The Cassowary; What Chanced in the Cleft Mountains

by Stanley Waterloo

  CHAPTER XXII

  ABERCROMBIE'S WOOING

  None but could smile upon the spinster and be glad of the little taleshe told. Half the world knows of the pigeons so nourished on one of themost crowded corners in the heart of a great, turbulent city, but nonehad thought before of what might accompany this exhibition of the factthat there is still a regard for beings of the lower and less graspinglife. Very pleasant was the conversation and very understanding were thecomments, but the Colonel, like many a commander of the past, fromJoshua down, noted the swift passing of the hours of day and wasinsatiate for more of what might be attained before it was too late. Hecalled upon the Banker. That gentleman, easy, suave and really a goodspecimen of the class which inclines us to save by taking care of oursavings--and only rarely departing with them--was quite equal to thedemand at the paying-teller's window. "I have listened," he said, "tothese accounts, some of adventure, some of fancy, some of love andpersistence, and it has occurred to me that even I might contributesomething to the general fund. Oddly enough, as coming from me, what Ishall tell is a story of love and courage and persistence all combined.It is not a tale of some far country, but one of our modern life, a taleof true lovers whose union was opposed but who came together at last inspite of obstacles. I think we may term it

  ABERCROMBIE'S WOOING

  Mr. Gentil Abercrombie is a fine fellow, quick-witted, and amiable, withprospects in the world, but he is not, as yet, wealthy. Last spring hefell in love with Miss Frances Dobson, and the young lady seemed notentirely oblivious of the fact nor altogether displeased with it. Theaffair appeared prosperous to the hopeful Abercrombie until the middleof June, when the Dobson family moved to their country home at a modestlittle watering place not far from the city, leaving the suitor in aposition he did not like. A resolute gentleman, though, is Mr.Abercrombie, and he followed his star, taking apartments at thewatering-place hotel, coming into town by train daily and returning inthe evening.

  The young lady thus sought had the fortune to be the only daughter ofher somewhat austere parents, Mr. James Dobson and Mrs. Irene Dobson,each distinctly of the class not to be trifled with by any too aspiringsuitor. Abercrombie was admitted to the Dobson residence, for he hasgood social standing--but his reception was not as warm as the weather.It appeared to each of the lovers early in the season that it was bestto be politic, and that Abercrombie was not, as yet, looked upon by thefather and mother as a person with that superabundance of worldly goodsand of stability of character and wisdom which should appertain to thehusband of the Family Pride. Hence it came that Abercrombie made aneffort whenever an opportunity offered to become what he remarked tohimself as "solid with the old folks." Hence it came, too, that at acertain trying time there arrived in his immediate vicinity a certainquantity and quality of disaster.

  It chanced that on one occasion, Abercrombie, seeking, as usual, toingratiate himself with the parents, drifted into a discussionconcerning the bringing up of children and expressed himself to theeffect that, in place of the usual inane though amusing fairy storiesand things of that sort, children should in their youth, when the memoryfairly petrifies things, be entertained with pleasant tales aboutnatural history and in fact about anything likely to aid most in futureequipment for the great struggle in the world. Of natural history hemade a point. Well, one evening, in just what poets call the "gloaming,"Abercrombie, the parents, Frances and young Erastus Dobson were sittingtogether upon the front porch, when, suddenly, from some inscrutableimpulse, Erastus broke out with the exclamation:

  "Mr. Abercrombie, tell me a story."

  Here was a situation! It flashed upon Abercrombie, that he had, asalready mentioned, impressed upon the elder people the fact that, in hisopinion, the youthful mind should be loaded with natural history whentales were imposed upon it. There was no alternative. Here were theolder people listening and expectant. Here was Erastus, vociferous. Herewas his own sweetheart, sitting in the half darkness and wondering if hewere equal to the occasion!

  Abercrombie quivered for a moment trying to collect his senses whichseemed to have been, somehow, "jolted" by Erastus' request, and thensuddenly became so desperate and cold-blooded that he could notunderstand himself.

  "Yes, Erastus," he said, affably; "I will tell you a story, mostwillingly." Then he continued:

  "This is the story of the Boy and the Bull and the Horned Hen. Oncethere was a boy. It has frequently happened that there was a boy, sothat it is hardly worth while referring to such a thing now, but, sincewe have mentioned it, we'll let it go. Tum-a-row! This boy lived in thecountry and was kind to a Hen. Little did he know that the henappreciated and remembered it, but she did! One day this boy started tocross a meadow in which was a savage bull, and the boy forgot he had onhis red sweater. In the middle of the meadow stood a tree which wasblasted and which looked almost like a cone. It was what a youngkindergarten teacher might describe as a trunk from which the brancheshad been riven away in some of Nature's convulsions, probably electric.Anyhow, the bull started for the boy and the boy started for the tree.Tum-a-row! The boy reached the tree four and one-third seconds beforethe bull reached the same place, and the boy began climbing and was atleast thirty feet from the ground before the bull arrived. It isneedless to say that the boy climbed with much rapidity. The bullfollowed rapaciously--yes, that's the word--and began climbing also withgreat rapidity behind the boy, and there was a race to what--if the termmay be applied to such a dead trunk of a tree--to the topmast. There thetree sloped to a point, which the boy, climbing with avidity--that's theword,--reached easily, under the stress of circumstances. The bull,climbing swiftly after, attained a height of between ten and fifteenfeet from his intended victim, and then, reaching the slope ofcompression, as one may say, of the dead tree, suddenly found himselfwithout sufficient grasp and slid down, again and again, as he sought toreach the apex of the cone. The boy, meanwhile, was and properly, too,in a state of utmost fear, as the bull from time to time seemed almostsuccessful in his upward attempts.

  "But there is a limit to endeavor. The bull, fatigued at last, sliddownward to the ground, just as the hen, who, happily for the boy, hadnoted from the distant barnyard what was going on, came desperately tothe rescue. The struggle which ensued was something doubtless without aparallel, or anything else in the way of similitude, in the history ofsingle combats. It was something frightful! The bellowing of the hen,the hissing and cackling of the bull, the scattering of scales from bothadversaries as they clashed together, cannot be adequately described.But the end came quickly. There came a moment, when perspiring andpanting, the hen gored the bull with all her might, mind and strength,and he fell lifeless to the ground.

  "The moral of this story is, be kind to a hen. Tum-a-row!"

  "Why do you say 'Tum-a-row'?" suddenly demanded Erastus.

  "Well, I hardly know, myself," said Abercrombie. "I guess it's a sort ofaccompaniment. It came in an old farmer's song I heard when I was alittle boy, in an old song which told about a young man who went 'downin the medder for to mow,' and who 'mowed around till he did feel apizen sarpint bite him on the heel;' and, every little while, throughthe song came the word 'Tum-a-row.' That's the reason 'Tum-a-row' comesin so often in the story. It isn't my fault; it just seems to belong.Tum-a-row!"

  "Tell me another! Tell me another!" shouted young Erastus, but therecame no sound from the twilight which encompassed the old people, norfrom the gloaming about the sweetheart, though little did it matter.Abercrombie had passed the caring point!

  "One more will I tell you," he said, speaking in a resonant and rotundvoice, to the wide-mouthed and expectant Erastus. "This is the story ofthe Dark Forest, the Charcoal Burners, the Witch and the BoaConstrictor.

  "Once there was a forest so dark that you cannot conceive of itsdarkness. Oh! it was just a forest dark from Darkville! It was fringedabout with a forest which was somewhat lighter, in which things lived,but nothing lived in the forest itself; it was too black! Among thepeople who lived in this
lighter fringe of forest were some CharcoalBurners. You will always find Charcoal Burners connected with a deepforest story, particularly in the German Medieval Legends. The CharcoalBurners in those stories usually lived in some glade in the middle ofthe wood, but the Charcoal Burners we are telling about lived on theoutside for the reason we have given--but they ought not really to becalled 'burners,' because they did not burn anything. Whenever orderscame for charcoal they simply took their shovels and went down an aisleinto the depth of the inner wood and dug out great hunks of theblackness, which they brought out and stacked upon wagons, and whichwere conveyed to Vienna and Wiesbaden and Oshkosh and all the othercharcoal commercial centers.

  "Now all this has nothing to do with the story. These matters about theCharcoal Burners I have related only because it chances that from theCharcoal Burners themselves the real story was gained. We ought to begrateful to them for what they have told.

  "Four or five miles east of the Charcoal Burners lived a BoaConstrictor. He was sixty feet long and had a gilt-edged appetite. Idon't believe in using slang, and gilt-edged is slightly slangy, but thebald fact stands out that he had a gilt-edged appetite. He lived mostlyon wild boars, but, when the supply of wild boars gave out on anyoccasion, he lived on most anything that came along.

  "Now, five miles east of the Boa Constrictor lived a Witch, and she wasa witch from Witchville. She was not any common witch, but one whoseslightest anathema would just curl your hair. Talk about brimstone! Whybrimstone would be just ice cream in any comparison you could makebetween this witch and other things in the world. She knew her business!Well, this Witch had three children, two sons and a daughter, nicelittle children, in their way. It happened, unfortunately, oneafternoon, that they strayed into the forest; and this afternoonhappened to be the particular afternoon on which the Boa Constrictor hadrun out of wild boars. He consumed the kids--I beg your pardon; young asyou are, I beg your pardon--I meant to say that he devoured the threeyoung children, that he encompassed them after the constrictor manner.

  "By and by, the Witch missed her children and, induced by maternalinstinct, went out looking for them, and so came to the abode of theConstrictor. They had been on good enough terms and she approached himaffably.

  "'Good morning, Mr. Constrictor,' said she.

  "'Good afternoon, Mrs. Witch,' said the Constrictor.

  "'Have you seen my children?' asked the lady.

  "'I have not', said the Constrictor.

  "The Witch was about to depart when a thought seemed to seize her andshe turned just about half way, assuming what may be designated as asuddenly reflective attitude;

  "'Are you sure, Mr. Constrictor?' said she.

  "'I am sure,' said he.

  "Only a person with nerves under absolute control could have beenpresent on that occasion and considered unmoved the changes in theWitch's face. The accumulative grimness of her countenance becamesomething startling. She spoke slowly but her voice had that hard, low,even tone which we read about in novels.

  "'What is the reason that you are so big in the middle?' said she.

  "'I am not big in the middle, your eyes deceive you,' said he.

  "'You are lying, Mr. Constrictor,' said she, 'and I'm going to make youtell the truth. I am going to make an Incantation over and around andall about you that will give you some idea of what forces are at work inthe universe.'

  "Then from somewhere about her skirt, she pulled out a broomstick, andwaved it five times, and said; 'Abracadabra, Pentagon' and some otherthings, and, of course, the performance had its effect and theConstrictor had to tell the truth. He simply had to! He admitted theconsumption of the three children.

  "Imagine the demeanor of the Witch when she learned that her threechildren had been devoured by the Constrictor! For a little time she wasspeechless and white in the face, then, as reason and the control of herpowers returned, the malignant look which came was something that simplydefies description. Her voice, as she spoke to the Constrictor thistime, was shrill and raucous.

  "'I am going to pronounce an Anathema upon you,' she said, 'and I'mgoing to do it now. I am going to make you the same at both ends.'

  "A very adroit and clever Constrictor was this, and he said nothing. Buthe chuckled to himself: 'If she makes me the same at both ends, I willhave more fun than ever. With a mouth at each end, I can eat twice asmany wild boars and be twice as happy.' He coiled closer to the groundwith a look of affected submission, and the Witch went on with herAnathema.

  "It was a fine anathema, there was no question about it. Even theleaves on the trees about first turned brown, then crackled and thensmoked, as she was making her few remarks. She completed the formula anddeparted, leaving the Constrictor to become the same at both ends, andhe lay there, still chuckling, waiting for his double-headedness anddouble enjoyment in the future.

  "Then came to him a sort of quivery feeling, and he knew that he waschanging. It did not take more than an hour at the utmost, when thatConstrictor suddenly realized that he was the same at both ends, but--hedid not have two heads! He had two tails! There he was, a great BoaConstrictor, sixty feet long, with a tail at each end. Of course onlyone thing could happen to a Boa Constrictor with a tail at each end. Hemust starve to death, simply because he could not eat. Day after daypassed, and the Constrictor grew less and less in dimensions, and,finally, the day came when there was only a little worm, smaller than anangle-worm. Then the day came when there was no worm at all.

  "And that is the end of the story, because there isn't any more worm!"

  The last sentence of the tale was concluded. Silence prevailed for amoment or two, and then there was a gasp of delight and approval fromErastus.

  "That's bully!" he said. "Will you tell me some more, some other time,Mr. Abercrombie?"

  "Certainly, my boy," said Abercrombie. "It is well that we should becomeacquainted with natural history, and in the simple tales I tell you Ishall endeavor at all times to introduce such information as willincrease your store of knowledge. Above all, we must get acquainted withnatural history."

  He paused. The boy had nothing to say. Unfortunately, nobody else hadanything to say. To Abercrombie the silence seemed, in a vague way thathe could not fully comprehend, destructive. There was something thematter with the atmosphere and he knew it. The gloaming had drifted intodarkness, and he could no longer see either his prospectivefather-in-law or mother-in-law or his sweetheart. He knew only that, asan adviser of parents of the younger male offspring of the two who werealso parents of his one object in life, he had flashed presumptuously inthe pan, that, too, in the dimness of the gathering darkness, whenpeople are most reflective and that he had accomplished the possibilityirretrievable.

  The silence was broken at last by the voice of Mrs. Dobson. The voicewas thin and didn't seem to really "break" the silence. It seemed tosplit it neatly.

  "Are those your ideas, Mr. Abercrombie, as to the sort of knowledge ofnatural history which should be conveyed to young children?"

  "Yes, I'd like to know, myself," added Mr. Dobson.

  Not a laugh, not a comment, not a sound came from the corner where satMiss Frances Dobson. She was strictly an aside.

  Abercrombie pondered through swift seconds. He was in what, in his ownmind--so much are we addicted to the pernicious habit of thinking in thevernacular--'in a hole'. But, the man at bay has frequently proved ahero in a plain North American way. Abercrombie arose to the occasion!

  "It may be," he said, "that in the telling to Erastus of these simpletales, I have not followed precisely the practices of those generallyengaged in the teaching of youth. It may be that I have not instructedhim in the manner in which I might have done had I allowed a few yearsto lapse and my beard to grow longer and had shaved my upper lip. It maybe that in the tales I have told Erastus there are certaindiscrepancies, synchronisms, and anachronisms. My pictures may havepossessed a shade too much of the impressionist character. But what ofit? What I wanted to do was to give Erastus a general idea of Bla
ckForests, Witches, and Boa Constrictors."

  Silence reigned again, and reigned very thoroughly for some time. Thenup rose the modern young woman.

  No one in the room could see any one else, but all could hear. What theparents heard was the sound of light footsteps along the porch and then,after a pause;

  "You're a ridiculous gentleman,--Don't pull me so!"

  What they heard also was a thoughtful and generally commendatory remarkfrom Erastus:

  "Say, old man, you're all right. You're the stuff!"

  They heard no more at the time. The next morning was a finemorning--there have been lots of them--and, as breakfast was aboutending, there took place a conversation between her parents and MissDobson--a conversation inaugurated by them but ended, decidedly, byher.

  Given a young woman, the only one in the family and possessed ofcharacter, she can usually make her parents "know their place," thoughdoing all this, of course, with kindness and consideration. Miss Dobsonand Abercrombie are formally engaged. The fortunate but alarmed youngman had not realized what would happen when the reinforcements came up.