Surely Coriolanus never turned his back upon Rome with a grander
dignity than sat upon the old man's form as he faced about and left
the brute to survey with anxious eyes the new departure of his master.

He saw the elder zigzag along the street, and beheld him about to turn
a friendly corner. Once more he lifted up his mighty voice:

"Drunk, drunk, drunk, drer-unc, drer-unc, -erunc, -unc, -unc."

Once more the elder turned with lifted hand and shouted back:

"You're a liar, Balaam, goldarn you! You're er iffamous liar." Then he
passed from view.


III

Mrs. Brown stood upon the steps anxiously awaiting the return of her
liege lord. She knew he had with him a large sum of money, or should
have, and she knew also that he was a man without business methods.
She had long since repented of the decision which sent him to town.
When the old battered hat and flour-covered coat loomed up in the
gloaming and confronted her, she stared with terror. The next instant
she had seized him.

"For the Lord sakes, Elder Brown, what ails you? As I live, if the man
ain't drunk! Elder Brown! Elder Brown! for the life of me can't I make
you hear? You crazy old hypocrite! you desavin' old sinner! you
black-hearted wretch! where have you ben?"

The elder made an effort to wave her off.

"Woman," he said, with grand dignity, "you forgit yus-sef; shu know
ware I've ben 'swell's I do. Ben to town, wife, an' see yer wat I've
brought--the fines' hat, ole woman, I could git. Look't the color.
Like goes 'ith like; it's red an' you're red, an' it's a dead match.
What yer mean? Hey! hole on! ole woman!--you! Hannah!--you." She
literally shook him into silence.

"You miserable wretch! you low-down drunken sot! what do you mean by
coming home and insulting your wife?" Hannah ceased shaking him from
pure exhaustion.

"Where is it, I say? where is it?"

By this time she was turning his pockets wrong side out. From one she
got pills, from another change, from another packages.

"The Lord be praised, and this is better luck than I hoped! Oh, elder!
elder! elder! what did you do it for? Why, man, where is Balaam?"

Thought of the beast choked off the threatened hysterics.

"Balaam? Balaam?" said the elder, groggily. "He's in town. The
infernal ole fool 'sulted me, an' I lef' him to walk home."

His wife surveyed him. Really at that moment she did think his mind
was gone; but the leer upon the old man's face enraged her beyond
endurance.

"You did, did you? Well, now, I reckon you'll laugh for some cause,
you will. Back you go, sir--straight back; an' don't you come home
'thout that donkey, or you'll rue it, sure as my name is Hannah Brown.
Aleck!--you Aleck-k-k!"

A black boy darted round the corner, from behind which, with several
others, he had beheld the brief but stirring scene.

"Put a saddle on er mule. The elder's gwine back to town. And don't
you be long about it neither."

"Yessum." Aleck's ivories gleamed in the darkness as he disappeared.

Elder Brown was soberer at that moment than he had been for hours.

"Hannah, you don't mean it?"

"Yes, sir, I do. Back you go to town as sure as my name is Hannah
Brown."

The elder was silent. He had never known his wife to relent on any
occasion after she had affirmed her intention, supplemented with "as
sure as my name is Hannah Brown." It was her way of swearing. No
affidavit would have had half the claim upon her as that simple
enunciation.

So back to town went Elder Brown, not in the order of the early morn,
but silently, moodily, despairingly, surrounded by mental and actual
gloom.

The old man had turned a last appealing glance upon the angry woman,
as he mounted with Aleck's assistance, and sat in the light that
streamed from out the kitchen window. She met the glance without a
waver.

"She means it, as sure as my name is Elder Brown," he said, thickly.
Then he rode on.

IV

To say that Elder Brown suffered on this long journey back to Macon
would only mildly outline his experience. His early morning's fall had
begun to make itself felt. He was sore and uncomfortable. Besides, his
stomach was empty, and called for two meals it had missed for the
first time in years.

When, sore and weary, the elder entered the city, the electric lights
shone above it like jewels in a crown. The city slept; that is, the
better portion of it did. Here and there, however, the lower lights
flashed out into the night. Moodily the elder pursued his journey, and
as he rode, far off in the night there rose and quivered a plaintive
cry. Elder Brown smiled wearily: it was Balaam's appeal, and he
recognized it. The animal he rode also recognized it, and replied,
until the silence of the city was destroyed. The odd clamor and
confusion drew from a saloon near by a group of noisy youngsters, who
had been making a night of it. They surrounded Elder Brown as he began
to transfer himself to the hungry beast to whose motion he was more
accustomed, and in the "hail fellow well met" style of the day began
to bandy jests upon his appearance. Now Elder Brown was not in a
jesting humor. Positively he was in the worst humor possible. The
result was that before many minutes passed the old man was swinging
several of the crowd by their collars, and breaking the peace of the
city. A policeman approached, and but for the good-humored party, upon
whom the elder's pluck had made a favorable impression, would have run
the old man into the barracks. The crowd, however, drew him laughingly
into the saloon and to the bar. The reaction was too much for his
half-rallied senses. He yielded again. The reviving liquor passed his
lips. Gloom vanished. He became one of the boys.

The company into which Elder Brown had fallen was what is known as
"first-class." To such nothing is so captivating as an adventure out
of the common run of accidents. The gaunt countryman, with his
battered hat and claw-hammer coat, was a prize of an extraordinary
nature. They drew him into a rear room, whose gilded frames and
polished tables betrayed the character and purpose of the place, and
plied him with wine until ten thousand lights danced about him. The
fun increased. One youngster made a political speech from the top of
the table; another impersonated Hamlet; and finally Elder Brown was
lifted into a chair, and sang a camp-meeting song. This was rendered
by him with startling effect. He stood upright, with his hat jauntily
knocked to one side, and his coat tails ornamented with a couple of
show-bills, kindly pinned on by his admirers. In his left hand he
waved the stub of a cigar, and on his back was an admirable
representation of Balaam's head, executed by some artist with billiard
chalk.

As the elder sang his favorite hymn, "I'm glad salvation's free," his
stentorian voice awoke the echoes. Most of the company rolled upon the
floor in convulsions of laughter.

The exhibition came to a close by the chair overturning. Again Elder
Brown fell into his beloved hat. He arose and shouted: "Whoa, Balaam!"
Again he seized the nearest weapon, and sought satisfaction. The young
gentleman with political sentiments was knocked under the table, and
Hamlet only escaped injury by beating the infuriated elder into the
street.

What next? Well, I hardly know. How the elder found Balaam is a
mystery yet: not that Balaam was hard to find, but that the old man
was in no condition to find anything. Still he did, and climbing
laboriously into the saddle, he held on stupidly while the hungry
beast struck out for home.

V

Hannah Brown did not sleep that night. Sleep would not come. Hour
after hour passed, and her wrath refused to be quelled. She tried
every conceivable method, but time hung heavily. It was not quite peep
of day, however, when she laid her well-worn family Bible aside. It
had been her mother's, and amid all the anxieties and tribulations
incident to the life of a woman who had free negroes and a miserable
husband to manage, it had been her mainstay and comfort. She had
frequently read it in anger, page after page, without knowing what was
contained in the lines. But eventually the words became intelligible
and took meaning. She wrested consolation from it by mere force of
will.

And so on this occasion when she closed the book the fierce anger was
gone.

She was not a hard woman naturally. Fate had brought her conditions
which covered up the woman heart within her, but though it lay deep,
it was there still. As she sat with folded hands her eyes fell
upon--what?

The pink bonnet with the blue plume!

It may appear strange to those who do not understand such natures, but
to me her next action was perfectly natural. She burst into a
convulsive laugh; then, seizing the queer object, bent her face upon
it and sobbed hysterically. When the storm was over, very tenderly she
laid the gift aside, and bare-headed passed out into the night.

For a half-hour she stood at the end of the lane, and then hungry
Balaam and his master hove in sight. Reaching out her hand, she
checked the beast.

"William," said she, very gently, "where is the mule?"

The elder had been asleep. He woke and gazed upon her blankly.

"What mule, Hannah?"

"The mule you rode to town."

For one full minute the elder studied her face. Then it burst from his
lips:

"Well, bless me! if I didn't bring Balaam and forgit the mule!"

The woman laughed till her eyes ran water.

"William," said she, "you're drunk."

"Hannah," said he, meekly, "I know it. The truth is, Hannah, I--"

"Never mind, now, William," she said, gently. "You are tired and
hungry. Come into the house, husband."

Leading Balaam, she disappeared down the lane; and when, a few minutes
later, Hannah Brown and her husband entered through the light that
streamed out of the open door her arms were around him, and her face
upturned to his.



THE HOTEL EXPERIENCE OF MR. PINK FLUKER

BY RICHARD MALCOLM JOHNSTON (1822-1898)

[From _The Century Magazine_, June, 1886; copyright, 1886, by The
Century Co.; republished in the volume, _Mr. Absalom Billingslea, and
Other Georgia Folk_ (1888), by Richard Malcolm Johnston (Harper &
Brothers).]

I

Mr. Peterson Fluker, generally called Pink, for his fondness for as
stylish dressing as he could afford, was one of that sort of men who
habitually seem busy and efficient when they are not. He had the
bustling activity often noticeable in men of his size, and in one way
and another had made up, as he believed, for being so much smaller
than most of his adult acquaintance of the male sex. Prominent among
his achievements on that line was getting married to a woman who,
among other excellent gifts, had that of being twice as big as her
husband.

"Fool who?" on the day after his marriage he had asked, with a look at
those who had often said that he was too little to have a wife.

They had a little property to begin with, a couple of hundreds of
acres, and two or three negroes apiece. Yet, except in the natural
increase of the latter, the accretions of worldly estate had been
inconsiderable till now, when their oldest child, Marann, was some
fifteen years old. These accretions had been saved and taken care of
by Mrs. Fluker, who was as staid and silent as he was mobile and
voluble.

Mr. Fluker often said that it puzzled him how it was that he made
smaller crops than most of his neighbors, when, if not always
convincing, he could generally put every one of them to silence in
discussions upon agricultural topics. This puzzle had led him to not
unfrequent ruminations in his mind as to whether or not his vocation
might lie in something higher than the mere tilling of the ground.
These ruminations had lately taken a definite direction, and it was
after several conversations which he had held with his friend Matt
Pike.

Mr. Matt Pike was a bachelor of some thirty summers, a foretime clerk
consecutively in each of the two stores of the village, but latterly a
trader on a limited scale in horses, wagons, cows, and similar objects
of commerce, and at all times a politician. His hopes of holding
office had been continually disappointed until Mr. John Sanks became
sheriff, and rewarded with a deputyship some important special service
rendered by him in the late very close canvass. Now was a chance to
rise, Mr. Pike thought. All he wanted, he had often said, was a start.
Politics, I would remark, however, had been regarded by Mr. Pike as a
means rather than an end. It is doubtful if he hoped to become
governor of the state, at least before an advanced period in his
career. His main object now was to get money, and he believed that
official position would promote him in the line of his ambition faster
than was possible to any private station, by leading him into more
extensive acquaintance with mankind, their needs, their desires, and
their caprices. A deputy sheriff, provided that lawyers were not too
indulgent in allowing acknowledgment of service of court processes, in
postponing levies and sales, and in settlement of litigated cases,
might pick up three hundred dollars, a good sum for those times, a
fact which Mr. Pike had known and pondered long.

It happened just about then that the arrears of rent for the village
hotel had so accumulated on Mr. Spouter, the last occupant, that the
owner, an indulgent man, finally had said, what he had been expected
for years and years to say, that he could not wait on Mr. Spouter
forever and eternally. It was at this very nick, so to speak, that Mr.
Pike made to Mr. Fluker the suggestion to quit a business so far
beneath his powers, sell out, or rent out, or tenant out, or do
something else with his farm, march into town, plant himself upon the
ruins of Jacob Spouter, and begin his upward soar.

Now Mr. Fluker had many and many a time acknowledged that he had
ambition; so one night he said to his wife:

"You see how it is here, Nervy. Farmin' somehow don't suit my talons.
I need to be flung more 'mong people to fetch out what's in me. Then
thar's Marann, which is gittin' to be nigh on to a growd-up woman; an'
the child need the s'iety which you 'bleeged to acknowledge is sca'ce
about here, six mile from town. Your brer Sam can stay here an' raise
butter, chickens, eggs, pigs, an'--an'--an' so forth. Matt Pike say he
jes' know they's money in it, an' special with a housekeeper keerful
an' equinomical like you."

It is always curious the extent of influence that some men have upon
wives who are their superiors. Mrs. Fluker, in spite of accidents, had
ever set upon her husband a value that was not recognized outside of
his family. In this respect there seems a surprising compensation in
human life. But this remark I make only in passing. Mrs. Fluker,
admitting in her heart that farming was not her husband's forte,
hoped, like a true wife, that it might be found in the new field to
which he aspired. Besides, she did not forget that her brother Sam had
said to her several times privately that if his brer Pink wouldn't
have so many notions and would let him alone in his management, they
would all do better. She reflected for a day or two, and then said:

"Maybe it's best, Mr. Fluker. I'm willin' to try it for a year,
anyhow. We can't lose much by that. As for Matt Pike, I hain't the
confidence in him you has. Still, he bein' a boarder and deputy
sheriff, he might accidentally do us some good. I'll try it for a year
providin' you'll fetch me the money as it's paid in, for you know I
know how to manage that better'n you do, and you know I'll try to
manage it and all the rest of the business for the best."

To this provision Mr. Fluker gave consent, qualified by the claim that
he was to retain a small margin for indispensable personal exigencies.
For he contended, perhaps with justice, that no man in the responsible
position he was about to take ought to be expected to go about, or sit
about, or even lounge about, without even a continental red in his
pocket.

The new house--I say _new_ because tongue could not tell the amount of
scouring, scalding, and whitewashing that that excellent housekeeper
had done before a single stick of her furniture went into it--the new
house, I repeat, opened with six eating boarders at ten dollars a
month apiece, and two eating and sleeping at eleven, besides Mr. Pike,
who made a special contract. Transient custom was hoped to hold its
own, and that of the county people under the deputy's patronage and
influence to be considerably enlarged.

In words and other encouragement Mr. Pike was pronounced. He could
commend honestly, and he did so cordially.

"The thing to do, Pink, is to have your prices reg'lar, and make
people pay up reg'lar. Ten dollars for eatin', jes' so; eleb'n for
eatin' _an_' sleepin'; half a dollar for dinner, jes' so; quarter
apiece for breakfast, supper, and bed, is what I call reason'ble bo'd.
As for me, I sca'cely know how to rig'late, because, you know, I'm a'
officer now, an' in course I natchel _has_ to be away sometimes an' on
expenses at 'tother places, an' it seem like some 'lowance ought by
good rights to be made for that; don't you think so?"

"Why, matter o' course, Matt; what you think? I ain't so powerful good
at figgers. Nervy is. S'posen you speak to her 'bout it."

"Oh, that's perfec' unuseless, Pink. I'm a' officer o' the law, Pink,
an' the law consider women--well, I may say the law, _she_ deal 'ith
_men_, not women, an' she expect her officers to understan' figgers,
an' if I hadn't o' understood figgers Mr. Sanks wouldn't or darsnt' to
'p'int me his dep'ty. Me 'n' you can fix them terms. Now see here,
reg'lar bo'd--eatin' bo'd, I mean--is ten dollars, an' sleepin' and
singuil meals is 'cordin' to the figgers you've sot for 'em. Ain't
that so? Jes' so. Now, Pink, you an' me'll keep a runnin' account, you
a-chargin' for reg'lar bo'd, an' I a'lowin' to myself credics for my
absentees, accordin' to transion customers an' singuil mealers an'
sleepers. Is that fa'r, er is it not fa'r?"

Mr. Fluker turned his head, and after making or thinking he had made a
calculation, answered:

"That's--that seem fa'r, Matt."

"Cert'nly 'tis, Pink; I knowed you'd say so, an' you know I'd never
wish to be nothin' but fa'r 'ith people I like, like I do you an' your
wife. Let that be the understandin', then, betwix' us. An' Pink, let
the understandin' be jes' betwix' _us_, for I've saw enough o' this
world to find out that a man never makes nothin' by makin' a blowin'
horn o' his business. You make the t'others pay up spuntial, monthly.
You 'n' me can settle whensomever it's convenant, say three months
from to-day. In course I shall talk up for the house whensomever and
wharsomever I go or stay. You know that. An' as for my bed," said Mr.
Pike finally, "whensomever I ain't here by bed-time, you welcome to
put any transion person in it, an' also an' likewise, when transion
custom is pressin', and you cramped for beddin', I'm willin' to give
it up for the time bein'; an' rather'n you should be cramped too bad,
I'll take my chances somewhars else, even if I has to take a pallet at
the head o' the sta'r-steps."

"Nervy," said Mr. Fluker to his wife afterwards, "Matt Pike's a
sensibler an' a friendlier an' a 'commodatiner feller'n I thought."

Then, without giving details of the contract, he mentioned merely the
willingness of their boarder to resign his bed on occasions of
pressing emergency.

"He's talked mighty fine to me and Marann," answered Mrs. Fluker.
"We'll see how he holds out. One thing I do not like of his doin', an'
that's the talkin' 'bout Sim Marchman to Marann, an' makin' game o'
his country ways, as he call 'em. Sech as that ain't right."

It may be as well to explain just here that Simeon Marchman, the
person just named by Mrs. Fluker, a stout, industrious young farmer,
residing with his parents in the country near by where the Flukers had
dwelt before removing to town, had been eying Marann for a year or
two, and waiting upon her fast-ripening womanhood with intentions
that, he believed to be hidden in his own breast, though he had taken
less pains to conceal them from Marann than from the rest of his
acquaintance. Not that he had ever told her of them in so many words,
but--Oh, I need not stop here in the midst of this narration to
explain how such intentions become known, or at least strongly
suspected by girls, even those less bright than Marann Fluker. Simeon
had not cordially indorsed the movement into town, though, of course,
knowing it was none of his business, he had never so much as hinted
opposition. I would not be surprised, also, if he reflected that there
might be some selfishness in his hostility, or at least that it was
heightened by apprehensions personal to himself.

Considering the want of experience in the new tenants, matters went on
remarkably well. Mrs. Fluker, accustomed to rise from her couch long
before the lark, managed to the satisfaction of all,--regular
boarders, single-meal takers, and transient people. Marann went to the
village school, her mother dressing her, though with prudent economy,
as neatly and almost as tastefully as any of her schoolmates; while,
as to study, deportment, and general progress, there was not a girl in
the whole school to beat her, I don't care who she was.




II

During a not inconsiderable period Mr. Fluker indulged the honorable
conviction that at last he had found the vein in which his best
talents lay, and he was happy in foresight of the prosperity and
felicity which that discovery promised to himself and his family. His
native activity found many more objects for its exertion than before.
He rode out to the farm, not often, but sometimes, as a matter of
duty, and was forced to acknowledge that Sam was managing better than
could have been expected in the absence of his own continuous
guidance. In town he walked about the hotel, entertained the guests,
carved at the meals, hovered about the stores, the doctors' offices,
the wagon and blacksmith shops, discussed mercantile, medical,
mechanical questions with specialists in all these departments,
throwing into them all more and more of politics as the intimacy
between him and his patron and chief boarder increased.

Now as to that patron and chief boarder. The need of extending his
acquaintance seemed to press upon Mr. Pike with ever-increasing
weight. He was here and there, all over the county; at the
county-seat, at the county villages, at justices' courts, at
executors' and administrators' sales, at quarterly and protracted
religious meetings, at barbecues of every dimension, on hunting
excursions and fishing frolics, at social parties in all
neighborhoods. It got to be said of Mr. Pike that a freer acceptor of
hospitable invitations, or a better appreciator of hospitable
intentions, was not and needed not to be found possibly in the whole
state. Nor was this admirable deportment confined to the county in
which he held so high official position. He attended, among other
occasions less public, the spring sessions of the supreme and county
courts in the four adjoining counties: the guest of acquaintance old
and new over there. When starting upon such travels, he would
sometimes breakfast with his traveling companion in the village, and,
if somewhat belated in the return, sup with him also.

Yet, when at Flukers', no man could have been a more cheerful and
otherwise satisfactory boarder than Mr. Matt Pike. He praised every
dish set before him, bragged to their very faces of his host and
hostess, and in spite of his absences was the oftenest to sit and chat
with Marann when her mother would let her go into the parlor. Here and
everywhere about the house, in the dining-room, in the passage, at the
foot of the stairs, he would joke with Marann about her country beau,
as he styled poor Sim Marchman, and he would talk as though he was
rather ashamed of Sim, and wanted Marann to string her bow for higher
game.

Brer Sam did manage well, not only the fields, but the yard. Every
Saturday of the world he sent in something or other to his sister. I
don't know whether I ought to tell it or not, but for the sake of what
is due to pure veracity I will. On as many as three different
occasions Sim Marchman, as if he had lost all self-respect, or had not
a particle of tact, brought in himself, instead of sending by a negro,
a bucket of butter and a coop of spring chickens as a free gift to
Mrs. Fluker. I do think, on my soul, that Mr. Matt Pike was much
amused by such degradation--however, he must say that they were all
first-rate. As for Marann, she was very sorry for Sim, and wished he
had not brought these good things at all.

Nobody knew how it came about; but when the Flukers had been in town
somewhere between two and three months, Sim Marchman, who (to use his
own words) had never bothered her a great deal with his visits, began
to suspect that what few he made were received by Marann lately with
less cordiality than before; and so one day, knowing no better, in his
awkward, straightforward country manners, he wanted to know the reason
why. Then Marann grew distant, and asked Sim the following question:

"You know where Mr. Pike's gone, Mr. Marchman?"

Now the fact was, and she knew it, that Marann Fluker had never
before, not since she was born, addressed that boy as _Mister_.

The visitor's face reddened and reddened.

"No," he faltered in answer; "no--no--_ma'am_, I should say. I--I
don't know where Mr. Pike's gone."

Then he looked around for his hat, discovered it in time, took it into
his hands, turned it around two or three times, then, bidding good-bye
without shaking hands, took himself off.

Mrs. Fluker liked all the Marchmans, and she was troubled somewhat
when she heard of the quickness and manner of Sim's departure; for he
had been fully expected by her to stay to dinner.

"Say he didn't even shake hands, Marann? What for? What you do to
him?"

"Not one blessed thing, ma; only he wanted to know why I wasn't
gladder to see him." Then Marann looked indignant.

"Say them words, Marann?"

"No, but he hinted 'em."

"What did you say then?"

"I just asked, a-meaning nothing in the wide world, ma--I asked him if
he knew where Mr. Pike had gone."

"And that were answer enough to hurt his feelin's. What you want to
know where Matt Pike's gone for, Marann?"

"I didn't care about knowing, ma, but I didn't like the way Sim
talked."

"Look here, Marann. Look straight at me. You'll be mighty fur off your
feet if you let Matt Pike put things in your head that hain't no
business a-bein' there, and special if you find yourself a-wantin' to
know where he's a-perambulatin' in his everlastin' meanderin's. Not a
cent has he paid for his board, and which your pa say he have a'
understandin' with him about allowin' for his absentees, which is all
right enough, but which it's now goin' on to three mont's, and what is
comin' to us I need and I want. He ought, your pa ought to let me
bargain with Matt Pike, because he know he don't understan' figgers
like Matt Pike. He don't know exactly what the bargain were; for I've
asked him, and he always begins with a multiplyin' of words and never
answers me."

On his next return from his travels Mr. Pike noticed a coldness in
Mrs. Fluker's manner, and this enhanced his praise of the house. The
last week of the third month came. Mr. Pike was often noticed, before
and after meals, standing at the desk in the hotel office (called in
those times the bar-room) engaged in making calculations. The day
before the contract expired Mrs. Fluker, who had not indulged herself
with a single holiday since they had been in town, left Marann in
charge of the house, and rode forth, spending part of the day with
Mrs. Marchman, Sim's mother. All were glad to see her, of course, and
she returned smartly, freshened by the visit. That night she had a
talk with Marann, and oh, how Marann did cry!

The very last day came. Like insurance policies, the contract was to
expire at a certain hour. Sim Marchman came just before dinner, to
which he was sent for by Mrs. Fluker, who had seen him as he rode into
town.

"Hello, Sim," said Mr. Pike as he took his seat opposite him. "You
here? What's the news in the country? How's your health? How's crops?"

"Jest mod'rate, Mr. Pike. Got little business with you after dinner,
ef you can spare time."

"All right. Got a little matter with Pink here first. 'Twon't take
long. See you arfter amejiant, Sim."

Never had the deputy been more gracious and witty. He talked and
talked, outtalking even Mr. Fluker; he was the only man in town who
could do that. He winked at Marann as he put questions to Sim, some of
the words employed in which Sim had never heard before. Yet Sim held
up as well as he could, and after dinner followed Marann with some
little dignity into the parlor. They had not been there more than ten
minutes when Mrs. Fluker was heard to walk rapidly along the passage
leading from the dining-room, to enter her own chamber for only a
moment, then to come out and rush to the parlor door with the gig-whip
in her hand. Such uncommon conduct in a woman like Mrs. Pink Fluker of
course needs explanation.

When all the other boarders had left the house, the deputy and Mr.
Fluker having repaired to the bar-room, the former said:

"Now, Pink, for our settlement, as you say your wife think we better
have one. I'd 'a' been willin' to let accounts keep on a-runnin',
knowin' what a straightforrards sort o' man you was. Your count, ef I
ain't mistakened, is jes' thirty-three dollars, even money. Is that
so, or is it not?"

"That's it, to a dollar, Matt. Three times eleben make thirty-three,
don't it?"

"It do, Pink, or eleben times three, jes' which you please. Now here's
my count, on which you'll see, Pink, that not nary cent have I charged
for infloonce. I has infloonced a consider'ble custom to this house,
as you know, bo'din' and transion. But I done that out o' my respects
of you an' Missis Fluker, an' your keepin' of a fa'r--I'll say, as
I've said freckwent, a _very_ fa'r house. I let them infloonces go to
friendship, ef you'll take it so. Will you, Pink Fluker?"

"Cert'nly, Matt, an' I'm a thousand times obleeged to you, an'--"

"Say no more, Pink, on that p'int o' view. Ef I like a man, I know how
to treat him. Now as to the p'ints o' absentees, my business as dep'ty
sheriff has took me away from this inconsider'ble town freckwent,
hain't it?"

"It have, Matt, er somethin' else, more'n I were a expectin', an'--"

"Jes' so. But a public officer, Pink, when jooty call on him to go, he
got to go; in fack he got to _goth_, as the Scripture say, ain't that
so?"

"I s'pose so, Matt, by good rights, a--a official speakin'."

Mr. Fluker felt that he was becoming a little confused.

"Jes' so. Now, Pink, I were to have credics for my absentees 'cordin'
to transion an' single-meal bo'ders an' sleepers; ain't that so?"

"I--I--somethin' o' that sort, Matt," he answered vaguely.

"Jes' so. Now look here," drawing from his pocket a paper. "Itom one.
Twenty-eight dinners at half a dollar makes fourteen dollars, don't
it? Jes' so. Twenty-five breakfasts at a quarter makes six an' a
quarter, which make dinners an' breakfasts twenty an' a quarter.
Foller me up, as I go up, Pink. Twenty-five suppers at a quarter makes
six an' a quarter, an' which them added to the twenty an' a quarter
makes them twenty-six an' a half. Foller, Pink, an' if you ketch me in
any mistakes in the kyarin' an' addin', p'int it out. Twenty-two an' a
half beds--an' I say _half_, Pink, because you 'member one night when
them A'gusty lawyers got here 'bout midnight on their way to co't,
rather'n have you too bad cramped, I ris to make way for two of 'em;
yit as I had one good nap, I didn't think I ought to put that down but
for half. Them makes five dollars half an' seb'n pence, an' which
kyar'd on to the t'other twenty-six an' a half, fetches the whole
cabool to jes' thirty-two dollars an' seb'n pence. But I made up my
mind I'd fling out that seb'n pence, an' jes' call it a dollar even
money, an' which here's the solid silver."

In spite of the rapidity with which this enumeration of
counter-charges was made, Mr. Fluker commenced perspiring at the first
item, and when the balance was announced his face was covered with
huge drops.

It was at this juncture that Mrs. Fluker, who, well knowing her
husband's unfamiliarity with complicated accounts, had felt her duty
to be listening near the bar-room door, left, and quickly afterwards
appeared before Marann and Sim as I have represented.

"You think Matt Pike ain't tryin' to settle with your pa with a
dollar? I'm goin' to make him keep his dollar, an' I'm goin' to give
him somethin' to go 'long with it."

"The good Lord have mercy upon us!" exclaimed Marann, springing up and
catching hold of her mother's skirts, as she began her advance towards
the bar-room. "Oh, ma! for the Lord's sake!--Sim, Sim, Sim, if you
care _any_thing for me in this wide world, don't let ma go into that
room!"

"Missis Fluker," said Sim, rising instantly, "wait jest two minutes
till I see Mr. Pike on some pressin' business; I won't keep you over
two minutes a-waitin'."

He took her, set her down in a chair trembling, looked at her a moment
as she began to weep, then, going out and closing the door, strode
rapidly to the bar-room.

"Let me help you settle your board-bill, Mr. Pike, by payin' you a
little one I owe you."

Doubling his fist, he struck out with a blow that felled the deputy to
the floor. Then catching him by his heels, he dragged him out of the
house into the street. Lifting his foot above his face, he said:

"You stir till I tell you, an' I'll stomp your nose down even with the
balance of your mean face. 'Tain't exactly my business how you cheated
Mr. Fluker, though, 'pon my soul, I never knowed a trifliner,
lowdowner trick. But _I_ owed you myself for your talkin' 'bout and
your lyin' 'bout me, and now I've paid you; an' ef you only knowed it,
I've saved you from a gig-whippin'. Now you may git up."

"Here's his dollar, Sim," said Mr. Fluker, throwing it out of the
window. "Nervy say make him take it."

The vanquished, not daring to refuse, pocketed the coin, and slunk
away amid the jeers of a score of villagers who had been drawn to the
scene.

In all human probability the late omission of the shaking of Sim's and
Marann's hands was compensated at their parting that afternoon. I am
more confident on this point because at the end of the year those
hands were joined inseparably by the preacher. But this was when they
had all gone back to their old home; for if Mr. Fluker did not become
fully convinced that his mathematical education was not advanced quite
enough for all the exigencies of hotel-keeping, his wife declared that
she had had enough of it, and that she and Marann were going home. Mr.
Fluker may be said, therefore, to have followed, rather than led, his
family on the return.

As for the deputy, finding that if he did not leave it voluntarily he
would be drummed out of the village, he departed, whither I do not
remember if anybody ever knew.



THE NICE PEOPLE

By Henry Cuyler Bunner (1855-1896)

[From _Puck_, July 30, 1890. Republished in the volume, _Short Sixes:
Stories to Be Read While the Candle Burns_ (1891), by Henry Cuyler
Bunner; copyright, 1890, by Alice Larned Bunner; reprinted by
permission of the publishers, Charles Scribner'a Sons.]

"They certainly are nice people," I assented to my wife's observation,
using the colloquial phrase with a consciousness that it was anything
but "nice" English, "and I'll bet that their three children are better
brought up than most of----"

"_Two_ children," corrected my wife.

"Three, he told me."

"My dear, she said there were _two_."

"He said three."

"You've simply forgotten. I'm _sure_ she told me they had only two--a
boy and a girl."

"Well, I didn't enter into particulars."

"No, dear, and you couldn't have understood him. Two children."

"All right," I said; but I did not think it was all right. As a
near-sighted man learns by enforced observation to recognize persons
at a distance when the face is not visible to the normal eye, so the
man with a bad memory learns, almost unconsciously, to listen
carefully and report accurately. My memory is bad; but I had not had
time to forget that Mr. Brewster Brede had told me that afternoon that
he had three children, at present left in the care of his
mother-in-law, while he and Mrs. Brede took their summer vacation.

"Two children," repeated my wife; "and they are staying with his aunt
Jenny."

"He told me with his mother-in-law," I put in. My wife looked at me
with a serious expression. Men may not remember much of what they are
told about children; but any man knows the difference between an aunt
and a mother-in-law.

"But don't you think they're nice people?" asked my wife.

"Oh, certainly," I replied. "Only they seem to be a little mixed up
about their children."

"That isn't a nice thing to say," returned my wife. I could not deny
it.

       *       *       *       *       *

And yet, the next morning, when the Bredes came down and seated
themselves opposite us at table, beaming and smiling in their natural,
pleasant, well-bred fashion, I knew, to a social certainty, that they
were "nice" people. He was a fine-looking fellow in his neat
tennis-flannels, slim, graceful, twenty-eight or thirty years old,
with a Frenchy pointed beard. She was "nice" in all her pretty
clothes, and she herself was pretty with that type of prettiness which
outwears most other types--the prettiness that lies in a rounded
figure, a dusky skin, plump, rosy cheeks, white teeth and black eyes.
She might have been twenty-five; you guessed that she was prettier
than she was at twenty, and that she would be prettier still at forty.

And nice people were all we wanted to make us happy in Mr. Jacobus's
summer boarding-house on top of Orange Mountain. For a week we had
come down to breakfast each morning, wondering why we wasted the
precious days of idleness with the company gathered around the Jacobus
board. What joy of human companionship was to be had out of Mrs. Tabb
and Miss Hoogencamp, the two middle-aged gossips from Scranton,
Pa.--out of Mr. and Mrs. Biggle, an indurated head-bookkeeper and his
prim and censorious wife--out of old Major Halkit, a retired business
man, who, having once sold a few shares on commission, wrote for
circulars of every stock company that was started, and tried to induce
every one to invest who would listen to him? We looked around at those
dull faces, the truthful indices of mean and barren minds, and decided
that we would leave that morning. Then we ate Mrs. Jacobus's biscuit,
light as Aurora's cloudlets, drank her honest coffee, inhaled the
perfume of the late azaleas with which she decked her table, and
decided to postpone our departure one more day. And then we wandered
out to take our morning glance at what we called "our view"; and it
seemed to us as if Tabb and Hoogencamp and Halkit and the Biggleses
could not drive us away in a year.

I was not surprised when, after breakfast, my wife invited the Bredes
to walk with us to "our view." The Hoogencamp-Biggle-Tabb-Halkit
contingent never stirred off Jacobus's veranda; but we both felt that
the Bredes would not profane that sacred scene. We strolled slowly
across the fields, passed through the little belt of woods and, as I
heard Mrs. Brede's little cry of startled rapture, I motioned to Brede
to look up.

"By Jove!" he cried, "heavenly!"

We looked off from the brow of the mountain over fifteen miles of
billowing green, to where, far across a far stretch of pale blue lay a
dim purple line that we knew was Staten Island. Towns and villages lay
before us and under us; there were ridges and hills, uplands and
lowlands, woods and plains, all massed and mingled in that great
silent sea of sunlit green. For silent it was to us, standing in the
silence of a high place--silent with a Sunday stillness that made us
listen, without taking thought, for the sound of bells coming up from
the spires that rose above the tree-tops--the tree-tops that lay as
far beneath us as the light clouds were above us that dropped great
shadows upon our heads and faint specks of shade upon the broad sweep
of land at the mountain's foot.

"And so that is _your_ view?" asked Mrs. Brede, after a moment; "you
are very generous to make it ours, too."

Then we lay down on the grass, and Brede began to talk, in a gentle
voice, as if he felt the influence of the place. He had paddled a
canoe, in his earlier days, he said, and he knew every river and creek
in that vast stretch of landscape. He found his landmarks, and pointed
out to us where the Passaic and the Hackensack flowed, invisible to
us, hidden behind great ridges that in our sight were but combings of
the green waves upon which we looked down. And yet, on the further
side of those broad ridges and rises were scores of villages--a little
world of country life, lying unseen under our eyes.

"A good deal like looking at humanity," he said; "there is such a
thing as getting so far above our fellow men that we see only one side
of them."

Ah, how much better was this sort of talk than the chatter and gossip
of the Tabb and the Hoogencamp--than the Major's dissertations upon
his everlasting circulars! My wife and I exchanged glances.

"Now, when I went up the Matterhorn" Mr. Brede began.

"Why, dear," interrupted his wife, "I didn't know you ever went up the
Matterhorn."

"It--it was five years ago," said Mr. Brede, hurriedly. "I--I didn't
tell you--when I was on the other side, you know--it was rather
dangerous--well, as I was saying--it looked--oh, it didn't look at all
like this."

A cloud floated overhead, throwing its great shadow over the field
where we lay. The shadow passed over the mountain's brow and
reappeared far below, a rapidly decreasing blot, flying eastward over
the golden green. My wife and I exchanged glances once more.

Somehow, the shadow lingered over us all. As we went home, the Bredes
went side by side along the narrow path, and my wife and I walked
together.

"_Should you think_," she asked me, "that a man would climb the
Matterhorn the very first year he was married?"

"I don't know, my dear," I answered, evasively; "this isn't the first
year I have been married, not by a good many, and I wouldn't climb
it--for a farm."

"You know what I mean," she said.

I did.

       *        *        *        *        *

When we reached the boarding-house, Mr. Jacobus took me aside.

"You know," he began his discourse, "my wife she uset to live in N'
York!"

I didn't know, but I said "Yes."

"She says the numbers on the streets runs criss-cross-like.
Thirty-four's on one side o' the street an' thirty-five on t'other.
How's that?"

"That is the invariable rule, I believe."

"Then--I say--these here new folk that you 'n' your wife seem so
mighty taken up with--d'ye know anything about 'em?"

"I know nothing about the character of your boarders, Mr. Jacobus," I
replied, conscious of some irritability. "If I choose to associate
with any of them----"

"Jess so--jess so!" broke in Jacobus. "I hain't nothin' to say ag'inst
yer sosherbil'ty. But do ye _know_ them?"

"Why, certainly not," I replied.

"Well--that was all I wuz askin' ye. Ye see, when _he_ come here to
take the rooms--you wasn't here then--he told my wife that he lived at
number thirty-four in his street. An' yistiddy _she_ told her that
they lived at number thirty-five. He said he lived in an
apartment-house. Now there can't be no apartment-house on two sides of
the same street, kin they?"

"What street was it?" I inquired, wearily.

"Hundred 'n' twenty-first street."

"May be," I replied, still more wearily. "That's Harlem. Nobody knows
what people will do in Harlem."

I went up to my wife's room.

"Don't you think it's queer?" she asked me.

"I think I'll have a talk with that young man to-night," I said, "and
see if he can give some account of himself."

"But, my dear," my wife said, gravely, "_she_ doesn't know whether
they've had the measles or not."

"Why, Great Scott!" I exclaimed, "they must have had them when they
were children."

"Please don't be stupid," said my wife. "I meant _their_ children."

After dinner that night--or rather, after supper, for we had dinner in
the middle of the day at Jacobus's--I walked down the long verandah to
ask Brede, who was placidly smoking at the other end, to accompany me
on a twilight stroll. Half way down I met Major Halkit.

"That friend of yours," he said, indicating the unconscious figure at
the further end of the house, "seems to be a queer sort of a Dick. He
told me that he was out of business, and just looking round for a
chance to invest his capital. And I've been telling him what an
everlasting big show he had to take stock in the Capitoline Trust
Company--starts next month--four million capital--I told you all about
it. 'Oh, well,' he says, 'let's wait and think about it.' 'Wait!' says
I, 'the Capitoline Trust Company won't wait for _you_, my boy. This is
letting you in on the ground floor,' says I, 'and it's now or never.'
'Oh, let it wait,' says he. I don't know what's in-_to_ the man."

"I don't know how well he knows his own business, Major," I said as I
started again for Brede's end of the veranda. But I was troubled none
the less. The Major could not have influenced the sale of one share of
stock in the Capitoline Company. But that stock was a great
investment; a rare chance for a purchaser with a few thousand dollars.
Perhaps it was no more remarkable that Brede should not invest than
that I should not--and yet, it seemed to add one circumstance more to
the other suspicious circumstances.

       *       *       *       *       *

When I went upstairs that evening, I found my wife putting her hair to
bed--I don't know how I can better describe an operation familiar to
every married man. I waited until the last tress was coiled up, and
then I spoke:

"I've talked with Brede," I said, "and I didn't have to catechize him.
He seemed to feel that some sort of explanation was looked for, and he
was very outspoken. You were right about the children--that is, I must
have misunderstood him. There are only two. But the Matterhorn episode
was simple enough. He didn't realize how dangerous it was until he had
got so far into it that he couldn't back out; and he didn't tell her,
because he'd left her here, you see, and under the circumstances----"

"Left her here!" cried my wife. "I've been sitting with her the whole
afternoon, sewing, and she told me that he left her at Geneva, and
came back and took her to Basle, and the baby was born there--now I'm
sure, dear, because I asked her."

"Perhaps I was mistaken when I thought he said she was on this side of
the water," I suggested, with bitter, biting irony.

"You poor dear, did I abuse you?" said my wife. "But, do you know,
Mrs. Tabb said that _she_ didn't know how many lumps of sugar he took
in his coffee. Now that seems queer, doesn't it?"

It did. It was a small thing. But it looked queer, Very queer.

       *       *       *       *       *

The next morning, it was clear that war was declared against the
Bredes. They came down to breakfast somewhat late, and, as soon as
they arrived, the Biggleses swooped up the last fragments that
remained on their plates, and made a stately march out of the
dining-room, Then Miss Hoogencamp arose and departed, leaving a whole
fish-ball on her plate. Even as Atalanta might have dropped an apple
behind her to tempt her pursuer to check his speed, so Miss Hoogencamp
left that fish-ball behind her, and between her maiden self and
contamination.

We had finished our breakfast, my wife and I, before the Bredes
appeared. We talked it over, and agreed that we were glad that we had
not been obliged to take sides upon such insufficient testimony.

After breakfast, it was the custom of the male half of the Jacobus
household to go around the corner of the building and smoke their
pipes and cigars where they would not annoy the ladies. We sat under a
trellis covered with a grapevine that had borne no grapes in the
memory of man. This vine, however, bore leaves, and these, on that
pleasant summer morning, shielded from us two persons who were in
earnest conversation in the straggling, half-dead flower-garden at the
side of the house.

"I don't want," we heard Mr. Jacobus say, "to enter in no man's
_pry_-vacy; but I do want to know who it may be, like, that I hev in
my house. Now what I ask of _you_, and I don't want you to take it as
in no ways _personal_, is--hev you your merridge-license with you?"

"No," we heard the voice of Mr. Brede reply. "Have you yours?"

I think it was a chance shot; but it told all the same. The Major (he
was a widower) and Mr. Biggle and I looked at each other; and Mr.
Jacobus, on the other side of the grape-trellis, looked at--I don't
know what--and was as silent as we were.

Where is _your_ marriage-license, married reader? Do you know? Four
men, not including Mr. Brede, stood or sat on one side or the other of
that grape-trellis, and not one of them knew where his
marriage-license was. Each of us had had one--the Major had had three.
But where were they? Where is _yours?_ Tucked in your best-man's
pocket; deposited in his desk--or washed to a pulp in his white
waistcoat (if white waistcoats be the fashion of the hour), washed out
of existence--can you tell where it is? Can you--unless you are one of
those people who frame that interesting document and hang it upon
their drawing-room walls?

Mr. Brede's voice arose, after an awful stillness of what seemed like
five minutes, and was, probably, thirty seconds:

"Mr. Jacobus, will you make out your bill at once, and let me pay it?
I shall leave by the six o'clock train. And will you also send the
wagon for my trunks?"

"I hain't said I wanted to hev ye leave----" began Mr. Jacobus; but
Brede cut him short.

"Bring me your bill."

"But," remonstrated Jacobus, "ef ye ain't----"

"Bring me your bill!" said Mr. Brede.