Part 6

"Well," she was saying, decidedly, "there was never a Snathers yit, far as I know, that even went to a circus, and no son of mine shall own one if I have _my_ say."

The answering voice was as decided as her own, provokingly cool and deliberate, but the sweetest of all sounds to the anxious eavesdropper. He flushed to the roots of his sandy hair and clutched nervously at his stubby beard. It was Sade's voice. She had heard the news and had run in the back way, in neighbourly village fashion, to ask if it were really true. He waited breathlessly for her answer:--

"And _I_ think Wex'd feel he was flying straight into the face of Providence not to make all he could out of it, even if he had to run it himself for awhile." Then, startled by the sneeze that betrayed Wexley's presence, she said good-bye so hurriedly that he had only a glimpse of a white sunbonnet, fluttering around the corner.

Armed with this sanction, Wexley called that evening at the Cooper cottage, where Sade kept house for a decrepit great-aunt. But she had heard wild rumours in the meantime--the possibility of his adopting the armless dwarf and the wild twins of Borneo, in case the show business did not pay. But on being anxiously assured that there was nothing whatever to fear in that direction if she would only marry him, she confessed that she did not approve of his running a circus any more than his mother did. It was only her chronic disability to agree with old Mis' Snathers that made her say it.

So it was with a sorely troubled heart and brain that Wexley took up the burden of life again next day. He had a funeral to conduct at ten o'clock, and he began it in such an absent-minded way that he might have made scandalous mistakes, had not the officiating clergyman's text--Jeremiah, xii: 9,--delivered in a high, nasal drawl, brought him to a sudden decision: "Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird. The birds round about are against her." "Yes, even Sade!" he thought. And such is the perversity of human nature that it stirred him to espouse the cause of his speckled bird. As he led the slow procession out to the cemetery, something followed him other than the hearse and the long line of carriages;--in that shadowy procession of fancy, black hearse-plumes gave place to the nod, nodding of red-plumed chariot horses. If there was anything Wexley Snathers particularly prided himself upon, it was the effective arrangement of funeral processions, and at the tempting thought of the scope for his genius circus parades would afford, the battle with his conscience was won. All the past called out loudly not to venture on any road where Pole Bennet's feet had left a track, but three days later--hoping that old Mr. Hill would hold on to life until his return--the troubled undertaker locked the door of his little coffin shop and fared forth to claim his heritage.

* * * * *

It is not often that a dying man leaves his earthly affairs so thoroughly provided for as did Napoleon Bennet, yet that astute showman reckoned without an important element of his problem when he thought to put the armless dwarf in his old playfellow's care. He had not counted on the twist in her little warped brain,--a superstitious dread that amounted almost to mania. She was afraid of undertakers or anything connected with their gruesome business. A cold terror seized her when she learned she was about to fall into the hands of a man on intimate terms with Death and his pale horse and, with the cunning of her kind, she began laying plans that would work his undoing.

Wexley first saw her sitting on a table, practising her one accomplishment, writing her autograph with her toes. "Be thankful for your arms. Jane Hutchins," she penned in round, childish script.

"Blest if it ain't better than I could do myself with both hands," declared Wexley, admiringly. Then, remembering what Pole had promised about his being good to the tiny creature, he patted her kindly on the head. She drew back with an inarticulate cry of alarm, turning upon him the face of a woman of thirty. A wild look of aversion gleamed in her little beady eyes.

It was the man's turn to draw back perplexed. He was beginning to feel like a fish out of water--powerless to cope with the emergencies of the show business. His employees had not been long in taking his measure. The fat lady, the living skeleton and the leading clown, after looking him over, decamped to accept the offer of a rival showman. "He's too soft a snap for _me_ to leave!" said one of the acrobats. "Why, that old skull-and-cross-bones doesn't know any more about this business than a white kitten. Didn't even know he'd have to get a license to show, or the whole lay-out would be attached."

Wexley, overhearing the conversation, grew weak in the knees. He was rapidly becoming disillusioned. He had been disappointed in the street parade. All the remembered glamour was lacking. It looked tawdry and silly to his mature eyes, and he was ashamed to be seen with it. He had just learned that the wild twins had never seen Borneo, but were only tattooed half-witted orphans whom Pole had picked up, and were not even brothers. He was puzzled to know how he had incurred the uncanny little dwarf's displeasure, but he would have been still more puzzled could he have heard her whispering hoarsely to the twins of Borneo, as she held their frightened eyes fixed on hers in a fascinated gaze:--

"Remember, you promised to do it to-night. You know how to unlock the cages. He's a graveyard man, and if you don't let the lion eat him up, he'll put you in a box and screw the cover down." Here her voice sank to a series of husky, terrifying groans. "He'll--bury--you! In--a--deep--black--hole! And you'll _never_--_get_--_out_!"

Before dark Wexley had called on Pole's lawyer. "Advertise it for sale at half-price," he said. "I'm plumb disgusted, and want to get home. If to-night's performance hadn't been advertised so big, I wouldn't risk tryin' to give it. I'm dead sure it'll be a failure."

* * * * *

Of that evening's performance, all that he could subsequently relate was this: "The calliope was playin', and everybody was clappin' and cheerin', and I was wavin' my old hat and cheerin' too, so pleased that the performance was turning out a success, when that old elephant, Lulu, stopped short in the ring and began to trumpet. That sorter paralyzed me. I felt in my bones that something was wrong. Then the smoke began to pour in, and somebody yelled the lion was loose. Then everything seemed to go wild. There was shoutin' and yellin' and an awful stampede. In the mix-up I got a twisted ankle, and somebody stepped on my head. That's the last thing I knew till morning."

In the morning he was lying on a hospital cot, his head bandaged and his ankle in a plaster cast. Sam McCarthy, the lion tamer, his arm in a sling, had come to inquire about him.

"Well, we found out how it happened," he told Wexley. "It was Jane's doings--the little minx actually boasted of it. She struck matches with her toes and set fire to the straw in a dozen places. How those gibbering Borneo idiots ever let the lion out is more than _I_ know, but they're strong as wildcats at times. She says she made 'em do it;--never could have happened in Bennet's time."

"I know," replied Wex, wearily. "I s'pose it was my fault that everything was left at loose ends, but it was all so confusin'. They didn't save much out of the wreck, did they?"

"No; we were too far out for the volunteer engine company to get there in time. Old Lulu's left, and the calliope. They got that out, and the dancing bears and the horses. But such things as coaches, clothes, and fol-de-rols are done for,--and several people who were hurt are going to bring suit."

The undertaker closed his eyes and groaned. "And no insurance. All Gentryville would have to die off before I could raise money enough to pull me out now," he murmured. "I might have known that, living or dead, Pole would get me into trouble! McCarthy!" he exclaimed, starting up, "I wish you'd send that lawyer down here to me. I want to get shut of the whole blamed business before sundown. It ought to be settled before I get any worse."

* * * * *

There was a crowd around the bulletin-board of the Gentryville _Chronicle_, bearing a paragraph from one of the big city dailies. People stopped to read, and pushed on with shocked faces to tell their neighbours that Wexley Snathers, trying to stop the stampede at the burning of his circus, had been fatally trampled and had since died in the hospital from internal injuries.

Old Mrs. Snathers sat in her darkened house, tense and wild-eyed, not knowing at what hour Wexley's mangled body might be laid before her. Sade refused to believe the report, until confronted with the staring headlines in which Wexley's name appeared in huge black letters. Then her remorse and self-reproach were almost more than she could endure.

* * * * *

It was towards night of the third day after the appearance of the bulletin that the train pulling into Gentryville bore among its passengers a tired-looking man on crutches. His head was bandaged, and his gray linen duster bore marks of a long journey. Climbing down the steps farthest from the station, he swung himself along on his crutches toward the little coffin shop, and the smell of varnish that met him on entering was like the greeting of an old friend. Ignorant of the impression current about his death, he had gone first to the shop to get his bearings before meeting the eye and tongue of the village public.

Sitting beside the open back window, his first feeling was one of relief. The circus was a thing of the past. The lawyer had assured him that by some hook or crook, best known to his profession, he could undertake to settle all suits to the satisfaction of his client. He had also undertaken to consign the freaks to some public institution for the feeble-minded, and for his services he was willing to accept the very things that had grown to be the bane of Wexley's existence,--the remnants of the circus.

Here he was at last, a free man, although with a sore head and a sprained ankle. The next thought was not so pleasant. He was farther from winning Sade than he had ever been before, by the whole amount of his doctors' bills and travelling expenses. Had it not been for his feeling that it was almost sacrilege to curse a dead man, he would then and there have anathematized Pole with a glad heart but with a vicious gnashing of teeth.

As he sat there in the deepening spring twilight, a tall comely figure came through the little gate at the side of his shop and started across his back yard. It was the short cut towards his home. He started forward eagerly as he recognized the familiar outlines in the dusk, and the slow sweep of skirts. He did not stop to wonder why she should be going to his mother's just then. His only feeling was joy that his eyes rested upon her. It seemed years since he had seen her last. He knocked on the window-pane to attract her attention.

"Sade! Oh, Sade!" he cried, leaning out of the window, his linen duster gleaming ghostly gray in the twilight.

The startling apparition, looming thus suddenly out of the coffin shop, froze the woman's very soul. With a terrified cry she sank weakly in a heap on the ground, and sat there shivering and gibbering, tears of fright streaming down her cold face.

"Lord 'a' mercy, Sade! What's the matter?" he cried, stumbling over his crutches in his haste to unbolt the back door and get to her. As he attempted to raise her she fell limply against him, fainting.

"'Be thankful for your arms. Jane Hutchins,'" chuckled Wexley under his breath, as he realized that for the first time in his long wooing his arms were actually around her, and he half carried, half dragged her to the door-step.

Sade was not given to hysterics, but her fright at seeing what she supposed was Wexley's spirit, and the relief at finding him so very much in the flesh kept her sobbing and laughing alternately for some time. And the time was all too short for the man who listened to her tearful confession of remorse.

As he helped her to her feet he said solemnly: "I'll forgive Pole now for all the trouble he ever got me into. Since this circus affair has made you change your mind, it's the best job he ever did in his life."

Several days later he made the same remark to his mother. "Humph!" she sniffed. "You hain't lived with her yit." Wexley whistled softly as he rubbed up his best sample coffin-plate, with which he intended to adorn the parlour wall, as is the fashion of Gentryville. He would hang it up on his wedding day, in grateful memory of his benefactor, with the name "Mortimer Napoleon Bennet" engraved upon it. At present it bore on its shining surface in large ornate letters only the inscription, "Rest in Peace."

The Fifth Traveler

Bap. Sloan

To His Mount of Pisgah

THROUGH the twilight that filled the valley a winding white pike was all that could be seen distinctly. The brown-furrowed corn-fields were blotted out in the dusk. Farm-houses had merged their outlines into the dark mass of the surrounding trees. Only the apple-orchards kept their identity, and that because it was blossom-time, and the dewy night air was heavy with their sweetness.

Somewhat back from the pike, yet near enough for the rattle of passing wheels to give a sense of companionship, a man sat rocking back and forth in a narrow vine-inclosed porch. He was in his shirt-sleeves, and collarless, and the slow creak of the old wooden chair seemed to voice his physical comfort like a purr; but it by no means expressed the state of his mind. That was attuned to something wholly melancholic, like the croaking of frogs in the pond below his house, or the far-away baying of a dismal-minded hound, which, tied behind some cabin across the clearing, was making the peaceful Sabbath evening vibrant with its misery.

"I can't help havin' a sort of fellow-feelin' for that dawg," muttered the man, raising his head to listen, and passing his hand slowly over the bald spot on his crown. "Must be considerable of a relief to let out and howl like that when you feel bad. There's been times when I wouldn't 'a' minded tryin' it myself for a spell."

Then he settled back into his chair with a long-drawn sigh. He was awaiting the second ringing of the church bell. The first one had tolled its summons through the valley nearly an hour before, and vehicles were beginning to rattle along the pike toward evening service. The little frame meeting-house, known as the Upper Beargrass Church, stood in a grove of cedars just beyond Baptist Sloan's potato-field. It was near enough for any one sitting on his porch to hear the preacher's voice all through the sermon, and sometimes when he waxed eloquent at the close, in a series of shouted exhortations, even the words were distinctly audible.

But never in all the years of his remembrance had Baptist Sloan listened to the services of the sanctuary from his door-step. On the few occasions that illness had kept him at home, pain and multitudinous bedclothes had shut out all sound of song or sermon; and at other times he was the most punctual attendant of all the congregation, not excepting even the sexton. People wondered why this was so, for he was pointed out as the black sheep of the flock, a man little better than an infidel, and belonging to that stiff-necked and proud generation which merits the anathemas of all right-minded people.

That he was a riddle which Upper Beargrass Church had been trying vainly to read for thirty years was a fact well known to the reprobate himself; for he had been openly preached at from the pulpit, laboured with in private, and many a time made the subject of special prayer. So, as he sat on the porch in the dark, with only the croaking of the frogs and the distant baying of the hound to break the stillness, it was with no surprise whatever that he heard his own name spoken by some one driving up the pike.

He could not see the horse that plodded along at a tortoise-like gait, or the old carryall that sagged and creaked with the weight of two big men on the front seat and a woman and three children on the back; but he recognized the voice as that of Mrs. Jane Bowles. Thin and strident, it stabbed the stillness like the rasping shrill of a katydid. She was leaning forward to speak to the visiting minister on the front seat.

"We're coming to Bap Sloan's house now, Brother Hubbs," she called in high staccato. "I want you should rub it into him good to-night in your sermon. He's a regular wolf in sheep's clothing, if ever there was one. Twice on a Sunday, for fifty-two weeks in the year, he's sitting in that third pew from the front, as pious as any pillar in the congregation. You can count up for yourself how many sermons he must have heard, for he's fifty, if he's a day. But in spite of all that anybody can say or _do_, he won't be immersed and join. He's held out against everything and everybody till he's gospel-hardened. I ain't saying he doesn't put into the collection-box regular, or that he ain't a moral man outwardly; but that outward show of goodness only makes his example worse for the young folks. I never can look at him without saying to myself, 'But inwardly ye are ravening wolves.'"

The old horse had crawled along almost to the gate by this time, but Sister Bowles, not being able to see any one on the porch, went on, serenely unaware of being overheard.

"And there's Luella Clark that he's courted off and on for twenty years. It makes me real mad when I think of the good offers she's had and let slip account of him. She _couldn't_ marry him, being close communion, and not tolerating the idea of being 'unequally yoked together with unbelievers.' 'Twouldn't 'a' been right; and yet, somehow, she didn't seem to be quite able to give him up, when that was the only thing lacking. He'd make a good husband, for there never was a better brother lived than he was to his sister Sarah. She kept house for him till the day of her death. They say that last winter, when she lay there a-dying, she told him she couldn't go easy till she saw him immersed; but all he'd say was, 'Oh, don't ask me! I can't _now_, Sarah. Some day I will, but not _now_.'"

Here the preacher's voice broke in like the deep roll of a bass drum. "Has this--ah--young woman any idea of what--ah--produces such a state of--ah--obstinacy in the brother's mind?"

"Not an i-_dee_!" was the reply, jolted out shrilly as the carryall struck a stone. "Not one good reason could he give Luella for putting off attending to his soul's salvation and trifling away his day of grace. Not one good reason, even to get her to marry him. But I think Luella is getting tired of dangling along. The other day I heard her joking about that little bald spot that's beginning to show on his head, and I noticed that Mr. Sam Carter's buggy has been hitched at their gate several times when I've happened to be passing. He's a widower, and you know, Brother Hubbs, that when widowers--"

The loud clanging of the church bell struck Sister Bowles's sentence in the middle, and the end of it was lost to the eager ears on the porch. Although this sound of the church bell was what Baptist Sloan had been waiting to hear for the last hour, he did not rise until the final echo of its ringing had died away in the farthermost part of the valley. Then he went slowly into the house and lighted a lamp.

The open door into the kitchen revealed the table where he had eaten his dinner and supper without removing the soiled dishes. In every corner was the cheerless look that betrays the lack of a woman's presence. He had done his own housekeeping since his sister's death in the early winter. As he passed the table he gathered up a plateful of scraps which he had intended to give to the cat, but had forgotten, and carried it out to the back door-step. He tried to be mindful of the old creature's comfort for his sister's sake; but he was an absent-minded man, irresolute in nearly every action, and undecided in all things except the one for which the neighbourhood condemned him.

Just before he entered the house he had almost made up his mind that he would not go to church that night. Sister Bowles's conversation had startled him with a new idea, and jogged him out of his well-worn rut. He would sit out on the porch till church was over, and then follow Luella home, and take up the thread of his protracted courtship where she had snapped it five years before.

But the habit of decades asserted itself. He bolted the back door, carried the lamp into the little bedroom adjoining the kitchen, and proceeded to brush his hair according to the usual Sunday-night programme of preparation. Sarah had always tied his cravat for him, and his stiff fingers fumbled awkwardly at the knot. That was one ceremony to which he could not grow accustomed, and he had serious thoughts of turning out a beard that would hide all sins both of omission and commission in the way of neckties.

At last he was ready, but even with his hand on the knob and his hat on his head, he wavered again and turned back. Cautiously tiptoeing across the floor to see that the blue paper shade was drawn tightly over the one tiny window of the little bedroom, he opened the door into the closet, and felt around until his hand struck a nail that marked some secret hiding-place in the wall. From somewhere within its depths he drew out a little japanned canister, branded, in gilt letters, "Young Hyson;" but it was not tea that he emptied on the bed and poured through his rough hands, horny with long contact with hoe and plow. It was a stream of dollars and dimes and nickels, with an occasional gold piece filtering through like a disk of sunshine. A wad of paper money stuck in the canister until he shook it. He counted that last, smoothing out the ragged bills one at a time, and then folding them inside a crisp new one so that its flaunting V was displayed on top.

One might have thought him a miser gloating over his gold, so carefully he counted it again and again, sitting there on the edge of his bed. But there was no miserly greed in the wistful glance that followed the last coin into the little canister, and it was with a discouraged sigh that he replaced the cover and sat looking at it, the slavish hoarding of years.

"It will take twenty dollars more," he finally whispered to himself; "and I can't depend on any ready cash until after wheat harvest." He counted slowly on his fingers May, June, July--it might be three months before he could get his threshing done, and three months, now that he was so near the goal of his life's ambition, seemed longer than the years already passed in waiting.

They were singing in the church when he went out on the porch again, and as he did not want to go in late, that decided the question that had been see-sawing in his mind. He sat down in the rocking-chair, with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. Sister Bowles's conversation still rankled.

"O Lord," he groaned presently, "you know I'm not a wolf in sheep's clothing. More like I'm a sheep in a wolf's. Nobody understands it. Not even Luella. I want to tell her, and yet it seems like I hadn't ought to yet awhile. One minute I think one way and the next minute another. O Lord, I _vow_ I don't know what to do!"

Then he caught the words of the song. It was not one of the usual hymns that floated out to him across the scent of the apple-boughs, but an old tune that he had heard years ago at a camp-meeting:

"John went down to the river Jordan! John went down to the river Jordan! John went down to the river Jordan To wash his sins away!"