Chapter 14

HUNCH AND BLIND BENNER VISIT BILL KELLAR.

"I know somethin' I won't tell," was Hunch's greeting to his blind friend on the Monday following the secret meeting of the McAnays in the school-house.

"Yer allers knowin' somethin', and it ain't nothin' when a feller finds it out."

"But it's somethin'; no little niggers in a peanut-shell this here time."

Hunch lowered his voice to a whisper, as he led Benner to the rear of the store. There he continued:

"Levi, Cassi, and Matthi's gone ter find Gill."

Benner gave a start, and would have uttered an exclamation, had not Hunch prevented him by laying a hand over his mouth and saying:

"Hush."

"They'll mebbe kill him," he continued.

"What fer?"

"Fer not marryin' Lizzi right."

"Lizzi don't know," Benner asserted.

"Yes, she does," Hunch replied.

"Yer a liar," and Blind Benner struck at Hunch.

He dodged, and said:

"Can't yer keep quiet? Lizzi don't want nobody ter know it."

"Yer a bigger liar than ever, an' yer ain't no friend uv mine."

Benner spoke louder than before, and sprang at Hunch, but missed him, and would have fallen against the counter had not Hunch caught him.

"Hello, there, boys! What are you fighting about?" Colonel Hornbeger called from the desk.

"Nothin'," Benner replied surlily; and Hunch said, "Benner's mad 'cause I told him somethin' he didn't like."

"Well, no fighting here."

"Say, Benner, what'd yer call me a liar fer?" Hunch asked when the Colonel's back was turned.

"'Cause yer sed Lizzi knowed she was married wrong."

This was spoken in a whisper so the Colonel would not hear it.

"Didn't say nothin' uv the kind. I sed she knowed the boys hed gone huntin' fer Gill."

"They won't ketch him," the blind man stated. "If he's run off, he'll hide from 'em, but he couldn't hide from me."

Hunch did not laugh at this declaration. He had equal faith in the blind man's ability as a detective, and expressed it.

"They orter hev took yer with 'em."

"Yes, they orter."

"Hunch!" called the clerk who had succeeded Gill. He responded, and was sent to the cellar. When he returned, Blind Benner had formed his plan and was ready to disclose it.

"Hunch, Gill must be brung back ter Lizzi, an' I want yer ter take me ter the McAnay boys an' I'll help find him."

"I'll do it, Benner."

"Hand, then, Hunch."

They closed the compact, which had been made in whispers, with a vigorous hand shaking.

Bill Kellar stood before the door of his house, shouting at the top of his voice as if he bayed the moon, just rising over the top of Bald Mountain. Echo, hiding in the shadow, replied to him. He would shout, then listen to his voice coming back, mellowed and musical.

"Bill's got 'nuther crazy fit," said Hunch, pausing at the gate, while Benner leaned against the fence to rest. In one hand the dwarf carried his cornet, in the other Blind Benner's fiddle, enclosed in a green bag.

"You fellows are always welcome on this plantation," said Bill, coming to meet them, and grasping Benner's hand affectionately, while he playfully knocked Hunch's hat over his eyes.

"Say, Bill," inquired the dwarf, "what 'er yellin' at, the sky?"

"Well, Hunch, I'll tell you and Benner, for I know you will keep it secret. I'm working on an invention that will be a blessing to the folks that live in cities. I mean a sound-softener."

"Sound-softener, thet runs off yer tongue slick as soft-soap."

Blind Benner was very angry at this lack of reverence, but Bill only laughed, and replied:

"It does slip easily, too much so, or I'd have found it out before now and had the right thing patented."

"Why don't yer set a trap fer it?" Hunch inquired seriously.

"Hunch, yer a fool!" Benner exclaimed angrily.

"Jist find it out?" the dwarf asked serenely.

Bill continued:

"I've been experimenting, but I have only one voice, and it makes the same echo. Now, you boys shout when I do, one short loud yell. Then pause and listen. Now, ready: one, two, go."

They shouted loudly as they could, and became instantly still. Echo sent back to them their voices, Hunch's shrill scream dominant over Bill's round full tone. In the wave of sound Benner's plaintive cry was almost drowned. Bill clapped his hands; he was overjoyed.

"It'll work, it'll work," he exclaimed, "and the dwellers in cities will thank me, thank Bill Kellar when he perfects his Echo Sound-softener. I am going to rig up a combination of walls that will reverberate sounds, most of which will die before they reach the drum of the ear. It will just slip over the ear easily and fit it comfortably. Two people wearing sound-softeners can converse easily on the streets, undisturbed by the noise of drays, street-cars, stages, and the shouts of the drivers."

Bill broke off abruptly here. He had become excited, and was nervously afraid his hearers did not understand him, so he ceased description and remarked:

"You will see just how it works when I get it done."

Blind Benner said he was sure it would succeed. Hunch was silent for a while. Presently he observed:

"Last winter my ear-lugs shet up my hearin' purty near, and I hed ter punch a hole in 'em, and then I didn't hear very loud."

Bill looked at the goblin leering at him in the moonlight and wondered how much mockery, how much earnestness there was in his words. As for Blind Benner, he was so much vexed as to lose his patience. Yet, willing to avoid a quarrel, he asked Bill how his violin did.

"Well, very well," Bill replied. "Last night I named her Magdalene, for in her dwell seven devils of fascination. She went before me, and I followed. We climbed heights, we plunged into depths, until I fell prostrate, worn out in the chase after the phantom, Music, who smiled on me pityingly as she stepped into her star chariot drawn by flying meteors."

Blind Benner, enraptured, cried:

"Go on, go on."

But Hunch again checked Bill's enthusiasm by pointing to the Milky Way, dim through the moonlight, and remarking:

"Jerushy! What a lot uv crazy fiddlers' girls must be out ridin' ternight."

Benner's face at first expressed contempt, but it softened to compassion as he said:

"'Tain't yer fault, Hunch. Yer ain't got it in yer head."

But Bill thought Hunch had it in his head, and resolved never to mention the sound-softener nor use high-sounding phrases before him. Becoming more practical, he invited his guests indoors, curious to know the object of their visit, yet too courteous to inquire. Benner did not keep him long in ignorance.

"The McAnay boys is gone ter hunt Gill, but they'll never find him, an' me an' Hunch is goin' ter find the boys an' help 'em git Gill. Then they'll bring him back an' make him marry Lizzi right."

"How can you help find him?" Bill asked gently and not incredulously.

"By my ears. He can't fool 'em if they'd ever hear him laugh er speak, but he might fool the boys' eyes."

"That's so," Bill assented. "But how are you and Hunch goin' to keep up with the big McAnays? They wouldn't want to be bothered with you."

He was considering the plan practically.

"We thought mebbe you'd lend us yer spring wagon," Benner said timidly.

"Of course I would, and drive it too, if I had somebody to look after the place."

"Gee-whitaker!" shouted Hunch. "Wouldn't that be the dandy fun, though."

"We could give concerts to pay expenses," Bill continued, "only I'm afraid of the devil."

"Thunder! I'd blow the devil up his own chimney with my horn," Hunch fairly screamed, greatly excited by the proposed tour.

Benner trembled in silent joy. He was afraid to speak lest he should suggest some objection to the plan and overthrow the whole scheme.

"We'd have to practice awhile together, then I'd know if the devil meant to bother me." Bill spoke meditatively, and continued his thought in silence. Presently Hunch broke the quiet.

"Say, Bill, listen ter me. It's my thinkin' thet if there's enybody this side uv heaven that Satan's afeard uv, it's Parson Lawrence; an' ef yer hed somethin' uv his'n 'long with yer, I don't think the devil'd come near yer."

"Right, boy, right." Bill rushed at Hunch and shook him nervously. "Maybe you have freed the devil-bound slave."

Blind Benner expressed his gratitude by saying:

"Yer _ain't_ no fool, Hunch, but yer an awful tease."

No king ever received homage more gracefully than Hunch.

"What'll it be?" he asked; and when the others failed to suggest anything he gave them further reason to admire his cleverness.

"I don't think Satan'd dare put his split foot on a lock uv Parson Lawrence's hair."

That was decisive; but how to obtain a lock of Parson Lawrence's hair was not so easily agreed upon. Finally, Hunch asserted with something of a swagger.

"I'll git it, don't be afeard, fellers."

Before him rose a vision of the good man asleep upon his bed. A malformed figure creeps silently across the floor. It is Hunch. He reaches the bed. He stretches out a hand, which holds a pair of shears. There is a snap in the stillness. Soon the dwarf departs through the window, bearing with him a lock of the snow-white hair.

Blind Benner spoiled this possible adventure.

"Don't steal it, Hunch," he said, "'cause if yer do, the devil will walk on it jest like he would on his own carpet, fer all stole things is his."

Hunch's countenance fell and his manner became less confident, but yet he declared he would be able to procure the lock of hair. However, he made an effort to prepare Bill for disappointment by asking:

"Wouldn't cotton in yer ears do as well as the hair in the box?"

Bill shook his head despondently, and replied:

"No, no; that makes me deaf for a while to the sweet voice of the violin, become a devil's witch when my bow crosses the strings. When I refuse to listen, the old Tempter gets into the fibre of the violin and pleads by the touch of the vibrating, throbbing instrument, tender and thrilling as the caress of the woman you love."

Blind Benner's thoughts went to Lizzi. He knew what her touch was to him.

While talking, Bill had got the violin and was tuning it. Hunch caught up his horn and blew a series of discordant notes. A frown settled on Bill's brow as he put the violin back into the box, while Hunch exclaimed:

"That devil of yers couldn't stand a brass band, ef one horn scares him, an' I guess there's no use in gittin' a lock uv hair from Parson Lawrence."

"Yes, there is. Get it for me. When I'm alone I can't resist the temptation sometimes, and I haven't got you to drive Satan away. Yes, Hunch," he pleaded, "please get it for me."

Early the next morning Hunch started for Parson Lawrence's home, near the Boomer Creek church. On his way he met the mail-carrier going to Three-Sisters, and sent a note to Lizzi. It read:

"LIZZI: Me and Benner is visitin' Bill Kellar fer fun.

HUNCH."

The dwarf never gave a thought to the store or his father, nor for a moment regretted the loss of a situation, which he knew would be the penalty of his unceremonious departure. The note to Lizzi would inform Benner's friends of his whereabouts and quiet their uneasiness.

"Parson," Hunch said, meeting the reverend gentleman at the church door, "what der yer think crazy Bill Kellar's got inter his head now?"

"I am sure I cannot imagine. A crazy man's notions are hard to guess."

"He still thinks the devil's got him by the ear an' makes him play the fiddle in spite of hisself."

"That is his old delusion, and I'm afraid he will never be rid of it."

"But he thinks yer kin cure him, Parson."

"How?" asked the kindly man, much amused, but willing to be of assistance to the violinist.

"By givin' him a lock uv yer hair ter keep in the fiddle-box, and thet'll keep the devil out so he can't coax Bill."

"He wants a fetich," the clergyman replied sharply, not inclined to encourage the superstition.

"Oh! he's crazy enough ter want anythin'," Hunch remarked innocently, not knowing what a fetich was, but thinking it a queer name for a lock of hair.

The minister laughed. He did not think it wrong to humor the fancies of the insane, and so complied with the request.

Bill received the lock of hair with demonstrative joy and effusive thanks, and Benner shook the dwarf's hand gratefully.

Within a week the trio departed on their tour. A man whom Bill could trust was left in charge of his farm, and a note was sent to Lizzi by her laconic correspondent:

"LIZZI: Bill, Benner and me is gon' consertin'.

HUNCH."