Chapter 9

"My, how we did laugh! And Lavina must needs try it right away, to please Gracie; and she said it worked beautiful. But whether it was the laughin' so much right on top of a hearty supper, or the bendin' down to try her new toy, or both, she jest says, as natural as I'm speakin' now, 'Jabez, I'm a-goin'--' and then stopped. And when I looked up to see why she didn't finish, she was gone, sure enough."

His voice broke, and he stopped abruptly. Mr. Birchard, without in the least intending to do it, grasped his hand, and held it with affectionate warmth for a moment.

"Thank you, young man, thank you kindly," said Uncle Jabez, recovering his voice and shaking Mr. Birchard's hand heartily at the same moment. "You've an uncommon feelin' heart for one so young.

"To say I was lonesome after she went don't say much; but time evens things out after a while, or we couldn't stand it as long as we do. Gracie she settled into a little woman all at once, as you may say, and seemed older for a while than she does now. The rest was all married and gone, but one boy,--a good boy, too. But they came around me, comfortin' and helpin', though each one of 'em mourned her nigh as much as I did myself; and after a while, as I said, I got used, in a manner, to doin' 'ithout her."

Here he made a long pause, with his eyes intently fixed upon the darkness of the adjoining store-room. The heat from the stove had become too great after the shutting of the shutters, and one of the men had opened an inner door for ventilation.

Now, as one pair of eyes after another followed those of the old man, there was a sort of subdued stir around the circle, and the schoolmaster, to his intense disgust, caught himself looking hastily over his shoulder,--the door being behind him.

Mr. Dickey broke the spell by suddenly rising, with the exclamation, "I think we're cooled off about enough; and, as I'm a little rheumaticky to-night, I'll shut that door, if you've none of you no objections."

There was a subdued murmur of assent, the door was closed, and Uncle Jabez returned to the thread of his discourse:

"Lemme see: where was I? Oh, yes. You may think it a little strange, now, but I didn't neither see nor hear tell of her for a full six months. If I was makin' this story up, and anxious to make a _good_ story of it, you can see, if you're fair-minded, that I'd say she came back right away. Now, wouldn't I be most likely to? Say?"

He appealed so directly to Mr. Birchard, pausing for a reply, that the sceptic was obliged to answer in some way, and, with a curious sort of reluctance, he said slowly, "Yes--I suppose--I'm sure you would."

This seemed to satisfy Uncle Jabez, and he went on with his story:

"I came home from town one stormy night, about six months after she died, pretty well beat out,--entirely so, I may say. I'd been drivin' some cattle into the city, and I'd had only a poor concern of a boy to help me. The cattle was contrai-ry,--contrai-rier'n common; and I remember thinkin', when the feller at the drove-yard handed me my check, that I'd earned it pretty hard. That's the last about it I do remember. I s'pose I must 'a' put it in my pocket-book, the same as usual; but I rode home in a sort of a maze, I was so tired and drowsy, and I'd barely sense enough to eat my supper and grease my boots afore I went to bed. I had a bill to pay the next day, and I opened my pocket-book, quite confident, to take out the check. It wasn't there. I always kep' a number of papers in that pocket-book, and I thought at fust it had got mislaid among 'em: so I turned everything out, and unfolded 'em one by one, and poked my finger through a hole between the leather and the linin', and made it a good deal bigger,--but that's neither here nor there,--and before I was through I was certain sure of one thing,--- that wherever else that check was, it wasn't in that pocket-book. Then I tried my pockets, one after the other,--four in my coat, four in my overcoat, three in my vest, two in my pants: no, it wasn't in any of them, and I begun to feel pretty queer, I can tell you. It was my only sale of cattle for the season; I was dependin' on it to pay a bill and buy one or two things for Gracie; and, anyhow, it's no fun to lose a hunderd-dollar check and feel as if it must have been bewitched away from you. I rode back to the drove-yard, though I wasn't more'n half rested from the day before, and they said they'd stop payment on the check and give me a chance to look right good for it, and if I couldn't find it they'd draw me another. You see, they knowed me right well, and they wasn't afraid I was tryin' to play any sort of a game on 'em. Still, it wasn't a pleasant thing to have happen, for, say the best you could of it, it argued that I'd lost a considerable share of my wits. So, when I come home, I felt so kind of worried and down-hearted that I couldn't half eat my supper; and that worried Gracie,--she was a thin-skinned little critter, and if I didn't eat the same as usual she'd always take it into her head there was something wrong with the victuals. I fell asleep in my cheer right after supper, and slept till nine o'clock; and then Gracie woke me, and ast me if I didn't think I'd better go to bed. I said yes, I s'posed I had; but by that time I was hungry, and I ast her what she had good in the pantry. She brightened up wonderful at that,--though when I come to look closer at her I see she'd been cryin',--and she said there was doughnuts, fresh fried that day, and the best half of a mince pie. I told her that was all right so far as it went, but I'd like somethin' a little solider to begin with: so she found me a few slices of cold pork and one of her cowcumber pickles, and I eat a right good supper. She picked at a piece of pie, by way of keepin' me company, but she didn't eat much. Now, I tell you this, which you may think isn't revelant to the subject, to let you see I went to bed comfortable. We laughed and talked over our little supper, and pretended we was city-folks, on our way home from the theater, gettin' a fancy supper at Delmonico's. And I forgot all about the check for the time bein', as slick and clean as if I'd never had it nor lost it. But, nevertheless, when I went to sleep I begun to dream about it, and was to the full as much worried in my dream as I was when I was awake. I seemed to myself to be huntin' all over the house, in every hole and corner I could think of, and sometimes I'd come on pieces of paper that looked so like it outside I'd make sure I'd found it, and then when I opened 'em they'd be ridickilous rhymes, 'ithout any sense to 'em; when all of a sudden I heard Lavina's voice, as plain as you hear mine now. It seemed to come from a good ways off just at first, callin' 'Father,'--she always called me 'Father,' partly because she didn't like the name of Jabez, and it is a humbly name, I'm free to confess,--and then again nearer, 'Father;' and then again, as if it was right at the foot of the stairs. And this time it went on to say, loud and plain, so's 't I could hear every word, 'You look in the little black teapot on the top shelf of the pantry, where I kep' the missionary money, and see what you'll find.' And with that I heard her laugh; and I'd know Lavina's laugh among a thousand. I was too dazed like to do it right away, and I must 'a' fell asleep while I was thinkin' about it, for when I woke up it was broad daylight and Gracie was callin' to me to get up. But I hadn't forgot a word that Lavina'd said, and I went for that teapot as quick as I was dressed, and there was the check, sure enough, in good order and condition!"

He paused to look round at his audience and see the effect of this statement, and the schoolmaster took advantage of the pause to ask, "Were you in the habit of putting money in that teapot for safe-keeping, Uncle Jabez?"

"Young man, I was not," said Uncle Jabez emphatically, and evidently annoyed both by the question and by the tone in which it was uttered. "It was a little notion of Lavina's, and I'd never meddled with it, one way or the other. But I'd left it be there after she died, because I liked to look at it. I'd no more 'a' dreamed of puttin' that check in it than I would of puttin' it into Gracie's work-box. But there it was, and how it come there it wasn't vouchsafed me to know.

"I think it must have been a matter of three or four months after this, though I wouldn't like to say too positive, that I fell into my first and last lawsuit. A man I'd always counted a good neighbor made out he'd found an old title-deed which give him a right to a smart slice off'n my best meadow-land. It dated fifty years back, and old Peter Pinnell, that was the only surveyor in the township at that time, made out he recollected runnin' the lines; and when McKellop, the feller that claimed the track, took old Pinnell over the ground, to see if he could find any landmarks that would help to make the claim good, they found a big pine-tree jest where they wanted to find it, and cut into it at the right height to find a 'blaze,' if there was one. The rings was marked as plain as the lines on a map, and when they'd cut through fifty, there was the mark, sure enough, and McKellop's lawyer crowed ready to hurt himself. I was a good deal cut down, I can tell you, for I could see pretty well that it was goin' to turn the scale; and when supper-time came, Gracie could hardly coax me to the table. I said no, I didn't feel to be hungry; for I couldn't get that strip of meadow-land out of my head. And it wasn't so much the value of the land, either, though I couldn't well afford to lose it, as it was the idee of McKellop's crowin' and cacklin' all over the neighborhood about it. But Gracie looked so anxious and tired that I come to the table, jest to satisfy her; and I found I was hungry, after all, for I'd been trampin' round the farm most of the day, lookin' for some landmark or sign that would prove my claim, that dated seventy years back. I recollect we had soused pigs' feet for supper that night; and I don't think I ever tasted better in my life. I eat pretty free of them, as I always did of anything I liked, and we wound up with some of her canned peaches, that she'd got out to coax me to eat, and cream on 'em 'most as thick as butter: she had a skimmer with holes into it that she always skimmed the cream with for our own use. She'd made as good a pot of coffee as I ever tasted. And when I'd had all I wanted, I felt a good deal better, and I says to her,--'I'll fret over it no more, Gracie: if it's his'n, let him take it 'ithout more words.'

"She read me a story out of the paper that made us both laugh right hearty, and then a chapter, as usual, and then we went to bed. And all come round jest as it did afore. I thought I was roamin' about the farm, as I had been pretty nigh all day; but things was changed round, somehow, and the further I went the more mixed up they got, till, jest as I'd found the pine-tree, I heard Lavina's voice, the same as I'd done afore,--first far, and then near,--sayin', 'Father;' and the third time she said it, when it sounded close to, she went on to say, 'He's done his cuttin', now do you do yours. You cut through twenty more rings, and you'll find the blaze that marks _your_ survey. And then thank him kindly for givin' you the idee. The smartest of folks is too smart for themselves once in a while.' And with that she laughed her own jolly, hearty laugh; but that was the last she said; and I laid there wonderin' and thinkin' for a while, and then dropped off to sleep. But it was all as clear as a bell in my head in the morning, and I had McKellop and old Peter at the pine-tree by eight o'clock. I'd sharpened my axe good, I can tell you, and it didn't take me long to cut through twenty more rings, and there, sure enough, was the blaze; and if ever you see a blue-lookin' man, that man was McKellop; for as soon as old Peter see the blaze he recollected hearin' his father tell about the survey; he recollected it particular because the old man was a good judge of apple-jack, and he'd said that _my_ father'd gi'n him some of the best, that day the survey was made, that he'd ever tasted. And Peter said he reckoned he could find something about it in his father's books and among some loose papers he had in a box. And, sure enough, he found enough to make my claim as clear as a bell and make McKellop's as flat as a pancake. Now, what do you think of _that_, hey?"

Once more the old man peered into Birchard's face, and the schoolmaster answered one question with another, after the custom of the country:

"Did you ever know anything about the blazed tree before McKellop found the blaze?"

"When I come to think it over, I found I did," said Uncle Jabez, falling all unconscious into the trap set for him. "I hadn't no papers about it, but my father had told me all the ins and outs of it when I was a boy, and it had somehow gone out of my mind."

"Ah!" said the schoolmaster.

"I don't know what you mean by 'Ah' in this connection," said Uncle Jabez, speaking with unwonted sharpness; "but if you're misdoubtin' what I tell you I may as well shet up and go home."

"I don't doubt your word in the least, Uncle Jabez; I assure you I don't," Mr. Birchard hastened to say. "And I'm deeply interested. I hope you will go on and tell me all your experiences of this kind. I've heard and read a good many ghost-stories; but in all of them the ghosts were malicious creatures, who seemed to come back chiefly for the fun of scaring people out of their wits. Yours is the first really benevolent and well-meaning ghost of which I have ever heard; and it interests me immensely; for I never could see why a person who was all goodness and generosity while he--or she--was alive should turn into an unmitigated nuisance after dying. I should think, if they must needs come back, they might just as well be pleasant about it and make people glad to see--or hear--them."

"That's exactly the view I've always taken," said Mr. Crumlish modestly; "and one reason I've never felt to doubt any of Uncle Jabez's stories is that all the ghosts he's ever seen or heard tell of have been decent-behaving ghosts, that didn't come back just for the fun of scaring people to death."

"That's so; that's so," said the old man, entirely mollified, and hearing no note of sarcasm in the schoolmaster's rapidly-uttered eloquence. "If any one of 'em was to behave ugly," he continued, "it would shake my faith in the whole thing considerable; for I couldn't bring myself to believe that anybody I've ever knowed could be so far given over as to want to be ugly after dyin'."

"Well, now, I don't know," said Mr. Dickey argumentatively. "I _hev_ knowed certain folks that it seems to me would stick to their ugliness alive or dead, and, though I've never seen no appearances of any kind, as I may say, I can believe jist as easy that some of 'em come back for mischief as that others come back for good."

There was a few minutes' constrained silence after this remark. Mr. Dickey's first wife had been what is popularly known as "a Tartar," and there was a generally current rumor that as the last shovelful of earth was patted down on her grave he had been heard to murmur, "Thanks be to praise, she's quiet at last." The idea of her reappearance in her wonted haunts was indeed a dismaying one, especially as Mr. Dickey had recently married again, and, if the gossips knew anything about it, was repeating much of his former painful experience. The silence, which was becoming embarrassing, was finally broken by the schoolmaster.

"Had you any more experiences of the kind you have just related, Uncle Jabez?" he asked, in tones of such deep respect and lively interest that Uncle Jabez responded, with gratifying promptness,--

"Plenty, plenty, though perhaps them two that I've just told you was the most strikin'. But it always seemed to me, after that first time, that Lavina was on hand when anything went wrong or was likely to go wrong; and ef I was to tell you all the scrapes she's kep' me out of and pulled me out of, I should keep you settin' here all night. There was one more," he continued, "that struck me a good deal at the time. It was about money, like the fust one, in a different sort of way. It was durin' those days when specie was so skurce and high that it was quite a circumstance to get a piece of hard money. There come along a peddler in a smart red wagon, with all sorts of women's trash packed into it, and Gracie took it into her head to want some of his things. It happened to be her birthday that day, and, as she didn't often pester me about clothes, I told her to choose out what she wanted, up to five dollars' worth, and, if the feller could change me a twenty-dollar note, I'd pay for it. He jumped at it, sayin' he didn't count it any trouble at all to give change, the way some storekeepers did, and that he always kep' a lot on hand to oblige his customers. I will say for him that it seemed to me he give Gracie an amazin' big five dollars' worth, and when he come to make the change he handed out a ten-dollar gold piece, or what I then took to be such, as easy as if he'd found it growin' on a bush, and said nothin' whatever about the premium on it. Perhaps I'd ought to have mentioned it, but it seemed to me it was his business more'n mine: so I jest took it as if it was the most natural thing in life, and he went off. I thought I might as well as not get the premium on it before it went down the way folks said it was goin' to: so, after dinner, I harnessed up, and drove down to the post-office,--it was kep' in the drug-store then, the same as it is now,--and when I handed my gold piece to the postmaster, which was also the druggist, and said I'd take a quarter's worth of stamps, and I believed gold was worth a dollar fifteen just now, he first smelt of it, and then bit it, and then poured some stuff out'n a bottle onto it, and then handed it back to me with a pityin' smile that somehow riled me more'n a little, and he says, says he,--

"'Somebody's fooled you badly, Uncle Jabez. That coin's a counterfeit. Do you happen to know where you got it?'

"'I know well enough,' I says, and I expect I spoke pretty mad, for I _felt_ mad. 'I got it of a travellin' peddler, that's far enough away by this time, and if you're sure it's bad I'm that much out of pocket.' He seemed right concerned about it, and ast me if I hadn't no clue that I could track the peddler by; but I couldn't think of any, and I went home a good deal down in the mouth. But Gracie chirked me up, as she always does, bless her! and she made me a Welsh rabbit for supper, and some corn muffins, and a pot of good rich chocolate, by way of a change, and we agreed that, as she'd a pretty big five dollars worth and as the rest of the change was good, we'd say no more about it, for it would be like lookin' for a needle in a hay-stack to try to track him.

"'Why, father,' she says, 'I don't so much as know his name: do you?'

"I told her no, I didn't; that if I'd heard his name I disremembered it, but that I didn't think I'd heard it. And then that very night come another visit from mother, and she told me all about it. She come the way she always did, and when she spoke the last time, close to, as you may say, she says,--

"'I wouldn't give up that ten dollars so easy, if I was you, father. That peddler's name is Hanigan,--Elwood Hanigan,--and he'll be at the State Fair to-morrow. Now, do you go, and you'll find his red wagon with no trouble at all; and jest be right down firm with him, and tell him that if he doesn't give you good money in place of the bad he foisted off on you you'll show him up to the whole fair, and you'll see how glad he'll be to settle it.'

"And with that she laughed jest as natural as life, and I heard no more till Gracie knocked on my door in the morning."

"And did you go to the fair and find him and get your money back?" asked Birchard, who was interested in spite of his scepticism.

"I did, jest that," replied Uncle Jabez. "I got off bright and early, and, as luck would have it, I'd jest tied and blanketed my horse when that wonderful smart red wagon come drivin' in at the gate. I waited till he'd begun to pull his wares out and make a fine speech about 'em, and then I jest walked up to him, cool and composed, and give him his choice between payin' me good money for his bogus gold or hearin' _me_ make a speech; and you may jest bet your best hat he paid up quicker'n winkin'. Perhaps I'd ought to have warned folks ag'in' him as it was, but I had a notion he'd save his tricks till he got to another neighborhood; and it turned out I was right. He didn't give none of his gold change out that day. But you can see for yourself that if it hadn't been for Lavina he'd have come off winnin' horse in that race. That was always the way when mother was about: she had more sense in her little finger than I had in my whole body, and head too, for that matter."

"And you found that you really had not known the man's name until it was conveyed to you in the manner in which you have described?" asked the schoolmaster deferentially.

"Well, no," said Uncle Jabez. "When I saw his wagon the next day, I remembered of readin' his name in gilt letters on the side, tacked to some patent medicine he claimed to have invented; but I don't suppose I'd ever thought of it again if mother hadn't told it to me so plain."

The schoolmaster said nothing. He had his own neat little theories concerning all the manifestations which had been mentioned, but somehow the old man's guileless belief had touched him, and he had no longer any desire to shake it, even had it been possible to do so. But he could not help probing the subject a little further: so presently he asked, "And you've never spoken to her, never asked her if it were not possible for you to see as well as hear her?"

"Young man," said Uncle Jabez kindly, but solemnly, "there's such a sin as presumption, and there's some old sayin' or other about fools rushin' in where angels fear to tread. If you try to grab too much at once, you're apt to lose all. If it was meant for me to see mother as well as hear her, I _should_ see her; and if I was to go to pryin' round and tryin' to find out what's purposely hid from me, I make no doubt but I should lose the little that's been vouchsafed to me. But I'd far rather hear you ask questions like that than to have you throwin' doubt on the whole business, as you seemed inclined to do at fust."

"Look here," said Mr. Dickey briskly, "do you know it's well on to half-past ten? and we were to have the key at Pegram's by ten. I think we'd better do what there is to do, and clear out of this as quick as we know how, and mebbe some of us will wish before an hour's gone that we had Uncle Jabez's knack at makin' out a good story."

"You speak for yourself, Dickey," said Mr. Crumlish good-naturedly. "There's some of us that goes in and comes out, with nobody to care which it is, nor how long we stay; but freedom has its drawbacks, as well as other things."

The schoolmaster laughed at himself for striking a match as he turned the last light out, but he felt moving through his brain a vague wish that Uncle Jabez would break himself of that trick he had of gazing fixedly at nothing, and that other trick of stopping suddenly in the middle of a sentence to cock his head, as if he were hearing some far-away, uncertain sound.

MARGARET VANDEGRIFT.

FISHING IN ELK RIVER.