Part 4

“Gimme that!” yelled Sipes, and I heard the little volume strike the sand somewhere out in the dark near the water. “Wot d’ye s’pose I got this place fer if it ain’t to have peace an’ quiet ’ere, an’ wot’s this red-headed devil comin’ ’round ’ere fer an’ fussin’ me all up tell’n’ me where I’m goin’ w’en I die, w’en I don’t give a whoop where I go when I die. That feller’s bunk an’ don’t you fergit it, an’ ’e’s worse’n that, fer look ’ere wot I found in that basket where I had about two pounds o’ salt pork!”

He produced a piece of soiled and crumpled paper, on which were scrawled the following quotations: “Of their flesh shall ye not eat, and their carcass shall ye not touch. They are unclean to you” (Leviticus 11:8). “Curséd shall be thy basket and thy store” (Deuteronomy 28:17).

“It’s all right fer ’im to cuss my basket if ’e wants to, but I ain’t got no store. I’ll bet ’e frisked that hunk o’ pork an’ chucked in them texts ’fore you fellers got ’ere an’ I got in off’n the lake. It was in ’is big coat pocket all the time he was makin’ that hot spiel, an’ that’s w’y ’e didn’t ’ave no room fer ’is hymn book. He’s swiped my food an’ I can’t fry them texts, an’ you fellers are all in on it fer I was goin’ to cook the pork an’ we’d all have sump’n to eat. He cert’nly spread hell ’round ’ere thick tonight. Some day he’ll be yellin’ fer ice all right. Who are them Leviticus an’ Deuteronomy fellers anyhow? They ain’t no friends o’ mine!

“I’m weary o’ that name o’ Zekiel-seven-nine he’s carryin’ ’round. ’E ought to have an eight spot in it, an’ with a six an’ a ten ’e’d ’ave a straight an’ it ’ud take a flush er a full house to beat ’im. I bet ’e’s a poker sharp, an’ ’e’s hidin’ from sump’n over ’ere, an’ ’e ain’t the fust one that’s done it. I seen ’im stewed once’t an’ ’e had a lovely still. He’d oozed in the juice over to the county seat an’ come over ’ere an’ felt bad about it in my shanty. He come up to the window w’en I was fixin’ my pipe an yelled, ‘Bow ye not down ’afore idols!’ I went out an’ hustled ’im in out o’ the wet. It was rainin’ pretty bad an’ ’e was soaked, but ’e said ’e didn’t care so long’s none of it didn’t git in ’is stummick. I dassent light a match near ’is breath.

“I had ’im ’ere two days, an’ ’e said he’d took sump’n by mistake, an’ ’e had. I had to keep givin’ ’im more air all the time. He drunk enough water the next mornin’ to put out a big fire an’ I guess ’e had one in ’im all right. After that ’e ast me if I had any whiskey, an’ w’en I told ’im I didn’t, ’e said ’e was glad of it, fer it was devil’s lure. He’d ’a’ stowed it if he’d got to it. I did ’ave a little an’ I guess now’s a good time to git it out, an’ I hope I don’t find no texts stuck in the jug. We all need bracin’ up, so ’ere goes! That feller’s a blankety-blankety-blank--blank-blank, an’ besides that ’e’s got other faults!”

It seems a pity to have to expurgate Sipes’s original and ornate profanity from his discourses, but common decency requires it. The old man left the shanty with a lantern and shovel. A few minutes later we saw his light at the edge of the lake where he was washing the sand from the outside of his jug. Evidently it had been buried treasure.

“I’ve et an’ drunk so much sand since I been livin’ ’ere on this beach that my throat’s all wore out an’ full o’ little holes, an’ I ain’t goin’ to swaller no more’n I c’n help after this,” he remarked, as he came in and hung the lantern on its hook in the ceiling; “now you fellers drink hearty.”

At this juncture a wailing sepulchral voice, loud and deep, came out of the darkness in the distance.

“Beware! Beware! Beware! In the earth have ye found damnation!”

“There ’e is!” yelled Sipes, as he leaped across the floor for his scatter-gun. He ran out with it and was gone for some time. He returned with an expression of disgust on his weather-beaten face. “I’ll wing that cuss some night ’fore the snow falls,” he remarked, as he resumed his seat. “We’d better soak up all this booze tonight fer it won’t be safe in any o’ the ground ’round ’ere any more. Gosh! but this is a fine country to live in!”

The party broke up quite late. Happy Cal had imbibed rather freely. Catfish John had been more temperate, and thought he had “better go ’long with Cal,” and it seemed better that he should. As they went away I could hear Cal entertaining John with snatches of some old air about “wine, women, an’ song.” They stopped a while at the margin of the lake, where the wet sand made the walking better, and Cal affectionately assured John of his eternal devotion. They then disappeared.

I bade Sipes and his old shipmate good-night, and left them alone with the demon in the jug. There was very little chance of any of it ever falling into the hands of “the scourge,” who was evidently lurking in the vicinity.

The glory of the full moon over the lake caused Sipes to remark that “ev’rythin’s full tonight,” as he followed me out to bid me another good-by. After I left I could hear noisy vocalism in the shanty. The words, which were sung over and over, were:

“_Comrades, comrades, ever since we was boys,--_ _Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys._”

After each repetition there would be boisterous, rhythmic pounding of heavy boots on the wooden floor.

While the song was in many keys, and was technically open to much criticism, it was evidently sincere. The old shipmates were happy, and, after all, besides happiness, how much is there in the world really worth striving for?

I walked along the beach for a couple of miles to my temporary quarters in the dunes, and the stirring events of the evening furnished much food for reflection. I was interested in the advent of Bill Saunders, concerning whom I had heard so much from Sipes. Bill was a good deal of a mystery. He had “showed up” a few days before in response to a letter which Sipes told me he had “put in _pust_office fer ’im.” He may at some time have lived on the “unknown island in the South Pacific” that Sipes told me about, where he and Bill had been wrecked, and Bill had “married into the royal family several times,” but evidently he had deserted his black and tan household. For at least two years he had been living over on the river. Sipes explained that he stayed there “so as to be unbeknown.” For some reason which I did not learn, he and Sipes considered it advisable for him to “keep dark” for a while. The trouble, whatever it was, had evidently blown over, and Bill had returned to the sand-hills.

There was a rudely painted sign on the shanty a few days later, which read:

“It might ’a’ been Saunders & Sipes,” said the old man to me, confidentially, “but I think Sipes & Saunders sounds more dignified like, don’t you? We got ‘fresh fish’ on the sign so’s people won’t git ’em mixed up with the kind o’ fish John peddles. Them fish are fresh w’en John gits ’em ’ere, but after ’e’s ’ad ’em ’round a while there’s invisible bein’s gits into ’em out o’ the air, an’ you c’n smell ’em a mile. W’en they git to be candydates fer ’is smoke-house their ol’ friends wouldn’t know ’em, an’ I put them up an’ down lines in them S’s in them names so’s to make the sign look like cash money.”

Several days later I discovered that my tent had been visited during my absence. Outside, pinned to the flap, was a piece of paper on which was written:

“All ye who smoke or chew the filthy weed shall be damned.”

“_The breath of hell, an angry breath,_ _Supplies and fans the fire,_ _When smokers taste the second death_ _And shriek and howl, but can’t expire._”

Inside, on the cot, were several tracts containing extracts from sermons on hell by an old ranter of early New England days, setting forth the practical impossibility of anybody ever escaping it.

I examined the literature with interest and amusement. Some of the more virulent paragraphs were marked for my benefit.

I looked out over the landscape, with its glorious autumn coloring, to the expanse of turquoise waters beyond, and wondered if, above the fleecy clouds and the infinite blue of the heavens, there was an Omnipotent monstrosity Who gloried in the torture of what He created, and brought forth life that He might wreak vengeance upon it. Ignorance, fear, and superstition have led men into strange paths. It may be that our philosophy will finally lead us back to the beginning, and teach us that we are humble, wondering children who do not understand, and that there is a border land beyond which we may not go.

I met the firm of Sipes & Saunders on the beach one morning, on their way to Catfish John’s place, which was about four miles from their shanty. John’s abode was on a low bluff, and on the beach near it, about a hundred feet from the lake, was the little structure in which he smoked what Sipes called “them much-deceased fish” which he had failed to sell. His peddling trips were made through the back country with a queer little wagon and a rheumatic horse, that bore the name of “Napoleon” with his other troubles. Some of the fish were from his own nets, but most of his supplies were obtained from Sipes on a consignment basis.

At the earnest solicitation of the old mariners, I turned back and went with them to call on John. Sipes said that I “had better come along fer there’s goin’ to be sump’n doin’.”

We found the old man out on the sand repairing his gill-nets.

“Wot ’ave I done that I should be descended on like this?” he asked jocularly, as we came up. “You fellers must be lookin’ fer trouble, fer Zeke’s comin’ ’ere this mornin’ fer a fish that I told ’im ’e could ’ave if I got any.

“I figgered it all out,” said Sipes, “cause Bill heard you tell ’im you was goin’ to lift the nets Sunday, an’ I seen you out’n the lake with the spotter, an’ as Bill an’ me’s got some business with Zeke, we thought we’d drop ’round.”

Sipes’s “spotter” was an old spy glass, which he declared “had been on salt water.” Through a small hole in the side of his shanty he could sweep the curving shore for several miles with the rickety instrument.

I walked over to the smoke-house with the party and inspected it with much interest. The smoke supply came from a dilapidated old stove on the sand from which a rusty pipe entered the side of the structure. The smoke escaped slowly through various cracks in the roof, which provided a light draft for the fire.

“That smoke gits a lot of experience in this place ’fore it goes out through them cracks,” remarked Sipes, as he opened the door and peered inside. “I don’t blame it fer leavin’. Can ye lock this door tight, John?”

I curiously awaited further developments.

It was not long before we saw Zeke plodding toward us on the sand.

“Now don’t you fellers say nothin’. You jest set ’round careless like, an’ let me do the talkin’,” cautioned Sipes, as he filled his pipe. With an expressive closing of his single eye, he turned to me confidentially and said with a chuckle, “We’re goin’ to fumigate Zeke.”

There was a look of quiet determination in his face, and guile in his smile as he contemplated the approaching visitor.

“Hello, Zeke!” he called out, as soon as that frowsy individual was within hailing distance, “wot’s the news from hell this fine mornin’?”

We smiled at Sipes’s sally. Zeke looked at us solemnly, and in deep impressive tones replied: “Verily, them that laughs at sin, laughs w’en their Maker frowns, laughs with the sword o’ vengeance over their heads.”

“Oh, come on, Zeke, cut that out,” said Sipes, “an’ let’s go in an’ see the big sturgeon wot John got this mornin’. It’s ’ere in the smoke-house.” Sipes led the way to the door and opened it. Zeke peeked in cautiously.

“It’s over in that big box with them other fish near the wall,” said Sipes. Zeke stepped inside. Sipes instantly closed the door and sprung the padlock that secured it. He then ran around to the stove and lighted the fuel with which it was stuffed.

An angry roar came from the interior, as we departed. After we reached the damp sand on the shore, Sipes joyfully exclaimed, “Verily we’ll now ’ave to git a new scourge, fer this one’s up ag’inst damnation!”

While John had passively acquiesced in the proceedings, I knew that he did not intend to allow Sipes’s escapade to go too far, so I did not worry about Zeke.

As we walked down the shore, Sipes and Bill turned frequently to look at the softly ascending wreaths from the roof with much glee.

“That coop’s never ’ad nothin’ wuss in it than it’s got now,” declared Sipes. “That ol’ bunch o’ whiskers ’as got wot’s comin’ to ’im this time, an’ I wish I’d stuck John’s rubber boots in that stove, but, honest, I fergot it.”

We had gone quite a distance when I turned and discerned a retreating form far beyond the smoke-house close to the bluff. One side of the structure was wrecked, and it was evident that the “scourge” had broken through and escaped. I said nothing, as I did not want to mar the pleasure of the old shipmates. To them it was “the end of a perfect day.”

A little further on I left them and turned into the dunes. As they waved farewell, Sipes called out cheerily, “You c’n travel anywheres ’round ’ere now without git’n’ burnt!”

Later, from far away over the sands, I could faintly hear:

“_Shipmates, shipmates, ever since we was boys--_ _Sharing each other’s sorrows, sharing each other’s joys!_”

One night I encased myself in storm-defying raiment and went down to the shore to contemplate a drama that was being enacted in the skies.

Swiftly moving battalions of stygian clouds were illuminated by almost continuous flashes of lightning. Heavy peals of thunder rolled through the convoluted masses, and reverberated along the horizon. The wind-driven rain came in thin sheets that mingled with the flying spray from the waves that swept the beach. The sublimity of the storm was soul stirring and inspiring. I plodded for half a mile or so along the surf-washed sand to the foot of a bluff on which were a few old pines, to see the effect of the gnarled branches against the lightning-charged clouds.

A brilliant flash revealed a silhouetted figure with gesticulating arms. It was Holy Zeke. His battered plug was jammed down over the back of his head, and his long coat tails were flapping in the gale. The apparition was grotesque and startling, but seemed naturally to take its place in the wild pageant of the elements. It added a note of human interest that seemed strangely harmonious.

I did not wish to intrude on him, or allow him to interfere with my enjoyment of the storm, but passed near enough to hear his resonant voice above the roar of the wind.

He was in his element. He had sought a height from which he could behold the scourging of the earth, and pour forth imprecations on imaginary multitudes of heretics and unbelievers. With fanatic fervor he was calling down curses upon a world of hopeless sin. Hatred of human kind was exhaled from his poisoned soul amid the fury of the storm.

To his disordered imagination, any unusual manifestation of nature’s forces was an expression of Divine wrath. Condemnation was now coming out of the black vault above him, and the vengeance of an incensed Diety was being heralded from on high. Unregenerate sinners and rejectors of Zeke’s creed were in the hands of an angry God. The scroll of earth’s infamy was being unrolled out of the clouds. “The seventh vial” was being poured out, and the hour of final damnation was at hand.

In the armor of his infallible orthodoxy, like Ajax, he stood unafraid before the lurid shafts. Serene in his exclusive holiness he was immune from the fiery pit and the shambles of the damned, and gloried in the coming destruction of all those unblessed with his faultless dogma.

The storm was increasing in violence, and I had started to return. After going some distance I turned for a final view of Zeke, and it was unexpectedly dramatic.

There was a sudden dazzling glare, and a deafening crash. A tall tree, not far from where he stood, was shattered into fragments. The shock was terrific. He was gone when a succeeding flash lighted the scene. Fearing that the old man might have met fatality, or at least have been badly injured, I hurried back and climbed the steep path that led to the top of the promontory from the ravine beyond it. Careful search, with the aid of an electric pocket light and the lightning flashes, failed to reveal any traces of the old fanatic, and it was safe to assume that he had retreated in good order from surroundings that he had reluctantly decided were untenable.

The bolt that struck the tree was charged with an obvious moral that was probably lost on the fugitive.

The old shipmates were much interested when they heard the tale of the night’s adventure.

“That ol’ cuss’ll git his, sometime, good an’ plenty,” observed Sipes. “Sump’n took a pot shot at Zeke an’ made a bad score. It would ’a’ helped some if the lightnin’ ’ad only got that ol’ hat o’ his. Prob’ly it’s been hit before. Zeke ’ad better look out. He’s been talkin’ too much ’bout them things. It’s too bad fer a nice tree like that to git all busted up. No feller with a two-gallon hat an’ red whiskers ever oughta buzz ’round in a thunder storm.”

John was quite philosophical about Zeke.

“He ought to learn to stay in w’en it’s wet. His kind o’ relig’n don’t mix with water, an’ some night ’e’ll go out in a storm like that an’ ’e won’t come back. He was ’round ’ere this mornin’ tell’n me ’bout the signs o’ the times an’ heav’nly fires.

“Them ol’ fellers hadn’t ought to fuss so much ’bout ’im. They come up ’ere the day after they smoked ’im, an’ fixed my smoke-house all up fer me. They said thar was too many cracks ’round in it, an’ the boards ’round the sides was all too thin. They got some heavy boards an’ big nails an’ they done a good job. They said they’d fixed it so it ’ud hold a grizzly b’ar if I wanted to keep one, an’ I was glad they come up.

“When Zeke broke through ’e didn’t fergit ’is fish. He took the biggest one thar was in the box. When ’e went off ’e was yell’n sump’n ’bout them that stoned an’ mocked the prophets, an’ sump’n ’bout a feller named Elijah, that was goin’ up in a big wind in a chair o’ fire, but I didn’t hear all of it, fer ’e was excited. Zeke’s a poor ol’ feller. It’s all right fer ’em to cuss ’im, fer ’e gives it to ’em pretty hard w’en ’e gits down thar, but that don’t do no harm. They ain’t no nearer hell than they’d be without Zeke tell’n ’em ’bout it all the time. He’s part o’ the people what’s ’round us, an’ we ought to git ’long with ’im. I’ll alw’ys give ’im a fish when ’e’s hungry, even if ’e does think I’m goin’ to hell.”

VII

THE LOVE AFFAIR OF HAPPY CAL AND ELVIREY SMETTERS

VII

THE LOVE AFFAIR OF HAPPY CAL AND ELVIREY SMETTERS

“Happy Cal” had been a member of the widely scattered colony of derelicts along the wild coast for many years; in fact, he was its beginning, for when he came through the sand-hills and gathered the driftwood to build his humble dwelling, there were no human neighbors.

The circling gulls, the crows, and the big blue herons that stalked along the wave-washed beach looked curiously at the intruder into their solitudes. The blue-jays scolded boisterously, and many pairs of concealed eyes peered at him slyly from tangled masses of tree roots that lay denuded upon the slopes of the wind-swept dunes.

Nature’s slow and orderly processes of generation and decay were now to be disturbed by a new element, for man, who changes, destroys, and makes ugly the fair world he looks upon, had entered these sanctuaries. The furred and feathered things instinctively resented the advent of the despoiler. They heard strange noises as rusty nails were pounded, and odd pieces of gray, smooth wood were fashioned into the queer-looking structure that obtruded itself among the undulations of the sand.

Happy Cal was human wreckage. He had been thrown upon this desolate shore by the cruel forces of a social system which he was unable to combat. They had cast him aside and he had sought isolation. As he expressed it, “there was too much goin’ on.”

Cal’s stories of his early life, and his final escape from a heartless world, incited derisive comment from his friend Sipes.

On still, cool days the smoke ascended softly from Cal’s shanty, and my sketching was often neglected for an hour or two with its interesting occupant.

He sometimes prowled around through the country back of the dunes at night, and the necessaries for his rude housekeeping were collected gradually. His age was difficult to guess; perhaps he looked older than he was. His lustreless eyes, weather-beaten face, grizzled unkempt beard, and rough hands, carried the story of a struggle on the raw edges of life.

While he said that he had “been up ag’inst it,” he seemed now comparatively contented. His interests were few, but they filled his days, and, as he expressed it, he “didn’t need nothin’ to think about nights.” Sipes claimed, however, that “Cal done all ’s thinkin’ at night, if ’e done any, fer ’e don’t never do none in the daytime.”

Sipes and Cal met occasionally. With the exception of a few serious misunderstandings, which were always eventually patched up, they got along very well with each other. Sipes’s attitude, while generally friendly, was not very charitable. He was disposed to comment caustically upon the many flaws he found in Cal, who, he believed, was destined for a hot hereafter. It is only fair to Cal to say that Sipes did not know of anybody in the dune country who would not have a hot hereafter, except his friend “Catfish John,” and his old shipmate, Bill Saunders, who lived with him, and with whom, in early life, he had sailed many stormy seas. He transacted his fish business with John, and was very fond of him. He once remarked that, “Old John don’t never wash, an’ ’e smells pretty fishy, but you bet ’e treats me all right, an’ wot’s the difference? I c’n always stay to wind’ard if I want to.”

Mrs. Elvirey Smetters lived over in the back country, on the road that led from the sleepy village to the marshy strip, and through it over into the dunes, where it was finally lost in the sand. It was a township line road and was seldom used for traffic. Travellers on it usually walked. The house, which had once been painted white, with green blinds, was rather shabby. Two tall evergreens stood in the front yard. In the carefully kept flower-beds along the fence the geraniums, cockscombs, marigolds, and verbenas bloomed gorgeously. They were constantly refreshed from the wooden pump near the back door. A smooth path led from the front gate, flanked with a luxurious growth of myrtle.

I pulled the brown bell handle one morning with a view of buying one of the young ducks which were waddling and quacking about the yard. I was going over to visit my old friend Sipes and intended it as a present for his Sunday dinner.

Mrs. Smetters, whom I had often met, opened the door. She wiped her face with her apron, and was profuse with her apologies for the appearance of everything. She explained at length the various causes that had brought about the disorderly conditions, which I must know would be different if so and so, and so and so, and so and so.

She was tall, muscular, of many angles, red-headed, and freckled. The pupils of the piercing eyes behind the brass-rimmed spectacles had a reddish tinge, and her square, protruding chin suggested anything but domestic docility. It was such a chin that took Napoleon over the Alps, and Cæsar into Gaul.

She had buried three husbands. They were resting, as Sipes said, “fer the fust time in their lives,” in the church-yard beyond the village, where flowers from the little garden were often laid upon the mounds.