Читать книгу The Measure of a Man. A Tale of the Big Woods - Duncan Norman - Страница 5
ОглавлениеTHE MAN FROM BOTTLE RIVER
In consequence of all this, the tote-wagon, bearing the mortal remains of Gray Billy Batch, covered from the blithesome new day with a gray blanket, had gravely emerged from the forest in the early hours of the morning, the reins in the knowing hands of Plain Tom Hitch. It was presently drawn up at the Red Elephant, Pale Peter's place, and there expeditiously, but still gravely, abandoned. No unseemly wrangle—not so much as an officious whisper—disturbed the propriety of the arrival and the sunlit quiet of the time. Whatever uncertainty—whatever difference of opinion—may have existed in respect to the ceremonial progress of the extraordinary affair in hand, there was no doubt about what was immediately desirable and proper in the circumstances. The movement of Plain Tom Hitch and Gingerbread Jenkins, and of the prospective mourners, who had sat with the corpse or straggled behind all the way from Bottle River, was silent, simultaneous and in the same direction. They tiptoed into Pale Peter's bar; the swing shutters closed behind them, with a subdued and melancholy creaking, and the high-street of Swamp's End was once more deserted, except for the tote-wagon and its indifferent occupant.
"What'll it be?" Plain Tom Hitch and Gingerbread Jenkins whispered simultaneously.
"A li'l' licker."
The sigh ran down the solemn line:
"A li'l' licker."
"The same."
"A li'l' gin—fer me."
Gray Billy Batch, under the gray blanket outside, was left to his own devices; but he was not chagrined, you may be sure, by this exclusion from the amenities of Swamp's End. Nor was his presence beyond the threshold of Pale Peter's bar forgotten. Plain Tom Hitch halted his first glass midway—and nothing but the gravest concern could have moved Tom Hitch to such amazing restraint—Plain Tom Hitch halted his first aromatic glass midway to inquire concerning the disposition and entertainment of "the only survivin' re-lation" of the gray blanket; but having been assured by Gingerbread Jenkins, who had assumed charge of the melancholy affair, that in the event of her failure to appear unaided she would be sought by a deputation and escorted with every courtesy to the tail of the tote-wagon, he paused no longer, but swallowed his liquor with funereal satisfaction.
"Jus' as you say, Gingerbread," he assented, dubiously. "It's your funeral. You got it up."
"Eh?" Gingerbread inquired, sensing doubt. "I what?"
"You got it up," Tom Hitch replied; "but I wisht I knowed," he added solemnly, "where you was goin' t' put your cant-hooks on them Scriptures."
"What Scriptures?"
"Holy Scriptures," said Plain Tom Hitch.
Gingerbread Jenkins created a diversion by inquiring, in a general way, "What'll you have, boys?"
The response was unanimous:
"A li'l' o' the same, Charlie."
"I don't want t' make no trouble, nor I don't want t' do no buttin' in," Tom Hitch went on, at the conclusion of this grave ceremony; "but I'm told that they're usually used."
"What's used?"
"Holy Scriptures," said Plain Tom Hitch.
"You jus' leave all that t' me, Tom Hitch," Gingerbread Jenkins replied, with a display of resentment to conceal a second shock of uneasiness. "If we got t' have the Holy Scriptures for this here funeerial, we'll have 'em, an' that's all there is to it."
"Jus' as you say, Gingerbread," Tom Hitch assented, with a doubtful wag; "but don't you go an' forget that you got this thing up yourself."
"I ain't hedgin' on it, Tom," Gingerbread protested. "I did get it up."
"Got a parson?"
"Well, no, Tom," Gingerbread admitted; "not yet. I ain't picked no parson yet."
"Got a hearse?"
"Not yet," said Gingerbread Jenkins; "but I'm allowin' t' have a hearse."
"Got a coffin?"
Gingerbread shook his head.
"Got a grave?"
"I ain't a-ten-ded t' all them things," Gingerbread Jenkins exploded, goaded to impatience. "I ain't got my grave dug. Gimme time, can't you? I jus' stopped in here for a li'l' licker."
"Jus' as you say, Gingerbread," said Tom Hitch, placidly. "You got it up; it's your funeral."
There was a vast uncertainty in respect to everything connected with the large-looming event, not only in the flustered mind of poor Gingerbread Jenkins, who was presently appalled by the magnitude his simple project had begun to assume, but in the expectation of the men whom the Cant-hook and Bottle River tote-roads poured into the clearing, and whom the drowsy street of Swamp's End, immediately, and without quite waking up, delivered to the thirty-two saloons. Word had gone abroad in the woods—word of an occasion—of some mysterious demand for a celebration. The men of the Cant-hook and Bottle River—and a smattering of lusty fellows of the Yellow Tail—had drawn their wages and come precipitately to town. There was the vaguest information abroad, however, concerning the occasion; and when, in the thirty-two saloons, it was made known that honour was to be done the gray blanket in the Bottle River tote-wagon, in ease of Pattie Batch's grief, the project was riotously approved and so thoroughly initiated that even the thirty-two proprietors found nothing to complain of. The clink of glasses and the silvery rattle of coin answered well enough for the requiem bell—well enough, at any rate, to content Gray Billy Batch, lying quietly under the gray blanket in the tote-wagon.
But—
"Who got it up?"
"When's he goin' t' pull it off?"
"How's he goin' t' pull it off?"
How was it to be pulled off? That, indeed, was the problem, with which Swamp's End, in view of its limitations, must instantly grapple, the issue of that gigantic struggle being in gravest doubt. Swamp's End, you see, had never had a parson, had never known a parson, and wouldn't have recognized one, you may be sure, had the clouds opened and providentially dropped a parson excellently competent in respect to public occasions of this sort. Swamp's End was completely benighted: Swamp's End had hitherto had no "call" for the ministrations of a parson. Nor had Swamp's End a coffin to mitigate its indecency, nor a shroud, nor a hearse: the obsequies which it had hitherto fallen to the lot of Swamp's End to celebrate had been for the most part performed in the woods, without ostentation, green boughs for coffin, the darkness of the grave shroud enough, the wind in the pines a choir unequalled, the solemnity of the great woods a sufficient sermon. Swamp's End, indeed, had no graveyard: nothing but an avoided slope, near by a shuttered house on the edge of town, where three nameless women were buried, these sunken mounds, with one small cherished grave, asserting jealous ownership of the green and flowery spot.
"And no grave dug!" Tom Hitch marvelled at Pale Peter's bar.
"Not yet," said Gingerbread Jenkins. "I ain't had no time t' dig no grave."
"Have you chose a cem-a-tary?"
"You le' me alone, can't you?" Gingerbread Jenkins complained. "I'll get my cem-a-tary, all right!"
"Jus' as you say, Gingerbread."
Gingerbread growled.
"You started this here little thing," Tom Hitch went on, as he crooked his finger for Charlie the Infidel; "but I want to warn you that there's a hundred men an' eighteen hundred dollars a-comin' t' this here funeral, an' there didn't ought t' be no hitch t' disappoint the boys."
With the timely assistance of Charlie the Infidel, they sought new light upon the situation, but found, unhappily, only a deeper bewilderment. And as for John Fairmeadow, while the cloud of concern thickened about Gingerbread Jenkins' head, why—John Fairmeadow, on the trail from Elegant Corners, was drawing nearer the clearing of Swamp's End, and would presently emerge from the woods.
