Danny's Own Story

by Don Marquis

  CHAPTER V

  I slowed down when I got to the schoolhouse, and both them fellers piledin.

  "I guess I better turn north fur about a mile and then turn west, DoctorKirby," I says, "so as to make a kind of a circle around that town."

  "Why, so, Rube?" he asts me.

  "Well," I says, "we left it going east, and they'll foller us east; sodon't we want to be going west while they're follering east?"

  Looey, he agreed with me. But he said it wouldn't be much use, fur wewould likely be ketched up with and took back and hung or something,anyhow. Looey could get the lowest in his sperrits sometimes of any manI ever seen.

  "Don't be afraid of that," says the doctor. "They are not going tofollow us. THEY know they didn't get this property by due process oflaw. THEY aren't going to take the case into a county court where itwill all come out about the way they robbed a couple of travelling menwith a fake trial."

  "I guess you know more about the law'n I do," I says. "I kind o' thoughtmebby we stole them hosses."

  "Well," he says, "we got 'em, anyhow. And if they try to arrest uswithout a warrant there'll be the deuce to pay. But they aren't goingto make any more trouble. I know these country crooks. They've got nostomach for trouble outside their own township."

  Which made me feel considerable better, fur I never been of the opinionthat going agin the law done any one no good.

  They looks around in that wagon, and all their stuff was there--JakeSmith and the squire having kep' it all together careful to make thingsseem more legal, I suppose--and the doctor was plumb tickled, and Looeyfelt as cheerful as he ever felt about anything. So the doctor says theyhas everything they needs but some ready money, and he'll get that sure,fur he never seen the time he couldn't.

  "But, Looey," he says, "I'm done with country hotels from now on.They've got the last cent they ever will from me--at least in the summertime."

  "How you going to work it?" Looey asts him, like he hasn't no hopes itwill work right.

  "Camp out," says the doctor. "I've been thinking it all over." Then heturns to me. "Rube," he says, "where are you going?"

  "Well," I says, "I ain't pinted nowhere in pertic'ler except away fromthat town we just left. Which my name ain't Rube, Doctor Kirby, butDanny."

  "Danny what?" asts he.

  "Nothing," says I, "jest Danny."

  "Well, then, Danny," says he, "how would you like to be an Indian?"

  "Medical?" asts I, "or real?"

  "Like Looey," says he.

  I tells him being a medical Injun and mixed up with a show like his'nwould suit me down to the ground, and asts him what is the main dutiesof one besides the blankets and the feathers.

  "Well," he says, "this camping-out scheme of mine will take a couple ofIndians. Instead of paying hotel and feed bills we'll pitch our tent,"he says, "at the edge of town in each sweet Auburn of the plains. We'llsave money and we'll be near the throbbing heart of nature. And anIndian camp in each place will be a good advertisement for the Sagraw.You can look after the horses and learn to do the cooking and that kindo' thing. And maybe after while," he says, kind o' working himself up towhere he thought it was going to be real nice, "maybe after while I willgive you some insight into the hidden mysteries of selling Siwash IndianSagraw."

  "Well," says I, "I'd like to learn that."

  "Would you?" says he, kind o' laughing at himself and me too, and yetkind o' enthusiastic, "well, then, the first thing you have to do islearn how to sell corn salve. Any one that can sell corn salve can sellanything. There's a farmhouse right over there, and I'll give you yourfirst lesson right now. Rummage around in that satchel there under theseat and get me a tin box and some corn salve labels."

  I found a lot of labels, and some boxes too. The labels was alldifferent sizes, but barring that they all looked about the same to me.Whilst I was sizing them up he asts me agin was they any corn salve onesin there.

  "What colour label is it, Doctor Kirby?" I asts him. Fur they was bluelabels and white labels and pink labels.

  He looks at me right queer. "Can't you read the labels?" he says, rightsharp.

  "Well," I says, "I never been much of a reader when it comes todifferent kind of medicines."

  "Corn salve is spelled only one way," says he.

  "That's right," I says, "and you'd think I orter be able to pick out acommon, ordinary thing like corn salve right off, wouldn't you?"

  "Danny," he says, "you don't mean to tell me you can't read anything atall?"

  "I never told you nothing of the kind."

  He picks out a label.

  "If you can read so fast, what's that?" he asts.

  She is a pink one. I thinks to myself; she either is corn salve or elseshe ain't corn salve. And it ain't natcheral he will pick corn salve,fur he would think I would say that first off. So I'm betting it ain't.I takes a chancet on it.

  "That," says I, "is mighty easy reading. That is Siwash Injun Sagraw." Ilost.

  "It's corn salve," he says. "And Great Scott! They call this thetwentieth century!"

  "I never called it that," says I, sort o' mad-like. Fur I was feelingbad Doctor Kirby had found out I was such a ignoramus.

  "Where ignorance is bliss," says he, "it is folly to be wise. But allthe same, I'm going to take your education in hand and make you drink oflife's Peruvian springs." Or some spring like that it was.

  And the doctor, he done it. Looey said it wouldn't be no use learning toread. He'd done a lot of reading, he said, and it never helped him none.All he ever read showed him this feller Hamlet was right, he said, whenhe wrote Shakespeare's works, and they wasn't much use in anything,without you had a lot o' money. And they wasn't no chancet to get thatwith all these here trusts around gobbling up everything and stompingthe poor man into the dirt, and they was lots of times he wisht he wasa Injun sure enough, and not jest a medical one, fur then he'd be afree man and the bosses and the trusts and the railroads and the robbertariff couldn't touch him. And then he shut up, and didn't say nothingfur a hull hour, except oncet he laughed.

  Fur Doctor Kirby, he says, winking at me: "Looey, here, is a nihilist."

  "Is he," says I, "what's that?" And the doctor tells me about how theyblow up dukes and czars and them foreign high-mucky-mucks with dynamite.Which is when Looey laughed.

  Well, we jogged along at a pretty good gait fur several hours, and westayed that night at a Swede's place, which the doctor paid him fureverything in medicine, only it took a long time to make the bargain,fur them Swedes is always careful not to get cheated, and hasn't manydiseases. And the next night we showed in a little town, and done rightwell, and took in considerable money. We stayed there three days andbought a tent and a sheet-iron stove and some skillets and things andsome provisions, and a suit of duds for me.

  Well, we went on, and we kept going on, and they was bully times. We'dease up careful toward a town, and pick us out a place on the edge,where the hosses could graze along the side of the road; and mostginerally by a piece of woods not fur from that town, and nigh a crick,if we could. Then we'd set up our tent. After we had everything fixed,I'd put on my Injun clothes and Looey his'n, and we'd drive through themain store street of the town at a purty good lick, me a-holt of thereins, and the doctor all togged out in his best clothes, and Looeydoing a Injun dance in the midst of the wagon. I'd pull up the hossessudden in front of the post-office or the depot platform or the hotel,and the people would come crowding around, and the doctor he'd make alittle talk from the wagon, and tell everybody they would be a free showthat night on that corner, and fur everybody to come to it. And thenwe'd drive back to camp, lickitysplit.

  Purty soon every boy in town would be out there, kind o' hanging around,to see what a Injun camp was like. And the farmers that went into andout of town always stopped and passed the time of day, and the Injuncamp got the hull town all worked up as a usual thing; and the doctor,he done well, fur when night come every one would be on hand. Looeyand me, every time we went into town, had on o
ur Injun suits, and thedoctor, he wondered why he hadn't never thought up that scheme before.Sometimes, when they was lots of people ailing in a town, and theyhadn't been no show fur quite a while, we'd stay five or six days, andmake a good clean-up. The doctor, he sent to Chicago several times furalcohol in barrels, 'cause he was selling it so fast he had to make newSagraw. And he had to get more and more bottles, and a hull satchel fullof new Sagraw labels printed.

  And all the time the doctor was learning me education. And shucks! theywasn't nothing so hard about it oncet you'd got started in to readingthings. I jest natcherally took to print like a duck to water, andinside of a month I was reading nigh everything that has ever beenwrote. He had lots of books with him and every time a new sockdologer ofa word come along and I learnt how to spell her and where she orter fitin to make sense it kind o' tickled me all over. And many's the timeafterward, when me and the doctor had lost track of each other, and theywas quite a spell people got to thinking I was a tramp, I've went intothese here Andrew Carnegie libraries in different towns jest as much tosee if they had anything fitten to read as fur to keep warm.

  Well, we went easing over toward the Indiany line, and we was having apurty good time. They wasn't no work to do you could call really hard,and they was plenty of vittles. Afternoons we'd lazy around the camp andswap stories and make medicine if we needed a batch, and josh back andforth with the people that hung around, and loaf and doze and smoke; ormebby do a little fishing if we was nigh a crick.

  And nights after the show was over it was fun, too. We always had afire, even if it was a hot night, fur to cook by in the first place, andfur to keep mosquitoes off, and to make things seem more cheerful.They ain't nothing so good as hanging round a campfire. And they ain'tnothing any better than sleeping outdoors, neither. You roll up in yourblanket with your feet to the fire and you get to wondering things aboutthings afore you go to sleep. The silentness jest natcherally swampseverything after a while, and then all them queer little noisesyou never hear in the daytime comes popping and poking through thesilentness, or kind o' scratching their way through it sometimes, andmakes it kind o' feel more silent than ever. And if you are nigh acrick, purty soon it will sort of get to talking to you, only you can'tmake out what it's trying to say, and you get to wondering about that,too. And if you are in a tent and it rains and the tent don't leak, thatrain is a kind of a nice thing to listen to itself. But if you can seethe stars you get to wondering more'n ever. They come out and they isso many of them and they are so fur away, and yet they are so kind o'friendly-like, too, if you happen to be feeling purty good. But if youain't feeling purty good, jest lay there and look at them stars longenough; and then mebby you'll see it don't make no difference whetheryou're feeling good or not, fur they got a way o' making your privatetroubles look mighty small. And you get to wondering why that is, too,fur they ain't human; and it don't stand to reason you orter pay noattention to them, one way nor the other. They is jest there, like treesand cricks and hills. But I have often noticed that the things that isjest there has got a way of seeming more friendly than the things thathas been built and put there. You can look at a big iron bridge or agrain elevator or a canal all day long, and if you're feeling blue itdon't help you none. It was jest put there. Or a hay stack is the sameway. But you go and lazy around in the grass when you're down on yourluck and kind o' make remarks to a crick or a big, old walnut tree, andbefore long it gets you to feeling like it didn't make no differencehow you felt, anyhow; fur you don't amount to nothing by the side ofsomething that was always there. You get to thinking how the hull worlditself was always here, and you sort o' see they ain't nothing importantenough about yourself to worry about, and presently you will go tosleep and forget it. The doctor says to me one time them stars ain'tany different from this world, and this is one of them. Which is a foolidea, as any one can see. He had a lot of queer ideas like that, DoctorKirby had. But they ain't nothing like sleeping out of doors nights tomake you wonder the kind of wonderings you never will get any answer to.

  Well, I never cared so much fur houses after them days. They was bullytimes, them was. And I was kind of proud of being with a show, too.Many's the time I have went down the street in that there Injun suit,and seen how the young fellers would of give all they owned to be me.And every now and then you would hear one say when you went past:

  "Huh, I know him! That's one of them show fellers!"

  One afternoon we pitches our tent right on the edge of a little towncalled Athens. We was nigh the bank of a crick, and they was a grovethere. We was camped jest outside of a wood-lot fence, and back inthrough the trees from us they was a house with a hedge fence all aroundit. They was apple trees and all kind of flower bushes and things insideof the hedge. The second day we was there I takes a walk back throughthe wood-lot, and along past the house, and they was one of these hereearly harvest apple trees spilling apples through a gap in the fence.Them is a mighty sweet and juicy kind of apple, and I picks one up andbites into it.

  "I think you might have asked for it," says some one.