by Don Marquis
CHAPTER VIII
The next day we broke camp and was gone from that place, and I took awaywith me the half of a ring me and Martha had chopped in two. We kept ongoing, and by the time punkins and county fairs was getting ripe we wasinto the upper left-hand corner of Ohio. And there Looey left us.
One day Doctor Kirby and me was walking along the main street of alittle town and we seen a bang-up funeral percession coming. It must ofbeen one of the Grand Army of the Republicans, fur they was some of theold soldiers in buggies riding along behind, and a big string of peoplefollering in more buggies and some on foot. Everybody was looking mightysollum. But they was one man setting beside the undertaker on the seatof the hearse that was looking sollumer than them all. It was Looey, andI'll bet the corpse himself would of felt proud and happy and contentedif he could of knowed the style Looey was giving that funeral.
It wasn't nothing Looey done, fur he didn't do nothing but jest setthere with his arms folded onto his bosom and look sad. But he done THATbetter than any one else. He done it so well that you forgot the corpsewas the chief party to that funeral. Looey took all the glory from him.He had jest natcherally stole that funeral away from its rightful ownerwith his enjoyment of it. He seen the doctor and me as the hearse wentby our corner, but he never let on. A couple of hours later Looey comesinto camp and says he is going to quit.
The doctor asts him if he has inherited money.
"No," says Looey, "but my aunt has given me a chancet to go intobusiness."
Looey says he was born nigh there, and was prowling around town the daybefore and run acrost an old aunt of his'n he had forgot all about.She is awful respectable and religious and ashamed of him being intoa travelling show. And she has offered to lend him enough to buy ahalf-share in a business.
"Well," says the doctor, "I hope it will be something you are fittedfor and will enjoy. But I've noticed that after a man gets the habit ofroaming around this terrestial ball it's mighty hard to settle down andwatch his vine and fig tree grow."
Looey smiles in a sad sort of a way, which he seldom smiled furanything, and says he guesses he'll like the business. He says theyain't many businesses he could take to. Most of them makes you forgetthis world is but a fleeting show. But he has found a business whichkeeps you reminded all the time that dust is dust and ash to ashes shaltreturn. When he first went into the medicine business, he said, he wasdrawed to it by the diseases and the sudden dyings-off it always kepthim in mind of. He thought they wasn't no other business could lay overit fur that kind of comfort. But he has found out his mistake.
"What kind of business are you going into?" asts the doctor.
"I am going to be an undertaker," says Looey. "My aunt says this townneeds the right kind of an undertaker bad."
Mr. Wilcox, the undertaker that town has, is getting purty old andshaky, Looey says, and young Mr. Wilcox, his son, is too light-mindedand goes at things too brisk and airy to give it the right kind of asend-off. People don't want him joking around their corpses and he isa fat young man and can't help making puns even in the presence of thedeparted. Old Mr. Wilcox's eyesight is getting so poor he made a scandalin that town only the week before. He was composing a departed's faceinto a last smile, but he went too fur with it, and give the departedone of them awful mean, devilish kind of grins, like he had died witha bad temper on. By the time the departed's fambly had found it out,things had went too fur, and the face had set that-a-way, so it wasn'tsafe to try to change it any.
Old Mr. Wilcox had several brands of last looks. One was called:"Bear Up, for We Will Meet Again." The one that had went wrong was hisfavourite look, named: "O Death, Where is Thy Victory?"
Looey's aunt says she will buy him a partnership if she is satisfied hecan fill the town's needs. They have a talk with the Wilcoxes, and herides on the hearse that day fur a try-out. His aunt peeks out behindher bedroom curtains as the percession goes by her house, and when shesees the style Looey is giving to that funeral, and how easy it comesto him, that settles it with her on the spot. And it seems the hull derntown liked it, too, including the departed's fambly.
Looey says they is a lot of chancet fur improvements in the undertakinggame by one whose heart is in his work, and he is going into thatbusiness to make a success of it, and try and get all the funeral tradefur miles around. He reads us an advertisement of the new firm he hasbeen figgering out fur that town's weekly paper. I cut a copy out whenit was printed, and it is about the genteelest thing like that I evenseen, as follers:
WILCOX AND SIMMS Invite Your Patronage
This earth is but a fleeting show, and the blank-winged angels wait forall. It is always a satisfaction to remember that all possible has beendone for the deceased.
See Our New Line of Coffins Lined Caskets a Specialty Lodge Work Solicited
Time and tide wait for no man, and his days are few and full oftroubles. The paths of glory lead but to the grave, and none can tellwhen mortal feet may stumble.
When in Town Drop in and Inspect Our New Embalming Outfit. It is aPleasure to Show Goods and Tools Even if Your Family Needs no Work DoneJust Yet
Outfits for mourners who have been bereaved on short notice a specialty.We take orders for tombstones. Look at our line of shrouds, robes, andblack suits for either sex and any age. Give us just one call, and youwill entrust future embalmings and obsequies in your family to no otherfirm.
WILCOX AND SIMMS Main Street, Near Depot
The doctor, he reads it over careful and says she orter drum up trade,all right. Looey tells us that mebby, if he can get that town educatedup to it, he will put in a creamatory, where he will burn them, too, butwill go slow, fur that there sollum and beautiful way of returning ashto ashes might make some prejudice in such a religious town.
The last we seen of Looey was a couple of days later when we told himgood-bye in his shop. Old Mr. Wilcox was explaining to him the scienceof them last looks he was so famous at when he was a younger man. YoungMr. Wilcox was laying on a table fur Looey to practise on, and Looey waslearning fast. But he nearly broke down when he said good-bye, fur heliked the doctor.
"Doc," he says, "you've been a good friend, and I won't never forgetyou. They ain't much I can do, and in this deceitful world words is lessthan actions. But if you ever was to die within a hundred miles of me,I'd go," he says, "and no other hands but mine should lay you out. Andit wouldn't cost you a cent, either. Nor you neither, Danny."
We thanked him kindly fur the offer, and went.
The next town we come to there was a county fair, and the doctor runacrost an old pal of his'n who had a show on the grounds and wanted tohire him fur what he called a ballyhoo man. Which was the first I everhearn them called that, but I got better acquainted with them since.They are the fellers that stands out in front and gets you all excitedabout the Siamese twins or the bearded lady or the snake-charmer or theCircassian beauties or whatever it is inside the tent, as representedupon the canvas. The doctor says he will do it fur a week, jest fur fun,and mebby pick up another feller to take Looey's place out there.
This feller's name is Watty Sanders, and his wife is a fat lady in hisown show and very good-natured when not intoxicated nor mad at Watty. Shewas billed on the curtains outside fur five hundred and fifty pounds,and Watty says she really does weigh nigh on to four hundred. But beinga fat lady's husband ain't no bed of rosy ease at that, Watty tellsthe doctor. It's like every other trade--it has its own pertic'lerresponsibilities and troubles. She is a turrible expense to Watty onaccount of eating so much. The tales that feller told of how hard hehas to hustle showing her off in order to support her appetite would ofdrawed tears from a pawnbroker's sign, as Doctor Kirby says. Which hefound it cheaper fur his hull show to board and sleep in the tent, andwe done likewise.
Well, I got a job with that show myself. Watty had a wild man canvasbut no wild man, so he made me an offer and I took him up. I was fromBorneo, where they're all supposed to be captured. Jest as Doctor Kirbywould get to his
talk about how the wild man had been ketched aftergreat struggle and expense, with four men killed and another crippled,there would be an awful rumpus on the inside of the tent, with wildhowlings and the sound of revolvers shot off and a woman screaming. ThenI would come busting out all blacked up from head to heel with no moreclothes on than the law pervided fur, yipping loud and shaking a bigspear and rolling my eyes, and Watty would come rushing after me firinghis revolver. I would make fur the doctor and draw my spear back to jabit clean through him, and Watty would grab my arm. And the doctor wouldwhirl round and they would wrastle me to the ground and I would behandcuffed and dragged back into the tent, still howling and strugglingto break loose. On the inside my part of the show was to be wild in acage. I would be chained to the floor, and every now and then I wouldget wilder and rattle my chains and shake the bars and make jumps at thecrowd and carry on, and make believe I was too mad to eat the pieces ofraw meat Watty throwed into the cage.
Watty had a snake-charmer woman, with an awful long, bony kind of neck,working fur him, and another feller that was her husband and eat glass.The show opened up with them two doing what they said was a comic turn.Then the fat lady come on. Whilst everybody was admiring her size, andlooking at the number of pounds on them big cheat scales Watty weighedher on, the long-necked one would be changing to her snake clothes.Which she only had one snake, and he had been in the business so long,and was so kind of worn out and tired with being charmed so much, italways seemed like a pity to me the way she would take and twist himaround. I guess they never was a snake was worked harder fur the littlebit he got to eat, nor got no sicker of a woman's society than poor oldReginald did. After Reginald had been charmed a while, it would be theglass eater's turn. Which he really eat it, and the doctor says thatkind always dies before they is fifty. I never knowed his right name,but what he went by was The Human Ostrich.
Watty's wife was awful jealous of Mrs. Ostrich, fur she got the ideashe was carrying on with Watty. One night I hearn an argument from thefenced-off part of the tent Watty and his wife slept in. She was settingon Watty's chest and he was gasping fur mercy.
"You know it ain't true," says Watty, kind of smothered-like.
"It is," says she, "you own up it is!" And she give him a jounce.
"No, darling," he gets out of him, "you know I never could bear themthin, scrawny kind of women." And he begins to call her pet names ofall kinds and beg her please, if she won't get off complete, to setsomewheres else a minute, fur his chest he can feel giving way, and hisribs caving in. He called her his plump little woman three or fourtimes and she must of softened up some, fur she moved and his voice comestronger, but not less meek and lowly. And he follers it up:
"Dolly, darling," he says, "I bet I know something my little woman don'tknow."
"What is it?" the fat lady asts him.
"You don't know what a cruel, weak stomach your hubby has got," Wattysays, awful coaxing like, "or you wouldn't bear down quite so hard ontoit--please, Dolly!"
She begins to blubber and say he is making fun of her big size, and ifhe is mean to her any more or ever looks at another woman agin she willtake anti-fat and fade away to nothing and ruin his show, and it isawful hard to be made a joke of all her life and not have no steady homenor nothing like other women does.
"You know I worship every pound of you, little woman," says Watty,still coaxing. "Why can't you trust me? You know, Dolly, darling, Iwouldn't take your weight in gold for you." And he tells her they neverwas but once in all his life he has so much as turned his head to lookat another woman, and that was by way of a plutonic admiration, and noflirting intended, he says. And even then it was before he had met hisown little woman. And that other woman, he says, was plump too, fur hewouldn't never look at none but a plump woman.
"What did she weigh?" asts Watty's wife. He tells her a measly littlethree hundred pound.
"But she wasn't refined like my little woman," says Watty, "and when Iseen that I passed her up." And inch by inch Watty coaxed her clean offof him.
But the next day she hearn him and Mrs. Ostrich giggling aboutsomething, and she has a reg'lar tantrum, and jest fur meanness goes outand falls down on the race track, pertending she has fainted, and theycan't move her no ways, not even roll her. But finally they rousted herout of that by one of these here sprinkling carts backing up agin herand turning loose.
But aside from them occasional mean streaks Dolly was real nice, and Ikind of got to liking her. She tells me that because she is so fat noone won't take her serious like a human being, and she wisht she waslike other women and had a fambly. That woman wanted a baby, too, and Ibet she would of been good to it, fur she was awful good to animals. Shehad been big from a little girl, and never got no sympathy when sick,nor nothing, and even whilst she played with dolls as a kid she knowedshe looked ridiculous, and was laughed at. And by jings!--they wasthe funniest thing come to light before we left that crowd. That poor,derned, old, fat fool HAD a doll yet, all hid away, and when she wasalone she used to take it out and cuddle it. Well, Dolly never had manyfriends, and you couldn't blame her much if she did drink a little toomuch now and then, or get mad at Watty fur his goings-on and kneel downon him whilst he was asleep. Them was her only faults and I liked theold girl. Yet I could see Watty had his troubles too.
That show busted up before the fair closed. Fur one day Watty's wifegets mad at Mrs. Ostrich and tries to set on her. And then Mrs. Ostrichgets mad too, and sicks Reginald onto her. Watty's wife is awful scaredof Reginald, who don't really have ambition enough to bite no one, letalone a lady built so round everywhere he couldn't of got a grip on her.And as fur as wrapping himself around her and squashing her to death,Reginald never seen the day he could reach that fur. Reginald's feelingsis plumb friendly toward Dolly when he is turned loose, but she don'tknow that, and she has some hysterics and faints in earnest this time.Well, they was an awful hullaballo when she come to, and fur the sake ofpeace in the fambly Watty has to fire Mr. and Mrs. Ostrich and poor oldReginald out of their jobs, and the show is busted. So Doctor Kirby andme lit out fur other parts agin.