by Mark Twain
“It’s all arranged, sir. Now if you—”
“Excellent! and most unexpected. Are the men—”
“No, but no matter, it’s arranged. If you can feed and wine and otherwise sumptuously and satisfactorily entertain your guests three hours, I’ll have the goods in the wagon then.”
“Oh, many, many thanks—I’ll make them stay all night.”
Doangivadam came to the kitchen, then, and told Katrina and 44 all this, and I was there just at that time and heard it; and Katrina said all right, she would protect him to the shop, now, and leave him in the care of the Virgin while he did the packing, and in two hours and a half dinner would be down to the wine and nuts and then she would come and help carry the boxes. Then he left with her, but I stayed, for no striker would be likely to venture into the kitchen, therefore I could be in 44’s company without danger. When Katrina got back, she said—
“That Doangivadam’s a gem of the ocean—he’s a man, that’s what he is, not a waxwork, like that Katzenyammer. I wasn’t going to discourage him, but we can’t carry the boxes. There’s five, and each of them a barrow-load; and besides, there has to be four carriers to the barrow. And then—”
Forty-Four interrupted:
“There’s two of you, and I’ll be the other two. You two will carry one end, and I’ll carry the other. I am plenty strong enough.”
“Child, you’ll just stay out of sight, that’s what you’ll do. Do you want to provoke the men every way you can think of, you foolish little numskull? Ain’t they down on you a plenty, just the way it is?”
“But you see, you two can’t carry the boxes, and if you’ll only let me help—”
“You’ll not budge a step—do you hear me?” She stood stern and resolute, with her knuckles in her hips. The boy looked disappointed and grieved, and that touched her. She dropped on her knees where he sat, and took his face between her hands, and said, “Kiss your old mother, and forgive”—which he did, and the tears came into her eyes, which a moment before were so stormy. “Ain’t you all I’ve got in the world? and don’t I love the ground you walk on, and can I bear to see you getting into more and more danger all the time, and no need of it? Here, bless your heart,” and she jumped up and brought a pie, “You and August sample that, and be good. It ain’t the kind you get outside of this kitchen, that you can’t tell from plate-mail when you bite it in the dark.”
We began on the pie with relish, and of course conversation failed for a time. By and by 44 said, softly—
“Mother, he gave his word, you know.”
Katrina was hit. She had to suspend work and think that over. She seated herself against the kitchen table, with her legs aslant and braced, and her arms folded and her chin down, and muttered several times, “Yes, that’s so, he did.” Finally she unlimbered and reached for the butcher-knife, which she fell to sharpening with energy on a brick. Then she lightly tested its edge with the ball of her thumb, and said—
“I know it—we’ve got to have two more. Doangivadam will force one, and I bet I’ll persuade the other.”
“Now I’m content,” said 44, fervently, which made Katrina beam with pleasure.
We stayed there in the comfortable kitchen and chatted and played checkers, intending to be asked by Katrina to take our dinner with her, for she was the friendliest and best table-company we had. As time drew on, it became jolly in the master’s private dining-room where it was his custom to feed guests of honor and distinction, and whenever a waiter came in or went out we could hear the distant bursts of merriment, and by and by bursts of song, also, showing that the heavy part of the feeding had been accomplished. Then we had our dinner with Katrina, and about the time we had finished, Doangivadam arrived hungry and pretty well tired out and said he had packed every box; but he wouldn’t take a bite, he said, until his job was finished up and the wagon loaded. So Katrina told him her plan for securing extra help by compulsion and persuasion, and he liked it and they started. Doangivadam said he hadn’t seen any of the men in sight, therefore he judged they must be lying in wait somewhere about the great court so as to interrupt any scheme of bribing the two porters of the freight wagon to help carry the boxes; so it was his idea to go there and see.
Katrina ordered us to stay behind, which we didn’t do, after they were out of sight. We went down by secret passages and reached the court ahead of them, and hid. We were near the wagon. The driver and porters had been given their supper, and had been to the stalls to feed and water the horses, and now they were walking up and down chatting and waiting to receive the freight. Our two friends arrived now, and in low voices began to ask these men if they had seen any men of the castle around about there, but before they could answer, something happened: we saw some dim big bulks emerge from our side of the court about fifty yards away and come in procession in our direction. Swiftly they grew more and more distinct under the stars and by the dim lamps, and they turned out to be men, and each of them was drooping under one of our big freight boxes. The idea—carrying it all alone! And another surprising thing was, that when the first man passed us it turned out to be Katzenyammer! Doangivadam was delighted out of his senses, almost, and said some splendid words of praise about his change of heart, but Katzenyammer could only grunt and growl, he was strained so by his burden.
And the next man was Binks! and there was more praise and more grunts. And next came Moses Haas—think of it! And then Gustav Fischer! And after him, the end of the procession—Ernest Wasserman! Why, Doangivadam could hardly believe it, and said he didn’t believe it, and couldn’t; and said “Is it you, Ernest?” and Ernest told him to go to hell, and then Doangivadam was satisfied and said “that settles it.”
For that was Ernest’s common word, and you could know him by it in the dark.
Katrina couldn’t say a word, she just stood there dazed. She saw the boxes stowed in the wagon, she saw the gang file back and disappear, and still she couldn’t get her voice till then; and even then all she could say, was—
“Well, it beats the band!”
Doangivadam followed them a little way, and wanted to have a supper and a night of it, but they answered him roughly and he had to give it up.
Chapter 14
The Freight wagon left at dawn; the honored guests had a late breakfast, paid down the money on the contract, then after a good-bye bottle they departed in their carriage. About ten the master, full of happiness and forgiveness and benevolent feeling, had the men assembled in the beer-and-chess room, and began a speech that was full of praises of the generous way they had thrown ill-will to the winds at the last moment and loaded the wagon last night and saved the honor and the life of his house—and went on and on, like that, with the water in his eyes and his voice trembling; and there the men sat and stared at one another, and at the master, with their mouths open and their breath standing still; till at last Katzenyammer burst out with—
“What in the nation are you mooning about? Have you lost your mind? We’ve saved you nothing; we’ve carried no boxes”—here he rose excited and banged the table—”and what’s more, we’ve arranged that nobody else shall carry a box or load that wagon till our waiting-time’s paid!”
Well, think of it! The master was so astonished that for a moment or two he couldn’t pull his language; then he turned sadly and uncertainly to Doangivadam and said—
“I could not have dreamed it. Surely you told me that they—”
“Certainly I did. I told you they brought down the boxes—”
“Listen at him!” cried Binks, springing to his feet.
“—those five there—Katzenyammer at the head, Wasserman at the tail—”
“As sure as my name’s Was—”
“—each with a box on his shoulders—”
All were on their feet, now, and they drowned out the speaker with a perfect deluge of derisive laughter, out of the midst of which burst Katzenyammer’s bull-voice shouting—
“Oh, listen to the maniac! Each carry
ing a box weighing five—hundred—pounds!”
Everybody took up that telling refrain and screamed it and yelled it with all his might. Doangivadam saw the killing force of the argument, and began to look very foolish—which the men saw, and they roared at him, challenging him to get up and purge his soul and trim his imagination. He was caught in a difficult place, and he did not try to let on that he was in easy circumstances. He got up and said, quietly, and almost humbly—
“I don’t understand it, I can’t explain it. I realize that no man here could carry one of those boxes; and yet as sure as I am alive I saw it done, just as I have said. Katrina saw it too. We were awake, and not dreaming. I spoke to every one of the five. I saw them load the boxes into the wagon. I—”
Moses Haas interrupted:
“Excuse me, nobody loaded any boxes into the wagon. It wouldn’t have been allowed. We’ve kept the wagon under watch.” Then he said, ironically, “Next, the gentleman will work his imagination up to saying the wagon is gone and the master paid.”
It was good sarcasm, and they all laughed; but the master said, gravely, “Yes, I have been paid,” and Doangivadam said, “Certainly the wagon is gone.”
“Oh, come!” said Moses, leaving his seat, “this is going a little too far; it’s a trifle too brazen; come out and say it to the wagon’s face. If you’ve got the cheek to do it, follow me.”
He moved ahead, and everybody swarmed after him, eager to see what would happen. I was getting worried; nearly half convinced, too; so it was a relief to me when I saw that the court was empty. Moses said—
“Now then, what do you call that? Is it the wagon, or isn’t it?”
Doangivadam’s face took on the light of a restored confidence and a great satisfaction, and he said—
“I see no wagon.”
“What!” in a general chorus.
“No—I don’t see any wagon.”
“Oh, great guns! perhaps the master will say he doesn’t see a wagon.”
“Indeed I see none,” said the master.
“Wel-l, well, well!” said Moses, and was plumb nonplussed. Then he had an idea, and said, “Come, Doangivadam, you seem to be near-sighted—please to follow me and touch the wagon, and see if you’ll have the hardihood to go on with this cheap comedy.”
They walked briskly out a piece, then Moses turned pale and stopped.
“By God, it’s gone!” he said.
There was more than one startled face in the crowd. They crept out, silent and looking scared; then they stopped, and sort of moaned—
“It is gone; it was a ghost-wagon.”
Then they walked right over the place where it had been, and crossed themselves and muttered prayers. Next they broke into a fury, and went storming back to the chess-room, and sent for the magician, and charged him with breaking his pledge, and swore the Church should have him now; and the more he begged the more they scared him, till at last they grabbed him to carry him off—then he broke down, and said that if they would spare his life he would confess. They told him to go ahead, and said if his confession was not satisfactory it would be the worse for him. He said—
“I hate to say it—I wish I could be spared it—oh, the shame of it, the ingratitude of it! But—pity me, pity me!—I have been nourishing a viper in my bosom. That boy, that pupil whom I have so loved—in my foolish fondness I taught him several of my enchantments, and now he is using them for your hurt and my ruin!”
It turned me sick and faint, the way the men plunged at 44, crying “Kill him, kill him!” but the master and Doangivadam jumped in and stood them off and saved him. Then Doangivadam talked some wisdom and reasonableness into the gang which had good effect. He said—
“What is the use to kill the boy? He isn’t the source; whatever power he has, he gets from his master, this magician here. Don’t you believe that if the magician wants to, he can put a spell on the boy that will abolish his power and make him harmless?”
Of course that was so, and everybody saw it and said so. So then Doangivadam worked some more wisdom: instead of letting on to know it all himself, he gave the others a chance to seem to know a little of what was left. He asked them to assist him in this difficult case and suggest some wise and practical way to meet this emergency. It flattered them, and they unloaded the suggestion that the magician be put under bond to shut off the boy’s enchantments, on pain of being delivered to the Church if anything happened again.
Doangivadam said it was the very thing; and praised the idea, and let on to think it was wonderfully intelligent, whereas it was only what he had suggested himself, and what anybody would have thought of and suggested, including the cat, there being no other way with any sense in it.
So they bonded the magician, and he didn’t lose any time in furnishing the pledge and getting a new lease on his hide. Then he turned on the boy and reproached him for his ingratitude, and then he fired up on his subject and turned his tongue and his temper loose, and most certainly he did give him down the banks and roll Jordan roll! I never felt so sorry for a person, and I think others were sorry for him, too, though they would have said that as long as he deserved it he couldn’t expect to be treated any gentler, and it would be a valuable lesson to him anyway, and save him future trouble, and worse. The way the magician finished, was awful; it made your blood run cold. He walked majestically across the room with his solemn professional stride, which meant that something was going to happen. He stopped in the door and faced around, everybody holding their breath, and said, slow and distinct, and pointing his long finger—
“Look at him, there where he sits—and remember my words, and the doom they are laden with. I have put him under my spells; if he thinks he can dissolve them and do you further harm, let him try. But I make this pledge and compact: on the day that he succeeds I will put an enchantment upon him, here in this room, which shall slowly consume him to ashes before your eyes!”
Then he departed. Dear me, but it was a startled crowd! Their faces were that white—and they couldn’t seem to say a word. But there was one good thing to see—there was pity in every face of them! That was human nature, wasn’t it—when your enemy is in awful trouble, to be sorry for him, even when your pride won’t let you go and say it to him before company? But the master and Doangivadam went and comforted him and begged him to be careful and work no spells and run no risks; and even Gustav Fischer ventured to go by, and heave out a kindly word in passing; and pretty soon the news had gone about the castle, and Marget and Katrina came; they begged him, too, and both got to crying, and that made him so conspicuous and heroic, that Ernest Wasserman was bursting with jealousy, and you could see he wished he was advertised for roasting, too, if this was what you get for it.
Katrina had sassed the magician more than once and had not seemed to be afraid of him, but this time her heart was concerned and her pluck was all gone. She went to him, with the crowd at her heels, and went on her knees and begged him to be good to her boy, and stay his hand from practising enchantments, and be his guardian and protector and save him from the fire. Everybody was moved. Except the boy. It was one of his times to be an ass and a wooden-head. He certainly could choose them with the worst judgment I ever saw. Katrina was alarmed; she was afraid his seeming lack of interest would have a bad effect with the magician, so she did his manners for him and conveyed his homage and his pledges of good behavior, and hurried him out of the presence.
Well, to my mind there is nothing that makes a person interesting like his being about to get burnt up. We had to take 44 to the sick lady’s room and let her gaze at him, and shudder, and shrivel, and wonder how he would look when he was done; she hadn’t had such a stirring up for years, and it acted on her kidneys and her spine and her livers and all those things and her other works, and started up her flywheel and her circulation, and she said, herself, it had done her more good than any bucketful of medicine she had taken that week. And begged him to come again, and he promised he would if he could. Also sa
id if he couldn’t he would send her some of the ashes; for he certainly was a good boy at bottom, and thoughtful.
They all wanted to see him, even people that had taken hardly any interest in him before—like Sara and Duffles and the other maids, and Fritz and Jacob and the other men-servants. And they were all tender toward him, and ever so gentle and kind, and gave him little things out of their poverty, and were ever so sorry, and showed it by the tears in their eyes. But not a tear out of him, you might have squeezed him in the hydraulic press and you wouldn’t have got dampness enough to cloud a razor, it being one of his blamed wooden times, you know.
Why, even Frau Stein and Maria were full of interest in him, and gazed at him, and asked him how it felt—in prospect, you know—and said a lot of things to him that came nearer being kind, than anything they were used to saying, by a good deal. It was surprising how popular he was, all of a sudden, now that he was in such awful danger if he didn’t behave himself. And although I was around with him I never got a sour look from the men, and so I hadn’t a twinge of fear the whole time. And then the supper we had that night in the kitchen!—Katrina laid out her whole strength on it, and cried all over it, and it was wonderfully good and salty.
Katrina told us to go and pray all night that God would not lead 44 into temptation, and she would do the same. I was ready and anxious to begin, and we went to my room.
Chapter 15
But when we got there I saw that 44 was not minded to pray, but was full of other and temporal interests. I was shocked, and deeply concerned; for I felt rising in me with urgency a suspicion which had troubled me several times before, but which I had ungently put from me each time—that he was indifferent to religion. I questioned him—he confessed it! I leave my distress and consternation to be imagined, I cannot describe them.
In that paralysing moment my life changed, and I was a different being; I resolved to devote my life, with all the affections and forces and talents which God had given me to the rescuing of this endangered soul. Then all my spirit was invaded and suffused with a blessed feeling, a divine sensation, which I recognized as the approval of God. I knew by that sign, as surely as if He had spoken to me, that I was His appointed instrument for this great work. I knew that He would help me in it; I knew that whenever I should need light and leading I could seek it in prayer, and have it; I knew—