by O. Henry
The artillery was in trim. Calliope’s hand was steady. The high, calm ecstasy of habitual battle was upon him, though slightly embittered by the sadness of Alexander in that his conquests were limited to the small world of Quicksand.
Down the street went Calliope, shooting right and left. Glass fell like hail; dogs vamosed; chickens flew, squawking; feminine voices shrieked concernedly to youngsters at large. The din was perforated at intervals by the /staccato/ of the Terror’s guns, and was drowned periodically by the brazen screech that Quicksand knew so well. The occasions of Calliope’s low spirits were legal holidays in Quicksand. All along the main street in advance of his coming clerks were putting up shutters and closing doors. Business would languish for a space. The right of way was Calliope’s, and as he advanced, observing the dearth of opposition and the few opportunities for distraction, his ennui perceptibly increased.
But some four squares farther down lively preparations were being made to minister to Mr. Catesby’s love for interchange of compliments and repartee. On the previous night numerous messengers had hastened to advise Buck Patterson, the city marshal, of Calliope’s impending eruption. The patience of that official, often strained in extending leniency toward the disturber’s misdeeds, had been overtaxed. In Quicksand some indulgence was accorded the natural ebullition of human nature. Providing that the lives of the more useful citizens were not recklessly squandered, or too much property needlessly laid waste, the community sentiment was against a too strict enforcement of the law. But Calliope had raised the limit. His outbursts had been too frequent and too violent to come within the classification of a normal and sanitary relaxation of spirit.
Buck Patterson had been expecting and awaiting in his little ten-by- twelve frame office that preliminary yell announcing that Calliope was feeling blue. When the signal came the city marshal rose to his feet and buckled on his guns. Two deputy sheriffs and three citizens who had proven the edible qualities of fire also stood up, ready to bandy with Calliope’s leaden jocularities.
“Gather that fellow in,” said Buck Patterson, setting forth the lines of the campaign. “Don’t have no talk, but shoot as soon as you can get a show. Keep behind cover and bring him down. He’s a nogood ‘un. It’s up to Calliope to turn up his toes this time, I reckon. Go to him all spraddled out, boys. And don’t git too reckless, for what Calliope shoots at he hits.”
Buck Patterson, tall, muscular, and solemn-faced, with his bright “City Marshal” badge shining on the breast of his blue flannel shirt, gave his posse directions for the onslaught upon Calliope. The plan was to accomplish the downfall of the Quicksand Terror without loss to the attacking party, if possible.
The splenetic Calliope, unconscious of retributive plots, was steaming down the channel, cannonading on either side, when he suddenly became aware of breakers ahead. The city marshal and one of the deputies rose up behind some dry-goods boxes half a square to the front and opened fire. At the same time the rest of the posse, divided, shelled him from two side streets up which they were cautiously manoeuvring from a well-executed detour.
The first volley broke the lock of one of Calliope’s guns, cut a neat underbit in his right ear, and exploded a cartridge in his crossbelt, scorching his ribs as it burst. Feeling braced up by this unexpected tonic to his spiritual depression, Calliope executed a fortissimo note from his upper register, and returned the fire like an echo. The upholders of the law dodged at his flash, but a trifle too late to save one of the deputies a bullet just above the elbow, and the marshal a bleeding cheek from a splinter that a ball tore from the box he had ducked behind.
And now Calliope met the enemy’s tactics in kind. Choosing with a rapid eye the street from which the weakest and least accurate fire had come, he invaded it at a double-quick, abandoning the unprotected middle of the street. With rare cunning the opposing force in that direction — one of the deputies and two of the valorous volunteers — waited, concealed by beer barrels, until Calliope had passed their retreat, and then peppered him from the rear. In another moment they were reinforced by the marshal and his other men, and then Calliope felt that in order to successfully prolong the delights of the controversy he must find some means of reducing the great odds against him. His eye fell upon a structure that seemed to hold out this promise, providing he could reach it.
Not far away was the little railroad station, its building a strong box house, ten by twenty feet, resting upon a platform four feet above ground. Windows were in each of its walls. Something like a fort it might become to a man thus sorely pressed by superior numbers.
Calliope made a bold and rapid spurt for it, the marshal’s crowd “smoking” him as he ran. He reached the haven in safety, the station agent leaving the building by a window, like a flying squirrel, as the garrison entered the door.
Patterson and his supporters halted under protection of a pile of lumber and held consultations. In the station was an unterrified desperado who was an excellent shot and carried an abundance of ammunition. For thirty yards on either side of the besieged was a stretch of bare, open ground. It was a sure thing that the man who attempted to enter that unprotected area would be stopped by one of Calliope’s bullets.
The city marshal was resolved. He had decided that Calliope Catesby should no more wake the echoes of Quicksand with his strident whoop. He had so announced. Officially and personally he felt imperatively bound to put the soft pedal on that instrument of discord. It played bad tunes.
Standing near was a hand truck used in the manipulation of small freight. It stood by a shed full of sacked wool, a consignment from one of the sheep ranches. On this truck the marshal and his men piled three heavy sacks of wool. Stooping low, Buck Patterson started for Calliope’s fort, slowly pushing this loaded truck before him for protection. The posse, scattering broadly, stood ready to nip the besieged in case he should show himself in an effort to repel the juggernaut of justice that was creeping upon him. Only once did Calliope make demonstration. He fired from a window, and some tufts of wool spurted from the marshal’s trustworthy bulwark. The return shots from the posse pattered against the window frame of the fort. No loss resulted on either side.
The marshal was too deeply engrossed in steering his protected battleship to be aware of the approach of the morning train until he was within a few feet of the platform. The train was coming up on the other side of it. It stopped only one minute at Quicksand. What an opportunity it would offer to Calliope! He had only to step out the other door, mount the train, and away.
Abandoning his breastwork, Buck, with his gun ready, dashed up the steps and into the room, driving upon the closed door with one heave of his weighty shoulder. The members of the posse heard one shot fired inside, and then there was silence.
*****
At length the wounded man opened his eyes. After a blank space he again could see and hear and feel and think. Turning his eyes about, he found himself lying on a wooden bench. A tall man with a perplexed countenance, wearing a big badge with “City Marshal” engraved upon it, stood over him. A little old woman in black, with a wrinkled face and sparkling black eyes, was holding a wet handkerchief against one of his temples. He was trying to get these facts fixed in his mind and connected with past events, when the old woman began to talk.
“There now, great, big, strong man! That bullet never tetched ye! Jest skeeted along the side of your head and sort of paralysed ye for a spell. I’ve heerd of sech things afore; cun-cussion is what they names it. Abel Wadkins used to kill squirrels that way — barkin’ ‘em, Abe called it. You jest been barked, sir, and you’ll be all right in a little bit. Feel lots better already, don’t ye! You just lay still a while longer and let me bathe your head. You don’t know me, I reckon, and ‘tain’t surprisin’ that you shouldn’t. I come in on that train from Alabama to see my son. Big son, ain’t he? Lands! you wouldn’t hardly think he’d ever been a baby, would ye? This is my son, sir.”
Half turning, the old woman looked up at the st
anding man, her worn face lighting with a proud and wonderful smile. She reached out one veined and calloused hand and took one of her son’s. Then smiling cheerily down at the prostrate man, she continued to dip the handkerchief, in the waiting-room tin washbasin and gently apply it to his temple. She had the benevolent garrulity of old age.
“I ain’t seen my son before,” she continued, “in eight years. One of my nephews, Elkanah Price, he’s a conductor on one of them railroads and he got me a pass to come out here. I can stay a whole week on it, and then it’ll take me back again. Jest think, now, that little boy of mine has got to be a officer — a city marshal of a whole town! That’s somethin’ like a constable, ain’t it? I never knowed he was a officer; he didn’t say nothin’ about it in his letters. I reckon he thought his old mother’d be skeered about the danger he was in. But, laws! I never was much of a hand to git skeered. ‘Tain’t no use. I heard them guns a-shootin’ while I was gettin’ off them cars, and I see smoke a-comin’ out of the depot, but I jest walked right along. Then I see son’s face lookin’ out through the window. I knowed him at oncet. He met me at the door, and squeezes me ‘most to death. And there you was, sir, a-lyin’ there jest like you was dead, and I ‘lowed we’d see what might be done to help sot you up.”
“I think I’ll sit up now,” said the concussion patient. “I’m feeling pretty fair by this time.”
He sat, somewhat weakly yet, leaning against the wall. He was a rugged man, big-boned and straight. His eyes, steady and keen, seemed to linger upon the face of the man standing so still above him. His look wandered often from the face he studied to the marshal’s badge upon the other’s breast.
“Yes, yes, you’ll be all right,” said the old woman, patting his arm, “if you don’t get to cuttin’ up agin, and havin’ folks shooting at you. Son told me about you, sir, while you was layin’ senseless on the floor. Don’t you take it as meddlesome fer an old woman with a son as big as you to talk about it. And you mustn’t hold no grudge ag’in’ my son for havin’ to shoot at ye. A officer has got to take up for the law — it’s his duty — and them that acts bad and lives wrong has to suffer. Don’t blame my son any, sir— ‘tain’t his fault. He’s always been a good boy — good when he was growin’ up, and kind and ‘bedient and well-behaved. Won’t you let me advise you, sir, not to do so no more? Be a good man, and leave liquor alone and live peaceably and goodly. Keep away from bad company and work honest and sleep sweet.”
The black-mitted hand of the old pleader gently touched the breast of the man she addressed. Very earnest and candid her old, worn face looked. In her rusty black dress and antique bonnet she sat, near the close of a long life, and epitomised the experience of the world. Still the man to whom she spoke gazed above her head, contemplating the silent son of the old mother.
“What does the marshal say?” he asked. “Does he believe the advice is good? Suppose the marshal speaks up and says if the talk’s all right?”
The tall man moved uneasily. He fingered the badge on his breast for a moment, and then he put an arm around the old woman and drew her close to him. She smiled the unchanging mother smile of three-score years, and patted his big brown hand with her crooked, mittened fingers while her son spake.
“I says this,” he said, looking squarely into the eyes of the other man, “that if I was in your place I’d follow it. If I was a drunken, desp’rate character, without shame or hope, I’d follow it. If I was in your place and you was in mine I’d say: ‘Marshal, I’m willin’ to swear if you’ll give me the chance I’ll quit the racket. I’ll drop the tanglefoot and the gun play, and won’t play hoss no more. I’ll be a good citizen and go to work and quit my foolishness. So help me God!’ That’s what I’d say to you if you was marshal and I was in your place.”
“Hear my son talkin’,” said the old woman softly. “Hear him, sir. You promise to be good and he won’t do you no harm. Forty-one year ago his heart first beat ag’in’ mine, and it’s beat true ever since.”
The other man rose to his feet, trying his limbs and stretching his muscles.
“Then,” said he, “if you was in my place and said that, and I was marshal, I’d say: ‘Go free, and do your best to keep your promise.’”
“Lawsy!” exclaimed the old woman, in a sudden flutter, “ef I didn’t clear forget that trunk of mine! I see a man settin’ it on the platform jest as I seen son’s face in the window, and it went plum out of my head. There’s eight jars of home-made quince jam in that trunk that I made myself. I wouldn’t have nothin’ happen to them jars for a red apple.”
Away to the door she trotted, spry and anxious, and then Calliope Catesby spoke out to Buck Patterson:
“I just couldn’t help it, Buck. I seen her through the window a-comin’ in. She never had heard a word ‘bout my tough ways. I didn’t have the nerve to let her know I was a worthless cuss bein’ hunted down by the community. There you was lyin’ where my shot laid you, like you was dead. The idea struck me sudden, and I just took your badge off and fastened it onto myself, and I fastened my reputation onto you. I told her I was the marshal and you was a holy terror. You can take your badge back now, Buck.”
With shaking fingers Calliope began to unfasten the disc of metal from his shirt.
“Easy there!” said Buck Patterson. “You keep that badge right where it is, Calliope Catesby. Don’t you dare to take it off till the day your mother leaves this town. You’ll be city marshal of Quicksand as long as she’s here to know it. After I stir around town a bit and put ‘em on I’ll guarantee that nobody won’t give the thing away to her. And say, you leather-headed, rip-roarin’, low-down son of a locoed cyclone, you follow that advice she give me! I’m goin’ to take some of it myself, too.”
“Buck,” said Calliope feelingly, “ef I don’t I hope I may— “
“Shut up,” said Buck. “She’s a-comin’ back.”
THE VOICE OF THE CITY
O. Henry’s fifth collection was first published in 1908.
The original house rented by the Porter family is now an O Henry Museum, Austin, Texas
CONTENTS
THE VOICE OF THE CITY
THE COMPLETE LIFE OF JOHN HOPKINS
A LICKPENNY LOVER
DOUGHERTY’S EYE-OPENER
“LITTLE SPECK IN GARNERED FRUIT”
THE HARBINGER
WHILE THE AUTO WAITS
A COMEDY IN RUBBER
ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS
THE DEFEAT OF THE CITY
THE SHOCKS OF DOOM
THE PLUTONIAN FIRE
NEMESIS AND THE CANDY MAN
SQUARING THE CIRCLE
ROSES, RUSES AND ROMANCE
THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT
THE EASTER OF THE SOUL
THE FOOL-KILLER
TRANSIENTS IN ARCADIA
THE RATHSKELLER AND THE ROSE
THE CLARION CALL
EXTRADITED FROM BOHEMIA
A PHILISTINE IN BOHEMIA
FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITY
THE MEMENTO
THE VOICE OF THE CITY
Twenty-five years ago the school children used to chant their lessons. The manner of their delivery was a singsong recitative between the utterance of an Episcopal minister and the drone of a tired sawmill. I mean no disrespect. We must have lumber and sawdust.
I remember one beautiful and instructive little lyric that emanated from the physiology class. The most striking line of it was this:
“The shin-bone is the long-est bone in the hu-man bod-y.”
What an inestimable boon it would have been if all the corporeal and spiritual facts pertaining to man had thus been tunefully and logically inculcated in our youthful minds! But what we gained in anatomy, music and philosophy was meagre.
The other day I became confused. I needed a ray of light. I turned back to those school days for aid. But in all the nasal harmonies we whined forth from those hard benches I could not recall one that treated of the voice of agglomerated man
kind.
In other words, of the composite vocal message of massed humanity.
In other words, of the Voice of a Big City.
Now, the individual voice is not lacking. We can understand the song of the poet, the ripple of the brook, the meaning of the man who wants $5 until next Monday, the inscriptions on the tombs of the Pharaohs, the language of flowers, the “step lively” of the conductor, and the prelude of the milk cans at 4 a. m. Certain large-eared ones even assert that they are wise to the vibrations of the tympanum produced by concussion of the air emanating from Mr. H. James. But who can comprehend the meaning of the voice of the city?
I went out for to see.
First, I asked Aurelia. She wore white Swiss and a hat with flowers on it, and ribbons and ends of things fluttered here and there.
“Tell me,” I said, stammeringly, for I have no voice of my own, “what does this big — er — enormous — er — whopping city say? It must have a voice of some kind. Does it ever speak to you? How do you interpret its meaning? It is a tremendous mass, but it must have a key.”
“Like a Saratoga trunk?” asked Aurelia.
“No,” said I. “Please do not refer to the lid. I have a fancy that every city has a voice. Each one has something to say to the one who can hear it. What does the big one say to you?”