher laid down her sewing and walked slowly to the window.

"The elements are attempting to enliven things," she remarked dryly as she lifted the heavy curtains. Even as she spoke there was a blinding flash, a click and the house was dark.

Up stairs the music ceased, there was a confused murmur of voices--a shout--a crash--and a woman's scream. The lights come on again--the two women turned, their faces ashen, and hastened up the long stairs.

A pale-faced girl was crouched against the farther wall of the big gymnasium. At her feet sprawled the limp body of a man, and behind her a swarthy black-browed girl was struggling in the grasp of two stalwart Italians who were trying to wrest something from her frantic fingers. Her hands relaxed as the two women appeared in the door, and a shining bit of steel flew across the room and tinkled on the floor at the feet of the Lady Head. She picked it up grimly and pushed her way to the center of the crowd. The girl by the wall sprang to her feet with a wild shriek, but the woman turned on her savagely.

"Hush!" she hissed, "you little fool!" Then to the crowd, "What does this mean?" she demanded sternly. "What does this mean?"

A young Italian, who stood at one side nursing his slashed knuckles, was the spokesman.

"Him--" with a wave towards the man on the floor--"he's Tony De Sil', and her"--the gesture included the hysterical girl--"She dance with Ton' all-a-time."

"And she?" The Lady Head looked toward the Italian girl whose stiletto she was holding gingerly between her fingers.

"Her?"--the narrator pointed a laconic forefinger. "She's Tony's girl."

When the weeping Caroline had been sent home in her father's carriage, and when the ambulance had creaked out through the gateway, the Lady Head turned to her little assistant.

"If there are any fatal results from this--this criminal bit of negligence," she stated coldly, "I shall hold you personally responsible. You should have informed me of this long ago. Remember, you have been here fifteen years!"

--Ida F. Treat.

=The Lot of the Poor=

Two women were walking with rapid but tired steps down one of the most disreputable streets in the city.

"My," said the tallest one, turning up the collar of her threadbare coat, "don't this wind make you feel like you was dressed in your bones?"

The other woman, who was, if possible, more shabby-looking, pushed her red gloveless hands deeper into her pockets.

"Yes, and I forgot to wear my sables to-day, ain't it too bad?" she returned in a dreary tone, whose irony was somewhat modified by the chattering of her teeth.

"Mary Jane, you just quit talkin' like that," burst out the other, evidently the older of the two. "You didn't never use to be that way before you commenc't workin' out by the day. Why you was the jolliest girl in the factory and allays made the best of everything; but now nothin' is ever good enough for you. Of course none of us would mind having things a little better, but as far as I can see, things have allays been this way with us and allays will be, wishin' or no wishin'."

"I ain't sayin' they won't," Mary Jane said shortly.

"Well, I know it, you ain't sayin' nothin'; that's just the trouble. I wish you'd tell me what's the matter with you, Mary Jane, 'Tain't natural for a girl like you to be so dull and sulky."

"'Tain't natural, did you say?" flared up the other. "'Tain't natural to wonder why the lady you work for wears silks and satins, while your own clothes are almost too ragged to cover you? Ain't it natural," she asked with blazing eyes, "to want to tear a few silks off of her back to cover your own? You ain't never seen nice things near you, Ann. You've allays worked in the factory; so what do you know about such things? I tell you, if you worked in one of those palaces on Fifth Avenue all day and then come back to this at night, you'd see the difference."

"Don't you s'pose I've seen swell things and people?" remonstrated the older woman. "I ain't no fool; but I've reasoned out that there's a few people meant to be rich, and the rest of us ain't, that's all!"

"But it ain't a few people, Ann. It seems like most everybody had plenty to eat and wear but us. Why ain't we in it, too? Why don't I live in that fine house where I work instead down in this hole? It seems like we'd been cheated somewhere; but I s'pose there ain't no use talkin' about it. Good-night."

Ann watched the girl as she climbed the rickety steps of the "palace" which fate had assigned to her.

"They're all that way sometimes. I remember--well, she'll get used to it like all the rest of us."

--Agnes Palmer.

=Filipino Fear.=

One cloudy afternoon when a heavy rain seemed swaying back and forth in a thick mist which was then lowering, and long red streaks of lightning followed by loud rolling thunder seemed trying to break the mist to let the rain fall, there were in a little nipa house in the country below, among aged cocoanut palms, two lonely persons suffering from superstition and fear of the extraordinary phenomena that surrounded them.

The house was just big enough for the two. Its roof, windows and sides were made of _cogon_. The floor and door were made of narrow bamboo strips nailed side by side. In one corner of the room on a bed, made also of bamboo, sat a boy of eight. There was in the expression and look of the boy a feeling of unknown fear mingled with surprise, because his father, a lusty old superstitious man, who was then holding a blunt stick, had driven their domestic creatures from the house to the open field where there was no means of securing shelter from the heavy rain, whose first large drops were now clattering on the leaves. The boy had a kind disposition, especially toward his pets--a sense that he had inherited from his father. This was the first time that he had seen his father act thus unkindly toward their animals. His surprise was much increased when he saw his father dash at the windows and doors and fling everyone of them open, then retreat to the middle and look sideways. He saw him draw a long agitated breath. Then, seeming to have recovered his wits, he hastened toward one of the windows and took from the outside a portion of a dried cocoanut leaf. He cut two long narrow strips from it and made them into loops. After placing one around his neck, he uttered a short prayer. He then handed the other loop to his still amazed child and said, "Wear this, dear child, around thy neck."

"Why, father?" inquired the innocent boy, "can this protect me?"

"Yes, child, prayer and that alone can save us."

"What has this in it, father? It seems to me to be nothing but a piece of cocoanut leaf. Isn't it?" said the boy.

"It is a strip from a cocoanut leaf, but--it has--"

"If so, then," interrupted the acute boy, "why can't these palms around us that bear these leaves protect themselves against the elements. I have often seen, father, palms burned to their very stalks, which older people told me had been struck by lightning. Where did you get this strip, father?"

"Well, I got this from a bunch of leaves which is tied just below our front window," pointing to the place, "together with some live leaves. That bunch you yourself carried to the church two years ago when your mother was yet living. You have never peeped into church since then. But once a year in town the mass of the Sunday immediately before Fast Friday is dedicated to palm and olive leaves. Hundreds of children like you crowd the church on that day carrying with them their bunch of leaves, and while the service is being celebrated they will joyfully shake them. After holy water has been sprinkled on the leaves, then they are holy, and it is not pious to play with them. After the mass the bunch of leaves is to be tied to the door or to the window of the house as a protection from thunder and lightning. On days of this kind every one wears a strip of these leaves around his neck. When you go out again, you may look at the windows of the houses to see if what I say is true."

Indeed; those bunches of palms and olive leaves are marked characteristics of typical Filipino houses. The leaves are usually tied or wound in artistic ways, with beautiful hangings on them. All the decorations, however, are composed of the same kind of leaves.

The boy was quite satisfied at his father's story. After a little reflection he remembered that he had truly carried such leaves to church. The rain was then falling fast, and the lightning and thunder still followed one another in rapid succession. The cold winds from outside and the fearful sight of the brilliant flashes made the boy shrink.

"I am cold, father, and I fear those long and fiery zigzag paths which the whip of the driver of that rolling thunder is making in heaven. I wonder why you don't shut those windows," said the boy.

"Never, my son, for there is danger in shutting them. Remember that the thunder will pass thru anything and burn that which dares obstruct its way. Besides, my grandfather told me that days of this kind are rare, for they are days for scourging foul things on earth. If we shut ourselves up here, Bathala, the ruler of the earth, who watches and sees all things done, may suspect that we are hiding something foul and so send his scourger here to punish us."

The young listener who was attentive to the story of his father started up at a sudden and astounding crash of thunder. He curled himself up in the lap of his father, folded his arms around his father's neck, and shut his eyes. After a while he continued, "And, therefore, every foul deed on earth will be punished?"

"Yes, everything foul; so runs our proverb: 'Debt must be paid.' If you commit a sin you must be punished according to the nature of your sin."

The fearful peal of thunder that had so frightened the boy was the last. It silenced the fury of the weather. The rain was falling lightly now and sheets of fire were distinguished only from afar, but no more thunder sounded. The boy was dropping off into a light slumber when he heard his kitty mew. He opened his eyes and saw his pet very wet and cold. He pitied the little creature, so he said almost with tears, "I wish, father, you had not been so unkind to our animals, our sole friends in this solitary place. See what you have done. You have driven them out in the rain where they could get no shelter; and now every one of them is wet and shivering."

"Now, don't worry about them, my boy," said his father rather moved by his filial appeal, "they are not hurt at all. I drove them away, not because I was cross or unkind, but because it is not safe to keep them inside on such a stormy day as this. For thunder is likely to strike them. Boys of your age are likely to be harmed by such animals. For to some of them thunder imparts its explosive power. And sometimes thunder takes the form of animals. Here is a story that has been told to me by many and which they believe true.

"'Once there was a boy riding on a carabao on a stormy day. He was hurrying home lest the rain should catch him, but when he was near home he caught sight of a small pig wandering aimlessly down the road. It was very fat and very tame. The boy dismounted from the carabao and tried to catch the pig, but when he was yet quite a long way off from it the animal ran against a tree and there was a loud sound of thunder. The tree ignited. The boy fell down unconscious and was slightly hurt. He recovered only at home. His story has been told and retold ever since. It was said that if that boy had caught the animal and it had received a jar while in the boy's arms it would have burst like thunder and so burned the boy. But if the boy had safely carried it home and treated it with a vinegar bath the explosive power would have been gone and the animal would have been the best kind of food on earth.' Old men say that such animals are fruits of thunder."

"Oh, then, it would not be so bad after all, father. I might try to catch one some time," said the boy.

"That you must not," said the father sternly.

"But is that true, father, that the fungi which we find abounding in bamboo groves are the flowers caused by thunder?" said the boy inquisitively.

"Yes, my son, truly, and that's why they are very delicious. You can't find them growing except after stormy days and after thunder and lightning. After days of lightning and thunder like the present, groups of women and boys may be seen roaming about the country in search of these delicious flowers for their food."

By this time the storm was over. The two prepared their supper, since it was already evening. After eating they went to bed feeling secure in the efficacy of the palm leaves hung in the door.

--Walfrido de Leon.