Part 4

"Not quite. Is yours?"

"Well it's doing better than it did after the other 'sifting meeting.'" These remarks and others of like tone showed the nature of the meeting, and also served to divide the congregation.

And the teacher? He did not count, and never had a wish to.

THE STUMP OF A CIGAR

Stump of cigar, as I am, I have a history that is interwoven with that of human beings. When I was in the form of seed I was safely housed in a nice glass jar in a large seed store. For some reason or other I was given the best shelf in the show window.

One day a beautiful young lady came into the store and priced me.

"Why," said the clerk, "that is----"

"Never mind," said she, "what it is. I simply want to know the price."

He told her; she paid it, and bore me off gracefully.

"Ah," said I to myself, "I shall never again see the young man who comes every day and stops opposite the show-window." One windy day, as he stood in his usual place, a lady's hat came rolling along the pavement. What immediately followed this will be told further on.

As I said before, the lady bore me off gracefully. It was night when she entered her well-lighted apartment. "She will examine me," thought I, "and sniff me. Then how I will worship the tears that fall from her eyes."

However, I received no such attention as I had anticipated, for the young lady simply placed me in the center of a large table, sounded a bell, and began to talk, as if addressing someone present.

"You were there, weren't you? You will take me at my word, will you? Let's see. This is how it will go." She then walked to the middle of the floor and acted out a little play that will be given further on. As she finished, she turned to a young woman who was standing in the door and said harshly: "What do you want?"

"The bell sounded," replied the young woman.

"That was not for you," said she. "That was for the devil." She threw a glass at the young woman and left the room. Several times during the night I heard her say: "That was not for you. It was for the devil."

At eight the next morning the servants put breakfast on the table, leaving me still in the middle. At ten minutes past eight my mistress, whom I shall call Ladybug, came into the room and addressed a little speech to me that I did not understand until matters grew much more serious. You could not understand it at this point, so it will not be given now. Five minutes later the young woman who had been chased out of the room the night before, came in. For the sake of convenience I shall call her Butterfly. I was astonished to see Ladybug embrace Butterfly and kiss her twenty times on the forehead. I thought this a bit of amusing comedy. I afterwards found it stern tragedy.

They sat opposite each other at the table and remained about thirty minutes. They spent the time talking and smiling. They did not eat in the common acceptation of the term.

Ladybug rolled her chicken into nicely rounded balls and tossed them down her throat. Butterfly soaked her chicken and bread in milk and drank the milk.

They finished this unusual task together, and started to leave the room, hand in hand, when Ladybug, glancing at the clock, whispered to Butterfly: "I must go; it is time for me to test his heroism and devotion."

Coming to where I rested, Ladybug picked me up, pressed me closely to her heart, and left the room, carrying me with her. She went straight to a nearby lake, and entered a little boat, in which sat a lone individual. It was the young man who had stood so often opposite the show-window. Ladybug took a seat in the boat, and in silence the young man rowed across the waters.

Two hours on the lake were we, and no words were spoken. Then rising, still in silence, Ladybug hurled me upon the bosom of the lake. Twenty times I was thrown into the water, and nineteen times rescued by the young man. The twentieth time? It was fate and heroism. Ladybug pressed me closely and began to rock from side to side. This she did twenty times, each time more and more violently. Her great black eyes seemed to burn into his all the while.

She then once again tossed me into the water--and leaped after me. This was the action of the play she rehearsed out in her room that night when first I came. The young man followed Ladybug in her mad plunge, and at length succeeded in bringing her to their craft. Ten minutes later she was stretched out upon a boat, alive but unconscious. The young man was flesh for the fish, and I was in possession of a countryman.

When Ladybug regained consciousness and learned that the young man had been drowned, she said: "My lover is free. Hell cannot hold him. Human blood and water have atoned for his crime." This is the little speech she addressed to me that first morning. Then it had been put in the future tense.

Twelve months later a beggar gave Butterfly a hand of tobacco for his supper. While he ate she rolled the best leaf into me, placed me between her teeth, and left the room. Soon Ladybug entered, sounded a bell, as was her nightly custom, and waited.

In a few minutes a hideous form entered, smoking me.

"I am the devil," said the shape.

"I am his mistress," said Ladybug, and seized the shape by the throat. The beggar, whom Ladybug had not seen, and whom Butterfly had forgotten, was present, and tried to separate them. In so doing he caused me to get entangled in the laces worn by the woman, communicating my fire to the flimsy garments. Now, the hideous form was Butterfly. Soon the clothing of both was ablaze, when they were darting about the room, the beggar trying to help first one and then the other. Both fell across the piano about the same time, and began to reach out, as if to clamber from the flames. In this way they played, as it were, their own dirge. When the sounds ceased they were dead. A mystery? Yes! No!

* * * * *

On the morning of the wedding-day a groom-to-be sailed out upon the lake. Said he to himself: "Christian people say that he who provides not for his household is worse than an infidel, and that a millstone had better be placed about his neck and be sunk into the sea. What have I for wife and children? Prosperity has passed me by. Friends are not friends. Fate is my executioner."

Three days after this his body was recovered and buried.

The preacher said to the people: "Suicide is an unpardonable sin. The young man, therefore, who was of noble birth and parentage, who was chaste in life and honorable in business, is in hell."

Ladybug, the dead man's fiancée, believed the rash-judging preacher. She soon lost her reason. Then came upon her the hallucinations that wrought the other tragedies. She believed that if her lover's twin brother, the young man of the fatal boat ride, would stand opposite the seed store for twenty days, and then perish as described in the boat ride, her lover would be released from hell and returned to her. Ladybug, among other hallucinations, believed that the number twenty held potent virtues; hence, the twenty days, twenty kisses, and the like. The lover was twenty years old, hence Ladybug's counting by twenties. The twin brother out of pity consented to humor her whim, not thinking it would cost him his life.

Ladybug passed the seed store every day to see if he was true to his pact. As she passed the twentieth day, her hat blew off. He started to get it, but she said: "Let it be. Some of my troubles may roll away with it. I will be at the boat to-morrow morning with a charm. Then my lover shall live again. Blood and water shall atone for his crimes."

She immediately bought me of the clerk. There was no logic in this part of the affair. She simply thought the first thing her eyes fell upon would serve her purpose.

To make sure of her lover's return, she would also practice upon Butterfly, her sister. Butterfly, too, submitted to humor her whim.

The embraces and twenty kisses were the beginning of this.

Butterfly of her own accord had dressed and acted the devil on the fatal night, in the hope that the appearance of the devil would act as a counter-shock, and restore Ladybug's reason again. The presence of the beggar was a mere accident. The hand of tobacco out of which I was made was ground from the jar of seed left with the countryman.

As I lay upon the floor that dreadful night and saw Ladybug and Butterfly lying dead across the piano, I said to myself: "Stump of cigar, as I am, I have a history."

A RUSTIC COMEDY

Abraham and Ruth, his wife, were stingy and childless. Three children had come to them, whose taking off left Abraham embittered against men. Ruth often said: "Complain not, Abraham, my man. Is not an angel more than a child? The little ones were your flesh, but my soul. Complain not, Abraham, my man."

Abraham had met, wooed, and wed Ruth in the fields, and ever afterward kept her there. Side by side they toiled, eating little, visiting seldom, and ever replenishing the money-bag at the bottom of the meal barrel. At the time of this incident the money bag was full and the meal barrel was about empty.

It was winter, and the old couple had just returned from a visit to a neighbor. As Abraham stirred the fire he said: "Ruth, we are getting old and must soon be done with things earthly. We have toiled hard and been a little saving. The neighbors have never had the opportunity of finding fault with your cooking; nor has the good parson ever had the hardihood to look this way for a contribution. I have been thinking of the best way to dispose of our wealth just before the breath leaves our bodies. Ruth, like yourself, I have always been pious-minded and desirous of doing something that will benefit the neighbors, and at the same time start their tongues to wagging about our good parts. It strikes me the best way to do this is to leave our money to erect a parsonage and to place a bell in the chapel. The bell will spread our fame above, and the women who visit the parson's wife will spread it below. I know from experience, Ruth, that it is a blessing as well as a curse to have ones acts linked with the tongue of a woman. Now, what think you?"

"Abraham," said Ruth, "I have always thought you had some good aim stuck away in your soul; and as time rolled on your good angel would discover it to you. This is why I have seldom differed from you. Why wait until we die to have this done? Let us take our savings of years to-morrow and place them in the hands of the parson."

"You have spoken wisely, my dear wife," said Abraham. "It shall be done."

After kissing Ruth, Abraham turned and stirred the fire. Just then someone knocked at the door. Abraham opened it, and in came a stalwart stranger, carrying a pair of saddle-bags. He asked for supper and a night's lodging. The old couple frankly told him they had no supper for him, but he was welcome to warm by the fire and sleep in the loft. He gladly accepted their proffer, and took his seat by the fire. Soon he began to spin yarns of all lengths and descriptions, and ended by telling how, while stopping with an old couple, he had kept them from being robbed. After this he crept upstairs and retired.

When Abraham thought the stranger was asleep he told his wife to prepare an ashcake for their supper. She told him there would not be meal enough if she threw away the husk.

"Well," said he, "put in husk and all."

The ashcake was soon spread upon the hearth and covered with hot ashes. Abraham bowed his head as though to ask a blessing.

"Not yet," said Ruth. "We are told there may be many a slip between the cup and the lip." Here they were interrupted by a noise from above.

"My dear friends," said the stranger, as he tumbled downstairs. "I forgot to tell you how my land runs." He took the poker, and, placing it in the middle of the ashcake, and moving it in keeping with the words, said:

"My land runs north, south, east, and west; then, coming back to the middle, it runs around and around." Having thus ruined the ashcake, he went back upstairs. After a considerable silence, Abraham said: "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh, and blessed be the rope that hangeth the stranger."

After removing their treasure from the meal barrel and almost worshipping it, they returned it and retired. They were soon fast asleep, but the stranger was not. Hours passed, and still the stranger was awake. Before knocking at the door to be admitted he had heard the old couple's talk concerning their money, and what they intended to do with it the next day. He had also seen them take it from the barrel, and replace it. He was now thinking about it. What were his thoughts? Was he planning some way to rob them? Was he thinking how he might protect them in a case of emergency? Hearing a noise below, he crawled to the opening and looked down. He saw that the side window had been opened. Looking farther, he saw a man stooping over the meal barrel. With the greatest precaution he descended and slipped up behind the man and soon gagged him with a handkerchief. He held the intruder easily by pressing him against the barrel. Beside the barrel lay a meal sack. This the stranger slipped over the intruder's head and arms, and wrapped him around with a rope that was lying near. By this time Abraham and his wife were awake.

"Look," said the stranger, "what I have done for you. This thief almost had your treasure when I apprehended him. He is all right, now. Where shall I put him. What about this closet here? You know we must keep him until morning and turn him over to the officers." With this the stranger dragged the robber into the closet.

"Let us have more light," said Ruth.

"No," said the stranger; "there may be more. Light might frighten them away. I want to serve you well to-night. You know I owe you a little something for listening to how my land runs."

"What was that white something," said Ruth, "you had over the fellow's head?"

"It was a meal sack," said the stranger.

"That is strange, indeed," said Ruth. "There was not a meal sack on the place when we went to bed."

"This is a strange night," said the stranger. "I am your friend, and yet I am so strange I would not let you eat that delicious ashcake. Go to bed, Aunt Ruth. Uncle Abraham and I will watch the thieves. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh; and, Uncle Abraham, will you finish the rest of it?"

Abraham said nothing. He thought the stranger was getting very familiar; but since he had done them such a good turn they could stand almost anything at his hands.

Ruth could not return to bed without first looking into the meal barrel in search of her treasure. It was there, and around it were a dozen or more bundles.

"How is this?" said she. "It is quite an honest thief that will take one treasure and leave another."

"Be not deceived," said the stranger; "a thief is by honor as a criminal is by his chains. A criminal does not worry himself and bruise his hands against his chains because he wishes to atone for his evil ways, but in order to get loose so that he may continue his crimes. Whenever a thief puts forth an act that smacks of honor, it is simply that he may conduct his business on a larger scale. Don't you see the point, Aunt Ruth? The thief we have in the closet stole those things somewhere else. He was afraid to leave them outside lest someone should steal them from him. When he saw your bag of money was so heavy he could not take them both, he concluded to leave the things and take the money."

"Why did he take the pains to put them into the barrel?" said Ruth.

"That is clear enough," said the stranger. "Had he put them on the floor you might have stumbled over them before morning and had your attention drawn to the robbery ere he could have gotten out of the neighborhood. By the way, he must have had the bundles in that sack in which he is now safely housed. He had emptied the sack before I saw him, and, I think, was stooping over to lift out the bag of money." Ruth and Abraham accepted this as a logical argument, and Ruth was soon in bed and asleep.

"I think I hear footsteps," said Abraham to the stranger.

"I am quite sure of that, sir," said the stranger. "I will settle him about as I did the first. I have a handkerchief. You get a bed quilt and a cord and follow me." They walked into the yard, the stranger leading. In the distance they saw a figure approaching.

"Let us go a little farther over this way," said the stranger. The words were hardly out of his mouth before he uttered a groan. When Abraham looked, the stranger was nowhere to be seen. Another groan, however, located him. He had fallen into an old cistern. On turning, Abraham stumbled over a ladder. With this the stranger was soon rescued.

By this time they could see that the approaching figure was a man with something like a sack on his shoulder. Instead of coming straight to them he turned his course a little in order to reach the side window.

"Uncle Abraham," said the stranger, "while we are out here wrestling with this fellow, some other one might go in and make off with the bag of money. Don't you think you had better bring it out and hold to it? I can handle this chap."

"Yes, yes," said Abraham; "it is a good thought."

He accordingly returned to the house, brought out his treasure, and sat down by the side of it, watching the newcomer.

The man with the sack walked up to the window and leaned the sack against the house. He then deliberately opened the window and peeped in, placing himself in very much the same position as had the one who had stooped over the barrel. Stepping swiftly up to the window, before the man could remove his head, the stranger had him gagged. In another minute he had been enfolded in the quilt, with a cord fast around him.

"I groaned in yonder sinkhole," said the stranger, "but you shall both groan and sleep in there the rest of the night, if you sleep at all." With this he rolled the latest intruder into the old cistern and placed boards across it.

"Uncle Abraham," said the stranger, "you take the money and I'll bring in the sack. Aunt Ruth, we have another of your honest thieves. He is out in the old cistern, thinking how he will not use your money. See what he has left you?"

Removing the contents of the sack, they so filled the barrel that there was no room for the bag of money.

"Young man, my dear young man," said Abraham, "there are no family ties between us, as far as I know, but I find myself drawn as closely to you as a father to his son. I could trust you with our lives, much less with our money. Keep watch over the bag of money while we take a good, solid nap."

The old couple were soon fast asleep. About four o'clock Ruth awoke and said: "Abraham, the door is open."

"So it is," said Abraham.

"But--but--Ruth, where is the stranger?"

"But--but--Abraham, where is the bag of money?"

Sure enough, both stranger and money were gone.

"I thought he was claiming kin a little too soon," said Ruth. "These folks who claim kin so soon are just like the folks who come to your house and tell you one lie about your neighbor in order to get you to tell a hundred. Then they will have a sufficient stock to supply the whole neighborhood. Is the fellow in the closet safe?"

"I'll see."

"How about the one in the cistern?"

"Safe, too," said Abraham. "We will turn them over to the officers as early in the day as possible, and then set them on the trail of the stranger. Maybe he will have some of the money when caught. In the meantime, what shall we do to keep up our spirits until it is good and light?"

"I never in my life," said Ruth, "felt more like hearing a prayer by Deacon Brindlebee and a sermon by Parson Prudence."

"Why, look," said Abraham, "the rogue has left his saddle-bags. Let's see what is in them."

He opened one side and drew out a copy of an old newspaper. He unfolded it, and there was a sermon on Patience by the identical Parson Prudence.

"Ah," said Ruth, "the rogue has also left his hat. What's in it?"

There was a folded paper between the hat and inner band. This she opened, and found that, among other things, it contained a prayer by Deacon Brindlebee.

"Now we have them," said Ruth. "Let us take our minds off rogues and place them on the words of these holy men. It would be far better to have them here, but let us stammer through them as best we can."

For nearly two hours Abraham and Ruth prayed the deacon's prayer and preached the parson's sermon. When six o'clock came they were still so carried away with the prayer and sermon that they were not conscious of the presence of two men who were standing near the door until they spoke.

"What's up now, Abraham?" said one of them. "Have robbers been about?"

"Pretty officers are you," said Abraham. "You should have been here last night. We have been entertaining robbers the whole night. Their aim was to rob us of our life's savings. One was good enough to entrap the others, so that you will have no trouble in securing them. Then, as soon as we were asleep, he took the bag of money and made off with it. Assemble the whole neighborhood, and I will turn two of them over to you."

In a short time nearly every man, woman, and child in the neighborhood was there. The man in the closet was dragged out and laid in the middle of the floor. The one in the cistern was hauled up and laid by his side. Then Abraham told the people how he and Ruth had labored through forty years to save the money; how at last they intended to spend it for a parsonage and a bell for Parson Prudence's church, and how the rogues lying before them tried to steal it, and were prevented and captured by the other and greater thief, who succeeded in getting away with it.

The people grew furious. Some wanted to hang them; others wanted to drown and bury them. One good deacon declared that it would be a great advantage for such characters to go to torment bundled up in that way, for, after they were in and their wraps were burned off, the devil would not know when they had come in nor what they had done.

"Let us do nothing rashly," said Ruth. "These poor souls may never hear another prayer or sermon. Let some brother come forth and read Deacon Brindlebee's prayer and another read Parson Prudence's sermon."

Two brethren came forth and conducted the services, after which the two men were untied and uncovered. To the surprise and consternation of all, there lay Parson Prudence and Deacon Brindlebee. The men were so chilled and cramped it was fully an hour before they could make themselves understood.

In the meantime other scenes took place.

"The very thought of a parson and a deacon turning thieves," said some, "is enough to give every sinner a license to miss heaven."

"The parson and the deacon are innocent," said others. "This old scoundrel and his wife, and maybe someone else, have played a trick on them. Where did they get money enough to buy a parsonage and a bell? They have always lived from hand to mouth. During forty years they have never had enough to give a neighbor a meal, and were never known to give the smallest contribution to the church. Gag them and serve them as they have served our parson and deacon."

The men seized Abraham, gagged him, and lowered him into the cistern. The women served Ruth in the same way and stored her away in the closet.

At this point the storekeeper stood upon the edge of the barrel and said: