by O. Henry
“Ought to be in sight of the spires and gilded domes of Skyland now in a few minutes,” chirruped MacFarland, shaking with enjoyment.
“Go to the devil,” said Mr. Bloom, still pensive.
And now, upon the left bank, they caught a glimpse of a white village, high up on the hills, smothered among green trees. That was Cold Branch — no boom town, but the slow growth of many years. Cold Branch lay on the edge of the grape and corn lands. The big country road ran just back of the heights. Cold Branch had nothing in common with the frisky ambition of Okochee with its impertinent lake.
“Mac,” said J. Pinkney suddenly, “I want you to stop at Cold Branch. There’s a landing there that they made to use sometimes when the river was up.”
“Can’t,” said the captain, grinning more broadly. “I’ve got the United States mails on board. Right to-day this boat’s in the government service. Do you want to have the poor old captain keelhauled by Uncle Sam? And the great city of Skyland, all disconsolate, waiting for its mail? I’m ashamed of your extravagance, J. P.”
“Mac,” almost whispered J. Pinkney, in his danger-line voice, “I looked into the engine room of the Dixie Belle a while ago. Don’t you know of somebody that needs a new boiler? Cement and black Japan can’t hide flaws from me. And then, those shares of building and loan that you traded for repairs — they were all yours, of course. I hate to mention these things, but— “
“Oh, come now, J. P.,” said the captain. “You know I was just fooling. I’ll put you off at Cold Branch, if you say so.”
“The other passengers get off there, too,” said Mr. Bloom.
Further conversation was held, and in ten minutes the Dixie Belle turned her nose toward a little, cranky wooden pier on the left bank, and the captain, relinquishing the wheel to a roustabout, came to the passenger deck and made the remarkable announcement: “All out for Skyland.”
The Blaylocks and J. Pinkney Bloom disembarked, and the Dixie Belle proceeded on her way up the lake. Guided by the indefatigable promoter, they slowly climbed the steep hillside, pausing often to rest and admire the view. Finally they entered the village of Cold Branch. Warmly both the Colonel and his wife praised it for its homelike and peaceful beauty. Mr. Bloom conducted them to a two-story building on a shady street that bore the legend, “Pine-top Inn.” Here he took his leave, receiving the cordial thanks of the two for his attentions, the Colonel remarking that he thought they would spend the remainder of the day in rest, and take a look at his purchase on the morrow.
J. Pinkney Bloom walked down Cold Branch’s main street. He did not know this town, but he knew towns, and his feet did not falter. Presently he saw a sign over a door: “Frank E. Cooly, Attorney-at-Law and Notary Public.” A young man was Mr. Cooly, and awaiting business.
“Get your hat, son,” said Mr. Bloom, in his breezy way, “and a blank deed, and come along. It’s a job for you.”
“Now,” he continued, when Mr. Cooly had responded with alacrity, “is there a bookstore in town?”
“One,” said the lawyer. “Henry Williams’s.”
“Get there,” said Mr. Bloom. “We’re going to buy it.”
Henry Williams was behind his counter. His store was a small one, containing a mixture of books, stationery, and fancy rubbish. Adjoining it was Henry’s home — a decent cottage, vine-embowered and cosy. Henry was lank and soporific, and not inclined to rush his business.
“I want to buy your house and store,” said Mr. Bloom. “I haven’t got time to dicker — name your price.”
“It’s worth eight hundred,” said Henry, too much dazed to ask more than its value.
“Shut that door,” said Mr. Bloom to the lawyer. Then he tore off his coat and vest, and began to unbutton his shirt.
“Wanter fight about it, do yer?” said Henry Williams, jumping up and cracking his heels together twice. “All right, hunky — sail in and cut yer capers.”
“Keep your clothes on,” said Mr. Bloom. “I’m only going down to the bank.”
He drew eight one-hundred-dollar bills from his money belt and planked them down on the counter. Mr. Cooly showed signs of future promise, for he already had the deed spread out, and was reaching across the counter for the ink bottle. Never before or since was such quick action had in Cold Branch.
“Your name, please?” asked the lawyer.
“Make it out to Peyton Blaylock,” said Mr. Bloom. “God knows how to spell it.”
Within thirty minutes Henry Williams was out of business, and Mr. Bloom stood on the brick sidewalk with Mr. Cooly, who held in his hand the signed and attested deed.
“You’ll find the party at the Pinetop Inn,” said J. Pinkney Bloom. “Get it recorded, and take it down and give it to him. He’ll ask you a hell’s mint of questions; so here’s ten dollars for the trouble you’ll have in not being able to answer ‘em. Never run much to poetry, did you, young man?”
“Well,” said the really talented Cooly, who even yet retained his right mind, “now and then.”
“Dig into it,” said Mr. Bloom, “it’ll pay you. Never heard a poem, now, that run something like this, did you? —
A good thing out of Nazareth
Comes up sometimes, I guess,
On hand, all right, to help and cheer
A sucker in distress.”
“I believe not,” said Mr. Cooly.
“It’s a hymn,” said J. Pinkney Bloom. “Now, show me the way to a livery stable, son, for I’m going to hit the dirt road back to Okochee.”
CONFESSIONS OF A HUMORIST
There was a painless stage of incubation that lasted twenty-five years, and then it broke out on me, and people said I was It.
But they called it humor instead of measles.
The employees in the store bought a silver inkstand for the senior partner on his fiftieth birthday. We crowded into his private office to present it. I had been selected for spokesman, and I made a little speech that I had been preparing for a week.
It made a hit. It was full of puns and epigrams and funny twists that brought down the house — which was a very solid one in the wholesale hardware line. Old Marlowe himself actually grinned, and the employees took their cue and roared.
My reputation as a humorist dates from half-past nine o’clock on that morning. For weeks afterward my fellow clerks fanned the flame of my self-esteem. One by one they came to me, saying what an awfully clever speech that was, old man, and carefully explained to me the point of each one of my jokes.
Gradually I found that I was expected to keep it up. Others might speak sanely on business matters and the day’s topics, but from me something gamesome and airy was required.
I was expected to crack jokes about the crockery and lighten up the granite ware with persiflage. I was second bookkeeper, and if I failed to show up a balance sheet without something comic about the footings or could find no cause for laughter in an invoice of plows, the other clerks were disappointed. By degrees my fame spread, and I became a local “character.” Our town was small enough to make this possible. The daily newspaper quoted me. At social gatherings I was indispensable.
I believe I did possess considerable wit and a facility for quick and spontaneous repartee. This gift I cultivated and improved by practice. And the nature of it was kindly and genial, not running to sarcasm or offending others. People began to smile when they saw me coming, and by the time we had met I generally had the word ready to broaden the smile into a laugh.
I had married early. We had a charming boy of three and a girl of five. Naturally, we lived in a vine-covered cottage, and were happy. My salary as bookkeeper in the hardware concern kept at a distance those ills attendant upon superfluous wealth.
At sundry times I had written out a few jokes and conceits that I considered peculiarly happy, and had sent them to certain periodicals that print such things. All of them had been instantly accepted. Several of the editors had written to request further contributions.
One day I received
a letter from the editor of a famous weekly publication. He suggested that I submit to him a humorous composition to fill a column of space; hinting that he would make it a regular feature of each issue if the work proved satisfactory. I did so, and at the end of two weeks he offered to make a contract with me for a year at a figure that was considerably higher than the amount paid me by the hardware firm.
I was filled with delight. My wife already crowned me in her mind with the imperishable evergreens of literary success. We had lobster croquettes and a bottle of blackberry wine for supper that night. Here was the chance to liberate myself from drudgery. I talked over the matter very seriously with Louisa. We agreed that I must resign my place at the store and devote myself to humor.
I resigned. My fellow clerks gave me a farewell banquet. The speech I made there coruscated. It was printed in full by the Gazette. The next morning I awoke and looked at the clock.
“Late, by George!” I exclaimed, and grabbed for my clothes. Louisa reminded me that I was no longer a slave to hardware and contractors’ supplies. I was now a professional humorist.
After breakfast she proudly led me to the little room off the kitchen. Dear girl! There was my table and chair, writing pad, ink, and pipe tray. And all the author’s trappings — the celery stand full of fresh roses and honeysuckle, last year’s calendar on the wall, the dictionary, and a little bag of chocolates to nibble between inspirations. Dear girl!
I sat me to work. The wall paper is patterned with arabesques or odalisks or — perhaps — it is trapezoids. Upon one of the figures I fixed my eyes. I bethought me of humor.
A voice startled me — Louisa’s voice.
“If you aren’t too busy, dear,” it said, “come to dinner.”
I looked at my watch. Yes, five hours had been gathered in by the grim scytheman. I went to dinner.
“You mustn’t work too hard at first,” said Louisa. “Goethe — or was it Napoleon? — said five hours a day is enough for mental labor. Couldn’t you take me and the children to the woods this afternoon?”
“I am a little tired,” I admitted. So we went to the woods.
But I soon got the swing of it. Within a month I was turning out copy as regular as shipments of hardware.
And I had success. My column in the weekly made some stir, and I was referred to in a gossipy way by the critics as something fresh in the line of humorists. I augmented my income considerably by contributing to other publications.
I picked up the tricks of the trade. I could take a funny idea and make a two-line joke of it, earning a dollar. With false whiskers on, it would serve up cold as a quatrain, doubling its producing value. By turning the skirt and adding a ruffle of rhyme you would hardly recognize it as vers de societe with neatly shod feet and a fashion-plate illustration.
I began to save up money, and we had new carpets, and a parlor organ. My townspeople began to look upon me as a citizen of some consequence instead of the merry trifler I had been when I clerked in the hardware store.
After five or six months the spontaniety seemed to depart from my humor. Quips and droll sayings no longer fell carelessly from my lips. I was sometimes hard run for material. I found myself listening to catch available ideas from the conversation of my friends. Sometimes I chewed my pencil and gazed at the wall paper for hours trying to build up some gay little bubble of unstudied fun.
And then I became a harpy, a Moloch, a Jonah, a vampire, to my acquaintances. Anxious, haggard, greedy, I stood among them like a veritable killjoy. Let a bright saying, a witty comparison, a piquant phrase fall from their lips and I was after it like a hound springing upon a bone. I dared not trust my memory; but, turning aside guiltily and meanly, I would make a note of it in my ever-present memorandum book or upon my cuff for my own future use.
My friends regarded me in sorrow and wonder. I was not the same man. Where once I had furnished them entertainment and jollity, I now preyed upon them. No jests from me ever bid for their smiles now. They were too precious. I could not afford to dispense gratuitously the means of my livelihood.
I was a lugubrious fox praising the singing of my friends, the crow’s, that they might drop from their beaks the morsels of wit that I coveted.
Nearly every one began to avoid me. I even forgot how to smile, not even paying that much for the sayings I appropriated.
No persons, places, times, or subjects were exempt from my plundering in search of material. Even in church my demoralized fancy went hunting among the solemn aisles and pillars for spoil.
Did the minister give out the long-meter doxology, at once I began: “Doxology — sockdology — sockdolager — meter — meet her.”
The sermon ran through my mental sieve, its precepts filtering unheeded, could I but glean a suggestion of a pun or a bon mot. The solemnest anthems of the choir were but an accompaniment to my thoughts as I conceived new changes to ring upon the ancient comicalities concerning the jealousies of soprano, tenor, and basso.
My own home became a hunting ground. My wife is a singularly feminine creature, candid, sympathetic, and impulsive. Once her conversation was my delight, and her ideas a source of unfailing pleasure. Now I worked her. She was a gold mine of those amusing but lovable inconsistencies that distinguish the female mind.
I began to market those pearls of unwisdom and humor that should have enriched only the sacred precincts of home. With devilish cunning I encouraged her to talk. Unsuspecting, she laid her heart bare. Upon the cold, conspicuous, common, printed page I offered it to the public gaze.
A literary Judas, I kissed her and betrayed her. For pieces of silver I dressed her sweet confidences in the pantalettes and frills of folly and made them dance in the market place.
Dear Louisa! Of nights I have bent over her cruel as a wolf above a tender lamb, hearkening even to her soft words murmured in sleep, hoping to catch an idea for my next day’s grind. There is worse to come.
God help me! Next my fangs were buried deep in the neck of the fugitive sayings of my little children.
Guy and Viola were two bright fountains of childish, quaint thoughts and speeches. I found a ready sale for this kind of humor, and was furnishing a regular department in a magazine with “Funny Fancies of Childhood.” I began to stalk them as an Indian stalks the antelope. I would hide behind sofas and doors, or crawl on my hands and knees among the bushes in the yard to eavesdrop while they were at play. I had all the qualities of a harpy except remorse.
Once, when I was barren of ideas, and my copy must leave in the next mail, I covered myself in a pile of autumn leaves in the yard, where I knew they intended to come to play. I cannot bring myself to believe that Guy was aware of my hiding place, but even if he was, I would be loath to blame him for his setting fire to the leaves, causing the destruction of my new suit of clothes, and nearly cremating a parent.
Soon my own children began to shun me as a pest. Often, when I was creeping upon them like a melancholy ghoul, I would hear them say to each other: “Here comes papa,” and they would gather their toys and scurry away to some safer hiding place. Miserable wretch that I was!
And yet I was doing well financially. Before the first year had passed I had saved a thousand dollars, and we had lived in comfort.
But at what a cost! I am not quite clear as to what a pariah is, but I was everything that it sounds like. I had no friends, no amusements, no enjoyment of life. The happiness of my family had been sacrificed. I was a bee, sucking sordid honey from life’s fairest flowers, dreaded and shunned on account of my stingo.
One day a man spoke to me, with a pleasant and friendly smile. Not in months had the thing happened. I was passing the undertaking establishment of Peter Heffelbower. Peter stood in the door and saluted me. I stopped, strangely wrung in my heart by his greeting. He asked me inside.
The day was chill and rainy. We went into the back room, where a fire burned, in a little stove. A customer came, and Peter left me alone for a while. Presently I felt a new feeling stealing over m
e — a sense of beautiful calm and content, I looked around the place. There were rows of shining rosewood caskets, black palls, trestles, hearse plumes, mourning streamers, and all the paraphernalia of the solemn trade. Here was peace, order, silence, the abode of grave and dignified reflections. Here, on the brink of life, was a little niche pervaded by the spirit of eternal rest.
When I entered it, the follies of the world abandoned me at the door. I felt no inclination to wrest a humorous idea from those sombre and stately trappings. My mind seemed to stretch itself to grateful repose upon a couch draped with gentle thoughts.
A quarter of an hour ago I was an abandoned humorist. Now I was a philosopher, full of serenity and ease. I had found a refuge from humor, from the hot chase of the shy quip, from the degrading pursuit of the panting joke, from the restless reach after the nimble repartee.
I had not known Heffelbower well. When he came back, I let him talk, fearful that he might prove to be a jarring note in the sweet, dirgelike harmony of his establishment.
But, no. He chimed truly. I gave a long sigh of happiness. Never have I known a man’s talk to be as magnificently dull as Peter’s was. Compared with it the Dead Sea is a geyser. Never a sparkle or a glimmer of wit marred his words. Commonplaces as trite and as plentiful as blackberries flowed from his lips no more stirring in quality than a last week’s tape running from a ticker. Quaking a little, I tried upon him one of my best pointed jokes. It fell back ineffectual, with the point broken. I loved that man from then on.
Two or three evenings each week I would steal down to Heffelbower’s and revel in his back room. That was my only joy. I began to rise early and hurry through my work, that I might spend more time in my haven. In no other place could I throw off my habit of extracting humorous ideas from my surroundings. Peter’s talk left me no opening had I besieged it ever so hard.
Under this influence I began to improve in spirits. It was the recreation from one’s labor which every man needs. I surprised one or two of my former friends by throwing them a smile and a cheery word as I passed them on the streets. Several times I dumfounded my family by relaxing long enough to make a jocose remark in their presence.