The Classic American Short Story Megapack, Volume 1

by Ambrose Bierce

  XII

  Late one evening Trescott, returning from a professional call, paused his buggy at the Hagenthorpe gate. He tied the mare to the old tin-covered post, and entered the house. Ultimately he appeared with a companion—a man who walked slowly and carefully, as if he were learning. He was wrapped to the heels in an old-fashioned ulster. They entered the buggy and drove away.

  After a silence only broken by the swift and musical humming of the wheels on the smooth road, Trescott spoke. “Henry,” he said, “I’ve got you a home here with old Alek Williams. You will have everything you want to eat and a good place to sleep, and I hope you will get along there all right. I will pay all your expenses, and come to see you as often as I can. If you don’t get along, I want you to let me know as soon as possible, and then we will do what we can to make it better.”

  The dark figure at the doctor’s side answered with a cheerful laugh. “These buggy wheels don’ look like I washed ’em yesterday, docteh,” he said.

  Trescott hesitated for a moment, and then went on insistently, “I am taking you to Alek Williams, Henry, and I—”

  The figure chuckled again. “No, ’deed! No, seh! Alek Williams don’ know a hoss! ’Deed he don’t. He don’ know a hoss from a pig.” The laugh that followed was like the rattle of pebbles.

  Trescott turned and looked sternly and coldly at the dim form in the gloom from the buggy-top. “Henry,” he said, “I didn’t say anything about horses. I was saying—”

  “Hoss? Hoss?” said the quavering voice from these near shadows. “Hoss? ’Deed I don’ know all erbout a boss! ’Deed I don’t.” There was a satirical chuckle.

  At the end of three miles the mare slackened and the doctor leaned forward, peering, while holding tight reins. The wheels of the buggy bumped often over out-cropping bowlders. A window shone forth, a simple square of topaz on a great black hill-side. Four dogs charged the buggy with ferocity, and when it did not promptly retreat, they circled courageously around the flanks, baying. A door opened near the window in the hill-side, and a man came and stood on a beach of yellow light.

  “Yah! yah! You Roveh! You Susie! Come yah! Come yah this minit!”

  Trescott called across the dark sea of grass, “Hello, Alek!”

  “Hello!”

  “Come down here and show me where to drive.”

  The man plunged from the beach into the surf, and Trescott could then only trace his course by the fervid and polite ejaculations of a host who was somewhere approaching. Presently Williams took the mare by the head, and uttering cries of welcome and scolding the swarming dogs, led the equipage towards the lights. When they halted at the door and Trescott was climbing out, Williams cried, “Will she stand, docteh?”

  “She’ll stand all right, but you better hold her for a minute. Now, Henry.” The doctor turned and held both arms to the dark figure. It crawled to him painfully like a man going down a ladder. Williams took the mare away to be tied to a little tree, and when he returned he found them awaiting him in the gloom beyond the rays from the door.

  He burst out then like a siphon pressed by a nervous thumb. “Hennery! Hennery, ma ol’ frien’. Well, if I ain’ glade. If I ain’ glade!”

  Trescott had taken the silent shape by the arm and led it forward into the full revelation of the light. “Well, now, Alek, you can take Henry and put him to bed, and in the morning I will—”

  Near the end of this sentence old Williams had come front to front with Johnson. He gasped for a second, and then yelled the yell of a man stabbed in the heart.

  For a fraction of a moment Trescott seemed to be looking for epithets. Then he roared: “You old black chump! You old black—Shut up! Shut up! Do you hear?”

  Williams obeyed instantly in the matter of his screams, but he continued in a lowered voice: “Ma Lode amassy! Who’d ever think? Ma Lode amassy!”

  Trescott spoke again in the manner of a commander of a battalion. “Alek!”

  The old negro again surrendered, but to himself he repeated in a whisper, “Ma Lode!” He was aghast and trembling.

  As these three points of widening shadows approached the golden doorway a hale old negress appeared there, bowing. “Good-evenin’, docteh! Good-evenin’! Come in! come in!” She had evidently just retired from a tempestuous struggle to place the room in order, but she was now bowing rapidly. She made the effort of a person swimming.

  “Don’t trouble yourself, Mary,” said Trescott, entering. “I’ve brought Henry for you to take care of, and all you’ve got to do is to carry out what I tell you.” Learning that he was not followed, he faced the door, and said, “Come in, Henry.”

  Johnson entered. “Whee!” shrieked Mrs. Williams. She almost achieved a back somersault. Six young members of the tribe of Williams made a simultaneous plunge for a position behind the stove, and formed a wailing heap.

  XIII

  “You know very well that you and your family lived usually on less than three dollars a week, and now that Dr. Trescott pays you five dollars a week for Johnson’s board, you live like millionaires. You haven’t done a stroke of work since Johnson began to board with you—everybody knows that—and so what are you kicking about?”

  The judge sat in his chair on the porch, fondling his cane, and gazing down at old Williams, who stood under the lilac-bushes. “Yes, I know, jedge,” said the negro, wagging his head in a puzzled manner. “Tain’t like as if I didn’t ’preciate what the docteh done, but—but—well, yeh see, jedge,” he added, gaining a new impetus, “it’s—it’s hard wuk. This ol’ man nev’ did wuk so hard. Lode, no.”

  “Don’t talk such nonsense, Alek,” spoke the judge, sharply. “You have never really worked in your life—anyhow, enough to support a family of sparrows, and now when you are in a more prosperous condition than ever before, you come around talking like an old fool.”

  The negro began to scratch his head. “Yeh see, jedge,” he said at last, “my ol’ ’ooman she cain’t ’ceive no lady callahs, nohow.”

  “Hang lady callers’” said the judge, irascibly. “If you have flour in the barrel and meat in the pot, your wife can get along without receiving lady callers, can’t she?”

  “But they won’t come ainyhow, jedge,” replied Williams, with an air of still deeper stupefaction. “Noner ma wife’s frien’s ner noner ma frien’s ’ll come near ma res’dence.”

  “Well, let them stay home if they are such silly people.”

  The old negro seemed to be seeking a way to elude this argument, but evidently finding none, he was about to shuffle meekly off. He halted, however. “Jedge,” said he, “ma ol’ ’ooman’s near driv’ abstracted.”

  “Your old woman is an idiot,” responded the judge.

  Williams came very close and peered solemnly through a branch of lilac. “Judge,” he whispered, “the chillens.”

  “What about them?”

  Dropping his voice to funereal depths, Williams said, “They—they cain’t eat.”

  “Can’t eat!” scoffed the judge, loudly. “Can’t eat! You must think I am as big an old fool as you are. Can’t eat—the little rascals! What’s to prevent them from eating?”

  In answer, Williams said, with mournful emphasis, “Hennery.” Moved with a kind of satisfaction at his tragic use of the name, he remained staring at the judge for a sign of its effect.

  The judge made a gesture of irritation. “Come, now, you old scoundrel, don’t beat around the bush any more. What are you up to? What do you want? Speak out like a man, and don’t give me any more of this tiresome rigamarole.”

  “I ain’t er-beatin’ round ’bout nuffin, jedge,” replied Williams, indignantly. “No, seh; I say whatter got to say right out. ’Deed I do.”

  “Well, say it, then.”

  “Jedge,” began the negro, taking off his hat and switching his knee with it, “Lode knows I’d do jes ’bout as
much fer five dollehs er week as ainy cul’d man, but—but this yere business is awful, jedge. I raikon ’ain’t been no sleep in—in my house sence docteh done fetch ’im.”

  “Well, what do you propose to do about it?”

  Williams lifted his eyes from the ground and gazed off through the trees. “Raikon I got good appetite, an’ sleep jes like er dog, but he—he’s done broke me all up. ’Tain’t no good, nohow. I wake up in the night; I hear ’im, mebbe, er-whimperin’ an’ er-whimperin’, an’ I sneak an’ I sneak until I try th’ do’ to see if he locked in. An’ he keep me er-puzzlin’ an’ er-quakin’ all night long. Don’t know how’ll do in th’ winter. Can’t let ’im out where th’ chillen is. He’ll done freeze where he is now.” Williams spoke these sentences as if he were talking to himself. After a silence of deep reflection he continued: “Folks go round sayin’ he ain’t Hennery Johnson at all. They say he’s er devil!”

  “What?” cried the judge.

  “Yesseh,” repeated Williams, in tones of injury, as if his veracity had been challenged. “Yesseh. I’m er-tellin’ it to yeh straight, jedge. Plenty cul’d people folks up my way say it is a devil.”

  “Well, you don’t think so yourself, do you?”

  “No. ’Tain’t no devil. It’s Hennery Johnson.”

  “Well, then, what is the matter with you? You don’t care what a lot of foolish people say. Go on ’tending to your business, and pay no attention to such idle nonsense.”

  “’Tis nonsense, jedge; but he looks like er devil.”

  “What do you care what he looks like?” demanded the judge.

  “Ma rent is two dollehs and er half er month,” said Williams, slowly.

  “It might just as well be ten thousand dollars a month,” responded the judge. “You never pay it, anyhow.”

  “Then, anoth’ thing,” continued Williams, in his reflective tone. “If he was all right in his haid I could stan’ it; but, jedge, he’s crazier ’n er loon. Then when he looks like er devil, an’ done skears all ma frien’s away, an’ ma chillens cain’t eat, an’ ma ole ’ooman jes raisin’ Cain all the time, an’ ma rent two dollehs an’ er half er month, an’ him not right in his haid, it seems like five dollehs er week—”

  The judge’s stick came down sharply and suddenly upon the floor of the porch. “There,” he said, “I thought that was what you were driving at.”

  Williams began swinging his head from side to side in the strange racial mannerism. “Now hol’ on a minnet, jedge,” he said, defensively. “’Tain’t like as if I didn’t ’preciate what the docteh done. ’Tain’t that. Docteh Trescott is er kind man, an’ ’tain’t like as if I didn’t ’preciate what he done; but—but—”

  “But what? You are getting painful, Alek. Now tell me this: did you ever have five dollars a week regularly before in your life?”

  Williams at once drew himself up with great dignity, but in the pause after that question he drooped gradually to another attitude. In the end he answered, heroically: “No, jedge, I ’ain’t. An’ ’tain’t like as if I was er-sayin’ five dollehs wasn’t er lot er money for a man like me. But, jedge, what er man oughter git fer this kinder wuk is er salary. Yesseh, jedge,” he repeated, with a great impressive gesture; “fer this kinder wuk er man oughter git er Salary.” He laid a terrible emphasis upon the final word.

  The judge laughed. “I know Dr. Trescott’s mind concerning this affair, Alek; and if you are dissatisfied with your boarder, he is quite ready to move him to some other place; so, if you care to leave word with me that you are tired of the arrangement and wish it changed, he will come and take Johnson away.”

  Williams scratched his head again in deep perplexity. “Five dollehs is er big price fer bo’d, but ’tain’t no big price fer the bo’d of er crazy man,” he said, finally.

  “What do you think you ought to get?” asked the judge.

  “Well,” answered Alek, in the manner of one deep in a balancing of the scales, “he looks like er devil, an’ done skears e’rybody, an’ ma chillens cain’t eat, an’ I cain’t sleep, an’ he ain’t right in his haid, an’—”

  “You told me all those things.”

  After scratching his wool, and beating his knee with his hat, and gazing off through the trees and down at the ground, Williams said, as he kicked nervously at the gravel, “Well, jedge, I think it is wuth—” He stuttered.

  “Worth what?”

  “Six dollehs,” answered Williams, in a desperate outburst.

  The judge lay back in his great arm-chair and went through all the motions of a man laughing heartily, but he made no sound save a slight cough. Williams had been watching him with apprehension.

  “Well,” said the judge, “do you call six dollars a salary?”

  “No, seh,” promptly responded Williams. “’Tain’t a salary. No, ’deed! ’Tain’t a salary.” He looked with some anger upon the man who questioned his intelligence in this way.

  “Well, supposing your children can’t eat?”

  “I—”

  “And supposing he looks like a devil? And supposing all those things continue? Would you be satisfied with six dollars a week?”

  Recollections seemed to throng in Williams’s mind at these interrogations, and he answered dubiously. “Of co’se a man who ain’t right in his haid, an’ looks like er devil—But six dollehs—” After these two attempts at a sentence Williams suddenly appeared as an orator, with a great shiny palm waving in the air. “I tell yeh, jedge, six dollehs is six dollehs, but if I git six dollehs for bo’ding Hennery Johnson, I uhns it! I uhns it!”

  “I don’t doubt that you earn six dollars for every week’s work you do,” said the judge.

  “Well, if I bo’d Hennery Johnson fer six dollehs er week, I uhns it! I uhns it!” cried Williams, wildly.

  XIV

  Reifsnyder’s assistant had gone to his supper, and the owner of the shop was trying to placate four men who wished to be shaved at once. Reifsnyder was very garrulous—a fact which made him rather remarkable among barbers, who, as a class, are austerely speechless, having been taught silence by the hammering reiteration of a tradition. It is the customers who talk in the ordinary event.

  As Reifsnyder waved his razor down the cheek of a man in the chair, he turned often to cool the impatience of the others with pleasant talk, which they did not particularly heed.

  “Oh, he should have let him die,” said Bainbridge, a railway engineer, finally replying to one of the barber’s orations. “Shut up, Reif, and go on with your business!”

  Instead, Reifsnyder paused shaving entirely, and turned to front the speaker. “Let him die?” he demanded. “How vas that? How can you let a man die?”

  “By letting him die, you chump,” said the engineer. The others laughed a little, and Reifsnyder turned at once to his work, sullenly, as a man overwhelmed by the derision of numbers.

  “How vas that?” he grumbled later. “How can you let a man die when he vas done so much for you?”

  “‘When he vas done so much for you?’” repeated Bainbridge. “You better shave some people. How vas that? Maybe this ain’t a barber shop?”

  A man hitherto silent now said, “If I had been the doctor, I would have done the same thing.”

  “Of course,” said Reifsnyder. “Any man vould do it. Any man that vas not like you, you—old—flint-hearted—fish.” He had sought the final words with painful care, and he delivered the collection triumphantly at Bainbridge. The engineer laughed.

  The man in the chair now lifted himself higher, while Reifsnyder began an elaborate ceremony of anointing and combing his hair. Now free to join comfortably in the talk, the man said: “They say he is the most terrible thing in the world. Young Johnnie Bernard—that drives the grocery wagon—saw him up at Alek Williams’s shanty, and he says he couldn’t eat anything for two days.”

  “Chee!
” said Reifsnyder.

  “Well, what makes him so terrible?” asked another.

  “Because he hasn’t got any face,” replied the barber and the engineer in duct.

  “Hasn’t got any face!” repeated the man. “How can he do without any face?”

  “He has no face in the front of his head.

  In the place where his face ought to grow.”

  Bainbridge sang these lines pathetically as he arose and hung his hat on a hook. The man in the chair was about to abdicate in his favor. “Get a gait on you now,” he said to Reifsnyder. “I go out at 7.31.”

  As the barber foamed the lather on the cheeks of the engineer he seemed to be thinking heavily. Then suddenly he burst out. “How would you like to be with no face?” he cried to the assemblage.

  “Oh, if I had to have a face like yours—” answered one customer.

  Bainbridge’s voice came from a sea of lather. “You’re kicking because if losing faces became popular, you’d have to go out of business.”

  “I don’t think it will become so much popular,” said Reifsnyder.

  “Not if it’s got to be taken off in the way his was taken off,” said another man. “I’d rather keep mine, if you don’t mind.”

  “I guess so!” cried the barber. “Just think!”

  The shaving of Bainbridge had arrived at a time of comparative liberty for him. “I wonder what the doctor says to himself?” he observed. “He may be sorry he made him live.”

  “It was the only thing he could do,” replied a man. The others seemed to agree with him.

  “Supposing you were in his place,” said one, “and Johnson had saved your kid. What would you do?”

  “Certainly!”

  “Of course! You would do anything on earth for him. You’d take all the trouble in the world for him. And spend your last dollar on him. Well, then?”

  “I wonder how it feels to be without any face?” said Reifsnyder, musingly.

  The man who had previously spoken, feeling that he had expressed himself well, repeated the whole thing. “You would do anything on earth for him. You’d take all the trouble in the world for him. And spend your last dollar on him. Well, then?”