“Stop that!” he commanded, horribly embarrassed.
“Oh, Joe,” she cried, “I knew! I knew it was there — but to SEE it! And it’s my fault for leaving you — I HAD to go or I wouldn’t have — I—”
“Where’d you hear about it?” he asked, shortly.
“I haven’t been to bed,” she answered. “Grandfather and I were up all night at Uncle Jonas’s, and Colonel Flitcroft came about two o’clock, and he told us.”
“Did he tell you about Norbert?”
“Yes — a great deal.” She poured coffee into a cup from a pot on the stove, brought it to him, then placing some thin slices of bread upon a gridiron, began to toast them over the hot coals. “The Colonel said that Norbert thought he wouldn’t get well,” she concluded; “and Mr. Arp said Norbert was the kind that never die, and they had quite an argument.”
“What were you doing at Jonas Tabor’s?” asked Joe, drinking his coffee with a brightening eye.
“We were sent for,” she answered.
“What for?”
She toasted the bread attentively without replying, and when she decided that it was brown enough, piled it on a warm plate. This she brought to him, and kneeling in front of him, her elbow on his knee, offered for his consideration, looking steadfastly up at his eyes. He began to eat ravenously.
“What for?” he repeated. “I didn’t suppose Jonas would let you come in his house. Was he sick?”
“Joe,” she said, quietly, disregarding his questions— “Joe, have you GOT to run away?”
“Yes, I’ve got to,” he answered.
“Would you have to go to prison if you stayed?” She asked this with a breathless tensity.
“I’m not going to beg father to help me out,” he said, determinedly. “He said he wouldn’t, and he’ll be spared the chance. He won’t mind that; nobody will care! Nobody! What does anybody care what I do!”
“Now you’re thinking of Mamie!” she cried. “I can always tell. Whenever you don’t talk naturally you’re thinking of her!”
He poured down the last of the coffee, growing red to the tips of his ears. “Ariel,” he said, “if I ever come back—”
“Wait,” she interrupted. “Would you have to go to prison right away if they caught you?”
“Oh, it isn’t that,” he laughed, sadly. “But I’m going to clear out. I’m not going to take any chances. I want to see other parts of the world, other kinds of people. I might have gone, anyhow, soon, even if it hadn’t been for last night. Don’t you ever feel that way?”
“You know I do,” she said. “I’ve told you — how often! But, Joe, Joe, — you haven’t any MONEY! You’ve got to have money to LIVE!”
“You needn’t worry about that,” returned the master of seven dollars, genially. “I’ve saved enough to take care of me for a LONG time.”
“Joe, PLEASE! I know it isn’t so. If you could wait just a little while — only a few weeks, — only a FEW, Joe—”
“What for?”
“I could let you have all you want. It would be such a beautiful thing for me, Joe. Oh, I know how you’d feel; you wouldn’t even let me give you that dollar I found in the street last year; but this would be only lending it to you, and you could pay me back sometime—”
“Ariel!” he exclaimed, and, setting his empty cup upon the floor, took her by the shoulders and shook her till the empty plate which had held the toast dropped from her hand and broke into fragments. “You’ve been reading the Arabian Nights!”
“No, no,” she cried, vehemently. “Grandfather would give me anything. He’ll give me all the money I ask for!”
“Money!” said Joe. “Which of us is wandering? MONEY? Roger Tabor give you MONEY?”
“Not for a while. A great many things have to be settled first.”
“What things?”
“Joe,” she asked, earnestly, “do you think it’s bad of me not to feel things I OUGHT to feel?”
“No.”
“Then I’m glad,” she said, and something in the way she spoke made him start with pain, remembering the same words, spoken in the same tone, by another voice, the night before on the veranda. “I’m glad, Joe, because I seemed all wrong to myself. Uncle Jonas died last night, and I haven’t been able to get sorry. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been so frightened about you, but I think not, for I wasn’t sorry even before Colonel Flitcroft told me about you.”
“Jonas Tabor dead!” said Joe. “Why, I saw him on the street yesterday!”
“Yes, and I saw him just before I came out on the porch where you were. He was there in the hall; he and Judge Pike had been having a long talk; they’d been in some speculations together, and it had all turned out well. It’s very strange, but they say now that Uncle Jonas’s heart was weak — he was an old man, you know, almost eighty, — and he’d been very anxious about his money. The Judge had persuaded him to risk it; and the shock of finding that he’d made a great deal suddenly—”
“I’ve heard he’d had that same shock before,” said Joe, “when he sold out to your father.”
“Yes, but this was different, grandfather says. He told me it was in one of those big risky businesses that Judge Pike likes to go into. And last night it was all finished, the strain was over, and Uncle Jonas started home. His house is only a little way from the Pikes’, you know; but he dropped down in the snow at his own gate, and some people who were going by saw him fall. He was dead before grandfather got there.”
“I can’t be sorry,” said Joe, slowly.
“Neither can I. That’s the dreadful part of it! They say he hadn’t made a will, that though he was sharper than anybody else in the whole world about any other matter of business, that was the one thing he put off. And we’re all the kin he had in the world, grandfather and I. And they say” — her voice sank to a whisper of excitement— “they say he was richer than anybody knew, and that this last business with Judge Pike, the very thing that killed him — something about grain — made him five times richer than before!”
She put her hand on the boy’s arm, and he let it remain there. Her eyes still sought his with a tremulous appeal.
“God bless you, Ariel!” he said. “It’s going to be a great thing for you.”
“Yes. Yes, it is.” The tears came suddenly to her eyes. “I was foolish last night, but there had been such a long time of WANTING things; and now — and now grandfather and I can go—”
“You’re going, too!” Joe chuckled.
“It’s heartless, I suppose, but I’ve settled it! We’re going—”
“I know,” he cried. “You’ve told me a thousand times what HE’S said — ten times a thousand. You’re going to Paris!”
“Paris! Yes, that’s it. To Paris, where he can see at last how the great ones have painted, — where the others can show him! To Paris, where we can study together, where he can learn how to put the pictures he sees upon canvas, and where I—”
“Go on,” Joe encouraged her. “I want to hear you say it. You don’t mean that you’re going to study painting; you mean that you’re going to learn how to make such fellows as Eugene ask you to dance. Go ahead and SAY it!”
“Yes — to learn how to DRESS!” she said.
Joe was silent for a moment. Then he rose and took the ragged overcoat from the back of his chair. “Where’s that muffler?” he asked.
She brought it from where she had placed it to dry, behind the stove.
“Joe,” she said, huskily, “can’t you wait till—”
“Till the estate is settled and you can coax your grandfather to—”
“No, no! But you could go with us.”
“To Paris?”
“He would take you as his secretary.”
“Aha!” Joe’s voice rang out gayly as he rose, refreshed by the coffee, toast, and warmth she had given him. “You’ve been story-reading, Ariel, like Eugene! ‘Secretary’!”
“Please, Joe!”
“Where’s my tin dinner-p
ail?” He found it himself upon the table where he had set it down. “I’m going to earn a dishonest living,” he went on. “I have an engagement to take a freight at a water-tank that’s a friend of mine, half a mile south of the yards. Thank God, I’m going to get away from Canaan!”
“Wait, Joe!” She caught at his sleeve. “I want you to—”
He had swung out of the room and was already at the front-door. She followed him closely.
“Good-bye, Ariel!”
“No, no! WAIT, Joe!”
He took her right hand in his own, and gave it a manly shake. “It’s all right,” he said.
He threw open the door and stepped out, but she sought to detain him. “Oh, have you GOT to go?” she cried.
“Don’t you ever worry about me.” He bent his head to the storm as he sprang down the steps, and snow-wreaths swirled between them.
He disappeared in a white whirlwind.
She stood for several minutes shivering in the doorway. Then it came to her that she would not know where to write to him. She ran down to the gate and through it. Already the blizzard had covered his footprints.
VII. GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME
THE PASSING OF Joseph from Canaan was complete. It was an evanishment for which there was neither sackcloth nor surprise; and though there came no news of him it cannot be said that Canaan did not hear of him, for surely it could hear itself talk. The death of Jonas Tabor and young Louden’s crime and flight incited high doings in the “National House” windows; many days the sages lingered with the broken meats of morals left over from the banquet of gossip. But, after all, it is with the ladies of a community that reputations finally rest, and the matrons of Canaan had long ago made Joe’s exceedingly uncertain. Now they made it certain.
They did not fail of assistance. The most powerful influence in the town was ponderously corroborative: Martin Pike, who stood for all that was respectable and financial, who passed the plate o’ Sundays, who held the fortunes of the town in his left hand, who was trustee for the widow and orphan, — Martin Pike, patron of all worthy charities, courted by ministers, feared by the wicked and idle, revered by the good, — Judge Martin Pike never referred to the runaway save in the accents of an august doomster. His testimony settled it.
In time the precise nature of the fugitive’s sins was distorted in report and grew vague; it was recalled that he had done dread things; he became a tradition, a legend, and a warning to the young; a Richard in the bush to frighten colts. He was preached at boys caught playing marbles “for keeps”: “Do you want to grow up like Joe Louden?” The very name became a darkling threat, and children of the town would have run had one called suddenly, “HERE COMES JOE LOUDEN!” Thus does the evil men do live after them, and the ill-fame of the unrighteous increase when they are sped!
Very little of Joseph’s adventures and occupations during the time of his wandering is revealed to us; he always had an unwilling memory for pain and was not afterwards wont to speak of those years which cut the hard lines in his face. The first account of him to reach Canaan came as directly to the windows of the “National House” as Mr. Arp, hastening thither from the station, satchel in hand, could bring it.
This was on a September morning, two years after the flight, and Eskew, it appears, had been to the State Fair and had beheld many things strangely affirming his constant testimony that this unhappy world increaseth in sin; strangest of all, his meeting with our vagrant scalawag of Canaan. “Not a BLAMEBIT of doubt about it,” declared Eskew to the incredulous conclave. “There was that Joe, and nobody else, stuck up in a little box outside a tent at the Fair Grounds, and sellin’ tickets to see the Spotted Wild Boy!” Yes, it was Joe Louden! Think you, Mr. Arp could forget that face, those crooked eyebrows? Had Eskew tested the recognition? Had he spoken with the outcast? Had he not! Ay, but with such peculiar result that the battle of words among the sages began with a true onset of the regulars; for, according to Eskew’s narrative, when he had delivered grimly at the boy this charge, “I know you — YOU’RE JOE LOUDEN!” the extraordinary reply had been made promptly and without change of countenance: “POSITIVELY NO FREE SEATS!”
On this, the house divided, one party maintaining that Joe had thus endeavored to evade recognition, the other (to the embitterment of Mr. Arp) that the reply was a distinct admission of identity and at the same time a refusal to grant any favors on the score of past acquaintanceship.
Goaded by inquiries, Mr. Arp, who had little desire to recall such waste of silver, admitted more than he had intended: that he had purchased a ticket and gone in to see the Spotted Wild Boy, halting in his description of this marvel with the unsatisfactory and acrid statement that the Wild Boy was “simply SPOTTED,” — and the stung query, “I suppose you know what a spot IS, Squire?” When he came out of the tent he had narrowly examined the ticket-seller, — who seemed unaware of his scrutiny, and, when not engaged with his tickets, applied himself to a dirty law-looking book. It was Joseph Louden, reasserted Eskew, a little taller, a little paler, incredibly shabby and miraculously thin. If there were any doubt left, his forehead was somewhat disfigured by the scar of an old wound — such as might have been caused by a blunt instrument in the nature of a poker.
“What’s the matter with YOU?” Mr. Arp whirled upon Uncle Joe Davey, who was enjoying himself by repeating at intervals the unreasonable words, “Couldn’t of be’n Joe,” without any explanation. “Why couldn’t it?” shouted Eskew. “It was! Do you think my eyes are as fur gone as yours? I saw him, I tell you! The same ornery Joe Louden, run away and sellin’ tickets for a side-show. He wasn’t even the boss of it; the manager was about the meanest-lookin’ human I ever saw — and most humans look mighty mean, accordin’ to my way of thinkin’! Riffraff of the riffraff are his friends now, same as they were here. Weeds! and HE’S a weed, always was and always will be! Him and his kind ain’t any more than jimpsons; overrun everything if you give ’em a chance. Devil-flowers! They have to be hoed out and scattered — even then, like as not, they’ll come back next year and ruin your plantin’ once more. That boy Joe ‘ll turn up here again some day; you’ll see if he don’t. He’s a seed of trouble and iniquity, and anything of that kind is sure to come back to Canaan!”
Mr. Arp stuck to his prediction for several months; then he began to waver and evade. By the end of the second year following its first utterance, he had formed the habit of denying that he had ever made it at all, and, finally having come to believe with all his heart that the prophecy had been deliberately foisted upon him and put in his mouth by Squire Buckalew, became so sore upon the subject that even the hardiest dared not refer to it in his presence.
Eskew’s story of the ticket-seller was the only news of Joe Louden that came to Canaan during seven years. Another citizen of the town encountered the wanderer, however, but under circumstances so susceptible to misconception that, in a moment of illumination, he decided to let the matter rest in a golden silence. This was Mr. Bantry.
Having elected an elaborate course in the Arts, at the University which was of his possessions, what more natural than that Eugene should seek the Metropolis for the short Easter vacation of his Senior year, in order that his perusal of the Masters should be uninterrupted? But it was his misfortune to find the Metropolitan Museum less interesting than some intricate phases of the gayety of New York — phases very difficult to understand without elaborate study and a series of experiments which the discreetly selfish permit others to make for them. Briefly, Eugene found himself dancing, one night, with a young person in a big hat, at the “Straw-Cellar,” a crowded hall, down very deep in the town and not at all the place for Eugene.
Acute crises are to be expected at the “Straw-Cellar,” and Eugene was the only one present who was thoroughly surprised when that of this night arrived, though all of the merrymakers were frightened when they perceived its extent. There is no need to detail the catastrophe. It came suddenly, and the knife did not flash. Sick and thinking of himsel
f, Eugene stood staring at the figure lying before him upon the reddening floor. A rabble fought with the quick policemen at the doors, and then the lights went out, extinguished by the proprietor, living up to his reputation for always being thoughtful of his patrons. The place had been a nightmare; it became a black impossibility. Eugene staggered to one of the open windows, from the sill of which a man had just leaped.
“Don’t jump,” said a voice close to his ear. “That fellow broke his leg, I think, and they caught him, anyway, as soon as he struck the pavement. It’s a big raid. Come this way.”
A light hand fell upon his arm and he followed its leading, blindly, to find himself pushed through a narrow doorway and down a flight of tricky, wooden steps, at the foot of which, silhouetted against a street light, a tall policeman was on guard. He laid masterful hands on Eugene.
“‘SH, Mack!” whispered a cautious voice from the stairway. “That’s a friend of mine and not one of those you need. He’s only a student and scared to death.”
“Hurry,” said the policeman, under his breath, twisting Eugene sharply by him into the street; after which he stormed vehemently: “On yer way, both of ye! Move on up the street! Don’t be tryin’ to poke yer heads in here! Ye’d be more anxious to git out, once ye got in, I tell ye!”
A sob of relief came from Bantry as he gained the next corner, the slight figure of his conductor at his side. “You’d better not go to places like the ‘Straw-Cellar,’” said the latter, gravely. “I’d been watching you for an hour. You were dancing with the girl who did the cutting.”
Eugene leaned against a wall, faint, one arm across his face. He was too ill to see, or care, who it was that had saved him. “I never saw her before,” he babbled, incoherently, “never, never, never! I thought she looked handsome, and asked her if she’d dance with me. Then I saw she seemed queer — and wild, and she kept guiding and pushing as we danced until we were near that man — and then she — then it was all done — before—”
Collected Works of Booth Tarkington Page 74