by Don Marquis
CHAPTER X
I didn't exactly faint there, but things got all mixed fur me, and whenthey was straightened out agin I was in a hospital. It seems I hadbeen considerable stepped on in that fight, and three ribs was broke. Iknowed I was hurting, but I was so interested in what was happening tothe doctor the hull hurt never come to me till the balloon was way outover the lake.
But now I was in a plaster cast, and before I got out of that I was in afever. I was some weeks getting out of there.
I tried to get some word of Doctor Kirby, but couldn't. Nothing had beenheard of him or the balloon. The newspapers had had stuff about it fur aday or two, and they guessed the body might come to light sometime. Butthat was all. And I didn't know where to hunt nor how.
The hosses and wagon and tent and things worried me some, too. Theywasn't mine, and so I couldn't sell 'em. And they wasn't no good to mewithout Doctor Kirby. So I tells the man that owns the livery stable touse the team fur its board and keep it till Doctor Kirby calls fur it,and if he never does mebby I will sometime.
I didn't want to stay in that town or I could of got a job in the liverystable. They offered me one, but I hated that town. I wanted to lightout. I didn't much care where to.
Them Blanchet Brothers had left a good share of the money we took inat the balloon ascension with the hospital people fur me before theycleared out. But before I left that there town I seen they was one thingI had to do to make myself easy in my mind. So I done her.
That was to hunt up that feller with his eye in the patch. It took mea week to find him. He lived down near some railroad yards. I might ofsoaked him with a coupling link and felt a hull lot better. But I didn'tguess it would do to pet and pamper my feelings too much. So I does itwith my fists in a quiet place, and does it very complete, and leavesthat town in a cattle car, feeling a hull lot more contented in my mind.
Then they was a hull dern year I didn't stay nowhere very long, norwork at any one job too long, neither. I jest worked from place to placeseeing things--big towns and rivers and mountains. Working here andthere, and loafing and riding blind baggages and freight trains betweenjobs, I covered a lot of ground that year, and made some purty bigjumps, and got acquainted with some awful queer folks, first and last.
But the worst of that is lots of people gets to thinking I am a hobo.Even one or two judges in police courts I got acquainted with had thatthere idea of me. I always explains that I am not one, and am jesttravelling around to see things, and working when I feels like it, andain't no bum. But frequent I am not believed. And two, three differenttimes I gets to the place where I couldn't hardly of told myself from ahobo, if I hadn't of knowed I wasn't one.
I got right well acquainted with some of them hobos, too. As fur as Ican see, they is as much difference in them as in other humans. Sometravels because they likes to see things, and some because they hates towork, and some because they is in the habit and can't stop it. Well, Iknow myself it's purty hard after while to stop it, fur where would youstop at? What excuse is they to stop one place more'n another? I met allkinds of 'em, and oncet I got in fur a week with a couple of real JohnnyYeggs that is both in the pen now. I hearn a feller say one time thereis some good in every man. I went the same way as them two yeggmen ahull dern week to try and find out where the good in 'em was. I guessthey must be some mistake somewheres, fur I looked hard and I watchedcloset and I never found it. They is many kinds of hobos and tramps,perfessional and amachure, and lots of kinds of bums, and lots of youngfellers working their way around to see things, like I was, and lots ofworking men in hard luck going from place to place, and all them kindsis humans. But the real yeggman ain't even a dog.
And oncet I went all the way from Chicago to Baltimore with a serious,dern fool that said he was a soshyologest, whatever them is, and wasgoing to put her all into a book about the criminal classes. He workedhard trying to get at the reason I was a hobo. Which they wasn't noreason, fur I wasn't no hobo. But I didn't want to disappoint thatfeller and spoil his book fur him. So I tells him things. Things notoverly truthful, but very full of crime. About a year afterward I wasinto one of these here Andrew Carnegie lib'aries with the names of theold-time presidents all chiselled along the top and I seen the hulldern thing in print. He said of me the same thing I have said about themyeggmen. If all he met joshed that feller the same as me, that book mustof been what you might call misleading in spots.
One morning I woke up in a good-sized town in Illinoise, not a hundredmiles from where I was raised, without no money, and my clothes not muchto look at, and no job. I had been with a railroad show fur about twoweeks, driving stakes and other rough work, and it had went off and leftme sleeping on the ground. Circuses never waits fur nothing nor cares adern fur no one. I tried all day around town fur to get some kind of ajob. But I was looking purty rough and I couldn't land nothing. Along inthe afternoon I was awful hungry.
I was feeling purty low down to have to ast fur a meal, but finally Idone it.
I dunno how I ever come to pick out such a swell-looking house, but Imakes a little talk at the back door and the Irish girl she says, "Comein," and into the kitchen I goes.
"It's Minnesota you're working toward?" asts she, pouring me out a cupof coffee.
She is thinking of the wheat harvest where they is thousands makes furevery fall. But none of 'em fur me. That there country is full of themScandiluvian Swedes and Norwegians, and they gets into the field beforedaylight and stays there so long the hired man's got to milk the cows bymoonlight.
"I been acrost the river into I'way," I says, "a-working at my trade,and now I'm going back to Chicago to work at it some more."
"What might your trade be?" she asts, sizing me up careful; and I thinksI'll hand her one to chew on she ain't never hearn tell of before.
"I'm a agnostic by trade," I says. I spotted that there word in areligious book one time, and that's the first chancet I ever has to tryit on any one. You can't never tell what them reg'lar sockdologers isgoing to do till you tries them.
"I see," says she. But I seen she didn't see. And I didn't help hernone. She would of ruther died than to let on she didn't see. The Irishis like that. Purty soon she says:
"Ain't that the dangerous kind o' work, though!"
"It is," I says. And says nothing further.
She sets down and folds her arms, like she was thinking of it, watchingmy hands closet all the time I was eating, like she's looking fur scarswhere something slipped when I done that agnostic work. Purty soon shesays:
"Me brother Michael was kilt at it in the old country. He was the mostvinturesome lad of thim all!"
"Did it fly up and hit him?" I asts her. I was wondering w'ether she ismaking fun of me or am I making fun of her. Them Irish is like that, youcan never tell which.
"No," says she, "he fell off of it. And I'm thinking you don't know whatit is yourself." And the next thing I know I'm eased out o' the backdoor and she's grinning at me scornful through the crack of it.
So I was walking slow around toward the front of the house thinking howthe Irish was a great nation, and what shall I do now, anyhow? And Isays to myself: "Danny, you was a fool to let that circus walk off andleave you asleep in this here town with nothing over you but a barbedwire fence this morning. Fur what ARE you going to do next? First thingyou know, you WILL be a reg'lar tramp, which some folks can't be madeto see you ain't now." And jest when I was thinking that, a feller comesdown the front steps of that house on the jump and nabs me by the coatcollar.
"Did you come out of this house?" he asts.
"I did," I says, wondering what next.
"Back in you go, then," he says, marching me forward toward them frontsteps, "they've got smallpox in there."
I like to of jumped loose when he says that.
"Smallpox ain't no inducement to me, mister," I tells him. But hetwisted my coat collar tight and dug his thumbs into my neck, all thetime helping me onward with his knee from behind, and I seen they wasn'tno use pulling back
. I could probable of licked that man, but they's nosystem in mixing up with them well-dressed men in towns where they thinkyou are a tramp. The judge will give you the worst of it.
He rung the door bell and the girl that opened the door she looked kindo' surprised when she seen me, and in we went.
"Tell Professor Booth that Doctor Wilkins wants to see him again,"says the man a-holt o' me, not letting loose none. And we says nothingfurther till the perfessor comes, which he does, slow and absent-minded.When he seen me he took off his glasses so's he could see me better, andhe says:
"What is that you have there, Doctor Wilkins?"
"A guest for you," says Doctor Wilkins, grinning all over hisself. "Ifound him leaving your house. And you being under quarantine, and mebeing secretary to the board of health, and the city pest-house beingcrowded too full already, I'll have to ask you to keep him here tillwe get Miss Margery onto her feet again," he says. Or they was words tothat effect, as the lawyers asts you.
"Dear me," says Perfesser Booth, kind o' helpless like. And hecomes over closet to me and looks me all over like I was one of themamphimissourian lizards in a free museum. And then he goes to the footof the stairs and sings out in a voice that was so bleached-out andflat-chested it would of looked jest like him himself if you could ofsaw it--"Estelle," he sings out, "oh, Estelle!"
Estelle, she come down stairs looking like she was the perfessor's bigbrother. I found out later she was his old maid sister. She wasn't nospring chicken, Estelle wasn't, and they was a continuous grin on herface. I figgered it must of froze there years and years ago. They wasa kid about ten or eleven years old come along down with her, that hadhair down to its shoulders and didn't look like it knowed whether it wasa girl or a boy. Miss Estelle, she looks me over in a way that makes meshiver, while the doctor and the perfessor jaws about whose fault it isthe smallpox sign ain't been hung out. And when she was done listeningshe says to the perfessor: "You had better go back to your laboratory."And the perfessor he went along out, and the doctor with him.
"What are you going to do with him, Aunt Estelle?" the kid asts her.
"What would YOU suggest, William, Dear?" asts his aunt. I ain't feelingvery comfortable, and I was getting all ready jest to natcherally boltout the front door now the doctor was gone. Then I thinks it mightn't beno bad place to stay in fur a couple o' days, even risking the smallpox.Fur I had riccolected I couldn't ketch it nohow, having been vaccinateda few months before in Terry Hutt by compulsive medical advice, me beingfur a while doing some work on the city pavements through a mistakeabout me in the police court.
William Dear looks at me like it was the day of judgment and his job wasto keep the fatted calves separate from the goats and prodigals, and hesays:
"If I were you, Aunt Estelle, the first thing would be to get his haircut and his face washed and then get him some clothes."
"William Dear is my friend," thinks I.
She calls James, which was a butler. James, he buttles me into abathroom the like o' which I never seen afore, and then he buttles meinto a suit o' somebody's clothes and into a room at the top o' thehouse next to his'n, and then he comes back and buttles a comb and brushat me. James was the most mournful-looking fat man I ever seen, and hesays that account of me not being respectable I will have my meals alonein the kitchen after the servants has eat.
The first thing I knowed I been in that house more'n a week. I eat and Islept and I smoked and I kind of enjoyed not worrying about things fura while. The only oncomfortable thing about being the perfessor's guestwas Miss Estelle. Soon's she found out I was a agnostic she took chargeo' my intellectuals and what went into 'em, and she makes me read thingsand asts me about 'em, and she says she is going fur to reform me. Andwhatever brand o' disgrace them there agnostics really is I ain't foundout to this day, having come acrost the word accidental.
Biddy Malone, which was the kitchen mechanic, she says the perfessor'swife's been over to her mother's while this smallpox has been going on,and they is a nurse in the house looking after Miss Margery, the littlekid that's sick. And Biddy, she says if she was Mrs. Booth she'd staythere, too. They's been some talk, anyhow, about Mrs. Booth and amusician feller around that there town. But Biddy, she likes Mrs. Booth,and even if it was true, which it ain't Biddy says, who could of blamedher? Fur things ain't joyous around that house the last year, since MissEstelle's come there to live. The perfessor, he's so full of scientificshe don't know nothing with no sense to it, Biddy says. He's got moremoney'n you can shake a stick at, and he don't have to do no work, nornever has, and his scientifics gets worse and worse every year. Butwhile scientifics is worrying to the nerves of a fambly, and while hislabertory often makes the house smell like a sick drug store has crawledinto it and died there, they wouldn't of been no serious row on betweenthe perfessor and his wife, not ALL the time, if it hadn't of been furMiss Estelle. She has jest natcherally made herself boss of that therehouse, Biddy says, and she's a she-devil. Between all them scientificsand Miss Estelle things has got where Mrs. Booth can't stand 'em muchlonger.
I didn't blame her none fur getting sore on her job, neither. Youcan't expect a woman that's purty, and knows it, and ain't no more'nthirty-two or three, and don't look it, to be serious intrusted inmummies and pickled snakes and chemical perfusions, not ALL the time.Mebby when Mrs. Booth would ast him if he was going to take her to theopery that night the perfessor would look up in an absent-minded sortof way and ast her did she know them Germans had invented a new germ? Itwouldn't of been so bad if the perfessor had picked out jest one brandof scientifics and stuck to that reg'lar. Mrs. Booth could of got use toany ONE kind. But mebby this week the perfessor would be took hard withornithography and he'd go chasing humming-birds all over the front yard,and the next he'd be putting gastronomy into William's breakfast feed.
They was always a row on over them kids, which they hadn't been tillMiss Estelle come. Mrs. Booth, she said they could kill their ownselves, if they wanted to, him and Miss Estelle, but she had moreright than any one else to say what went into William's and Margery'sdigestive ornaments, and she didn't want 'em brung up scientific nohow,but jest human. But Miss Estelle's got so she runs that hull housenow, and the perfessor too, but he don't know it, Biddy says, and hera-saying every now and then it was too bad Frederick couldn't of marrieda noble woman who would of took a serious intrust in his work. The kidsdon't hardly dare to kiss their ma in front of Miss Estelle no more, onaccount of germs and things. And with Miss Estelle taking care of theirreligious organs and their intellectuals and the things like that, andthe perfessor filling them up on new invented feeds, I guess they neverwas two kids got more education to the square inch, outside and in. Ithadn't worked none on Miss Margery yet, her being younger, but WilliamDear he took it hard and serious, and it made bumps all over his head,and he was kind o' pale and spindly. Every time that kid cut his fingerhe jest natcherally bled scientifics. One day I says to Miss Estelle,says I:
"It looks to me like William Dear is kind of peaked." She looks worriedand she looks mad fur me lipping in, and then she says mebby it is true,but she don't see why, because he is being brung up like he orter be inevery way and no expense nor trouble spared.
"Well," says I, "what a kid about that size wants to do is to get outand roll around in the dirt some, and yell and holler."
She sniffs like I wasn't worth taking no notice of. But it kind o'soaked in, too. She and the perfessor must of talked it over. Fur thenext day I seen her spreading a oilcloth on the hall floor. And thenJames comes a buttling in with a lot of sand what the perfessor hasbaked and made all scientific down in his labertory. James, he pours allthat nice, clean dirt onto the oilcloth and then Miss Estelle sends furWilliam Dear.
"William Dear," she says, "we have decided, your papa and I, that whatyou need is more romping around and playing along with your studies. Youought to get closer to the soil and to nature, as is more healthy fora youth of your age. So for an hour each day, between your studies, youwill romp a
nd play in this sand. You may begin to frolic now, WilliamDear, and then James will sweep up the dirt again for to-morrow'sfrolic."
But William didn't frolic none. He jest looked at that dirt in a sadkind o' way, and he says very serious but very decided:
"Aunt Estelle, I shall NOT frolic." And they had to let it go at that,fur he never would frolic none, neither. And all that nice clean dirtwas throwed out in the back yard along with the unscientific dirt.