by Van Reid
A long-limbed fellow with a long nose and exceedingly long ears moved his mouth for a moment before words began to form. “Where’d you meet them, Jasper?” he inquired.
A shorter, plumper sort of fellow beside the long-eared man piped up immediately. “Henry says, ‘Where’d you meet them, Jasper?’”
“They just rescued me from Sparky, if you must know.” Jasper hooked a thumb over his shoulder to indicate that this deliverance had been actuated in recent history and not too far away.
“Go on with you!” shouted one bearded hobo, waving his broken-crowned bowler before him as if he were swatting flies.
“Sparky?” said a thin man who seemed to have been interrupted with his laundry. He held a wet shirt before him like a plucked goose. “Leander Spark, you mean?” There was a general noise of incredulity and several of them laid their eyes on Thump as the most likely candidate for tangling with Leander Spark.
“Paid off my debt, just like that,” said Jasper with a snap of his fingers. “And never laid eyes on me before in their lives.” He explained the scene—how Thump had offered to poke Sparky in the eye (which he hadn’t, or at least not in such detail) and how Jasper’s debts were absolved and of course how Jasper had reimbibed (in his words) the debt while playing upon Sparky’s superstitious nature. Jasper made a good tale of it, and it was considered a triumph all around. Someone kept shouting “Go on with you!” and the Moosepathians were slapped on the shoulders, their hands were shaken, and their ribs poked good naturedly. Eagleton let out a little whoop, as if he’d been tickled.
“That was some kind of you,” said the long-eared hobo while he pumped Ephram’s hand.
“Henry says ‘That was some kind of you,’” said the plump fellow when it came his turn.
The members of the club looked serious when they were offered bowls of stew from a nearby pot, their hunger mysteriously dissolving as they leaned over the proffered meal; the viands did appear a little suspect but, beyond that, it would do no one any good to describe the hobo chowder or to conjecture upon the nature of its ingredients. The members of the club very politely declined, and, though they were affected by the necessity for dispatch, they did their best to mind the jolly gathering about them.
An old trailblazer rigged out in overwide trousers tied at the waist with a thick length of rope and a coat several sizes too small and bursting at principal joints urged Thump to go to Brownville Junction with him by rail, whereat (he promised) they would find the fishing conducive to an easy life. Meanwhile, Ephram was paralyzed with astonishment by the hatless and cigar-smoking fellow’s tale, which related salient events in the history of his dog named Puddle.
“You’ve never seen such an animal for killing a rat!” declared the man, who seemed to be wearing the remnants of a Federal Army Coat. “He’s a sincere fiend for putting hares in the pot!” The man had one eye that grew wide when any large emotion entered him, which seemed to be often.
“I wouldn’t have guessed,” said Ephram.
“Previously owned by a man who was targeting geese when the discharge from his shotgun knocked him off the barn roof!”
“The man?”
“Indeed.”
“My word!” said Ephram. “Did it hurt him?” He didn’t even get around to asking what the man was doing on a barn roof with a shotgun.
“I don’t know if it hurt him,” admitted the old wanderer, “but he was killed pretty thoroughly.”
“I am so sorry!”
“Never met him myself. But I was in the vicinity and had a crick in my neck.”
Ephram wasn’t sure where the crick fell in the narrative of the dog and the man who was knocked off a barn roof by a self-induced shotgun blast, but the narrator was off to other things.
Eagleton, meanwhile, was attempting to explain to Jasper Packet and several others among the crowd that he and his fellow club members must be off, and quickly.
“Who is this woman you’re after?” wondered Jasper, which question brought others into the conversation.
“I beg your pardon,” said Eagleton. “We aren’t after Mrs. Roberto but certain nefarious individuals who may have already imperiled her.”
“We hope to rescue her, if need be,” said Ephram.
“Mrs. Roberto?” said someone.
“What’s that?” said another, and the name as well as the gist of Eagleton’s and Ephram’s words wafted through the gathering of ragged men like a breeze among trees.
“Mrs. Roberto?” said the man with the dog. His eye grew wide. “The woman in the balloon?”
“What woman is that?” said the long-eared man.
“Henry says, ‘What woman is that?’” said his plump companion.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump nodded or shook their heads at one question and another, and did their best to put in a word edgewise, till someone came out of his hut with a handbill advertising the accomplishments of the woman in question as performed two years before in the heart of Bangor itself.
Thump removed his hat when the bill was unrolled before him, and Ephram and Eagleton stood with their hands awkwardly at their sides. The image of the parachuting woman was, necessarily, a failed attempt at portraying the original, but it was enough to bring the crowd to complete silence, and, beside this reverent quiet, the noises common to the waterfront and the train yard above the shore seemed common indeed—uncouth and even rude. Every face was grave and every hat doffed.
Jasper stepped forward and pointed with great respect to the image of the woman with the parachute. “Do you mean to say that this lady is in danger?” he said.
Ephram, Eagleton, and then Thump opened their mouths but no sound issued forth. They considered the train of events and evidences that had brought them to this shoreside hobo village on the rough end of Bangor, and they closed their mouths again.
“It’s a long story,” said Thump finally.
“We have every reason to believe,” said Ephram, “that Mrs. Roberto is the victim of some diabolic threat.”
“Though we have no idea where she is,” added Eagleton, “or where she would be under ordinary circumstances.”
“We are the Moosepath League,” summed up Thump.
The mood of the crowd grew dark. Brows creased, eyes glimmered meaningfully. There might even have been a flicker of recognition in one face or two at the name of the Grand Society, but other concerns overshadowed questions regarding the club.
“So where are you heading if you don’t know where to find her?” wondered the man with the dog.
“It is little to go by,” said Thump quietly, “but we have the address of a person who may know something about Mrs. Roberto.” He had difficulty referring to the honored lady as simply her or she. “In Dresden Mills,” he pronounced with all due solemnity.
“Dresden Mills,” said someone.
The man with the dog nodded, then said, “Boys! Pack your trunks! We’re heading for Dresden Mills!”
A great cheer rang out and hands and hats waved in the air. The commotion was terrific. Pots of stew were emptied for a quick slurp, fires were kicked out, blankets and bedrolls were rolled up with small possessions, and some fellows simply stood where they were as everything they owned was at that moment occupied upon their persons.
“I sure do hope we find her,” said the lengthy hobo to Eagleton
“Henry says, “‘I sure do hope we find her,’” informed his echo
“Thank you,” Eagleton was saying, when someone shouted “Wait! Wait!” and they could see one hobo dancing up and down with his hand in the air. “Wait! Hadn’t we ought to have a word with Blind Po?”
The unexpected cessation of noise that followed this declaration was almost as alarming as the commotion itself, and the Moosepathians gaped as if they had suddenly lost the virtue of their hearing.
“What?” said the man with the dog.
“Blind Po!” said one of the hoboes, marching forward through the crowd in order to be heard. “We should speak with
Blind Po.”
A low, communal muttering greeted this statement, and the mob parted so that the attention of the man with the dog and that of the three friends was directed toward a semipermanent hut that leaned against a half-broken, freestanding remnant of brick wall. The lead hobo ambled in the direction of this shanty and the Moosepathians were pulled after him, partly by the obvious expectations of the crowd and partly by their own curiosity. With the dog perched on his shoulder, the fellow who seemed to call the orders parted a curtain that answered for a door to the shack and called inside.
“Blind Po? Are you awake?”
“Yes, yes,” came an aged voice, and the man at the curtain stepped back to make room for a bald-pated, gray-bearded wreck of an ancient human being with pale, sightless eyes. “I hear you,” he said, and he reached up with a wavering hand till he touched the muzzle of the dog. He scratched the creature’s head and laughed when he received a grateful lick in return.
“We’re on a tear, Old Po,” said the dog-bearing fellow. “These fellows here saved Jasper’s hide today, and they say as how Mrs. Roberto the balloonist is in some distress.”
“We’re going to Dresden Mills!” said someone.
“Yes, yes,” said the old man. He lifted his face and sniffed the air. There was quiet, save for a train whistle from the north. He pulled at his fingers and muttered to himself like a man doing sums, then he turned his sightless gaze back to the hobo with the dog and said, “A mighty storm will come behind you! A great thing of fire and wind, and the trees themselves will clutch their roots into the ground!”
This communication moved through the crowd like a careless body, stirring men uneasily as it passed. The man with the dog turned to Ephram and said in a near whisper, “He talks poetical sometimes. By storm he’ll be meaning some awful battle or something.” Then he said, “Po, this storm you’re talking of—what sort of calamity are you seeing?”
“You know!” said the old fellow. “Clouds and rain and such!”
“Oh,” said the hobo leader; then, after an indeterminate pause, he ventured to say, “Well, there are those of us could use a bath.”
“You won’t find her!” declared the ancient suddenly.
“We won’t?” said the man with the dog, echoed quickly by Thump, Eagleton, and Ephram—and in that order.
“Not in Dresden Mills!” declaimed the blind man.
“Well,” said someone, “there’s no sense in our going.”
“For certain, it’s someone’s death if you don’t!” asserted the seer.
“What?” came the general cry.
“Death and loss of property! I can see no more.” He lowered his face, took a breath, and said, “I will go with you.”
They heard the train again, and some of the hoboes were hurrying in the direction of the yards.
“Do you have passage?” the man with the dog asked Ephram.
“Why, yes,” said Ephram.
“Well, that’s a good thing. The quickest job of it is to train down to Wiscasset and take the slim rail north to Head Tide, and from there it’s but a smart jog by the Rabbit Path to Dresden. It’ll be a chore for all these boys to find a place to catch hold on the narrow-gauge, but we’ll knock down that pine when we come to it. I’m Big Eye Pfelt,” he finished, placing on his head a black hat, which he had produced from somewhere on his person, and shaking Ephram’s hand. “Puddle you’ve met.”
“Matthew Ephram,” said that worthy, and he presented his two friends. They were amazed to see old Blind Po scamper off for the yards with a cane swinging before him.
“Proud to make your acquaintance,” said Big Eye Pfelt.
“That old gentleman will harm himself,” said Eagleton.
Big Eye looked about but didn’t see any old gentleman. “We’ll have to watch after Old Po,” he admitted, however. “Do you know him?”
“We don’t,” said Eagleton.
“The police are looking for him.”
“Goodness’ sakes!”
“I fear that goodness had nothing to do with it.”
Simultaneous to this colloquy, the hobo village was emptying as might a military camp on the morning of a long awaited conflict. The members of the club had never seen anything like it, but they could believe that men of few possessions were able to travel on short notice and with such speed. They, too, were carried along by this unexpected migration and found themselves treading a series of damp, dark alleys.
“The police?” said Ephram. For all their speed, Blind Po had outdistanced them.
“It’s his poetic charm the women can’t ignore.”
“Can’t they?” wondered one or another of the Moosepathians.
“But he has no constancy in him. There’s a breach of promise suit, up Rockport way, and a kid somewhere he claims isn’t his.” The thought may have elicited some pang of melancholy in the man for he sighed, shook his head, and his one odd eye grew very wide.
“Can’t they?” said one of the Moosepathians again. They had not gotten past the earlier assertion regarding Blind Po’s poetic charm.
Suddenly they came out of shadow and into the midst of the freight end of Bangor’s South Station. Big Eye Pfelt was hopping over tracks with one hand on his hat and the other tucking the little dog into his shirt.
“It’s two minutes past the hour of two,” said Ephram. Eagleton was considering the sky, and Thump scratched his head.
40. Rescued Before Drowning
"I’m afraid I interrupted your afternoon,” said Olin Bell when they were underway.
“You didn’t interrupt anything,” promised Dee. It was not the highest example of a spring day, but it was fine enough and she took a luxurious breath. “I had just returned from next door,” she said to Olin then, “making peace with the Burns’ dog.”
“Is he mean?” asked Olin with a frown.
“Not in the least. Mr. Porch has been menacing him.”
“Your cat?” Olin let out a short laugh, then looked perplexed. “The Burns have that great monster, don’t they?”
“They call him Rex,” said Dee, and Olin laughed again.
“That would be worth seeing,” he said. “I just had a litter of kittens at the farm.”
“Oh?” she said with dissembled innocence.
He cast her a sidelong glance and added, “Well, the barn cat did.”
“Do you suppose that is where Mr. Porch disappears to now and again?” wondered Dee. “He was gone for most of a week the last time.”
Olin was a farmer, born and bred, and not one to flinch at any aspect of animal husbandry, but this was perhaps a little too earthy a conversation to be having with a woman, no matter that they were talking about cats. “Your mother and Uncle Fale seem to be doing well,” he said.
“The winter was a little hard on their rheumatism, I think.”
“My Uncle Tim used to say he creaked like an old gate from November to April,” said Olin.
Before the road turned left they had a view of the wooded mound of Blinn Hill, a mile and a half away, and of the fields and slopes between. Olin took the wagon through the village, toward the river and Pittston. Mrs. Alley was in her yard hanging out clothes. She wore thick spectacles, and she shielded them with one hand against the blue of the sky to look down from the bank at the passing wagon. When she knew who she was looking at, she raised her other hand and waved. Dee called to the woman and they exchanged pleasantries about the weather.
“Mrs. Mooney says it’ll rain tonight,” said Mrs. Alley. “Mr. Mooney has a weather elbow.”
“She gets her forecast from the same place you do,” said Dee when they were out of Mrs. Alley’s hearing; what Dee was thinking, however, was that there would be some talk in town now that she and Olin had been seen together.
“Beats the almanac,” said Olin, who was probably thinking the same thing.
The wagon rumbled over the wooden bridge that spanned the Eastern River, and soon they climbed the hill beyond. There was a beauti
ful farm near the top of this slope—a long, red barn, recently stained, and a grand rambling house with bright white clapboards. A golden horse at the top of the barn told the wind. The rail fences were regular, and the animals within their jurisdiction looked fat and healthy. Old Mr. Chalk, who owned this grand estate, sat in the sun on a stool, just outside his barn doors, hard at work on something, but he looked up and waved as they went by.
There followed a considerable stretch of road with nothing for the eye but the occasional tree guarding hilly meadows or for the ear but birdsong and the rattle of the wagon.
“You’ll be heading south pretty soon, I suppose,” said Olin.
“Yes,” she replied without really thinking about what he had said. She was in an almost mesmerized frame of mind; the suddenness of Olin’s arrival, the awkwardness of it, along with the unaccustomed movement of the wagon, had disrupted her nerves, then wearied her a little, and finally lulled her into this almost sleeplike state. The day, too, had its effect, and she had always been prone to the fever of the season. It was the space of a breath or two before she realized what he had said, and she answered him again. “Yes. In a few weeks, I think.”
He nodded without looking at her and Dee felt a sudden sinking of the heart, the cause of which was difficult to unravel. Some of this emotion was not unfamiliar. She had always left Dresden, even as summer arrived, with mixed feelings, but the breadth of this unexpected sadness surprised her. With this handsome man riding beside her, she was more than a little sorry to be thinking about leaving town so soon. She sensed disappointment in Olin as well, though he never showed it in any material way; Uncle Fale always said that if someone else fell and scratched their knee, Dee would feel it worse than they did.
But it was plain to her the sort of courage and resolve it had taken Olin to come and invite her for a ride; rather impulsively, she liked him very much, and her own personal distress and his (as she perceived it) were tangled inside of her somehow. “The summer always goes very quickly,” she said.