The poet-soul doth sob,
To see a sight
Of beauty bright
Oppressed by name of 'blob'!
O unmellifluous mob!
The poet's lip
Would nectar sip,
But scorns to browse on 'blob'!
The expression is condensed," said Mr. Homer, with modest pride; "but I am of opinion that condensation often lends strength;—a—are you also of that opinion, Thomas?"
"Every time!" said Tommy Candy.
Mr. Homer looked bewildered, but bowed gently, accepting the commendation expressed in Tommy's voice. "I am glad that my little effusion meets with your approval, Thomas," he said. "It is the first effort I have been able to make since the death of my lamented relative. A—a simple movement, sir, of the Muse's wing; a—a—"
"Flap?" suggested Tommy Candy.
Mr. Homer looked still more bewildered, but bowed again, waving his hands with a gesture of mingled protest and deprecation.
"I am of opinion, Thomas," he said, "that prose is the vehicle in which your thoughts are most apt to find expression. The wings of the Muse do not, in my opinion,—a—a—flap. But it is a matter—a—scarcely germane to the occasion. We will pursue our researches, if you please."
The next names were more fortunate. The Golden Gem was followed by the Mermaid's Comb, and Mr. Homer glowed with poetic joy as he placed the pretty things on the shelves of the cabinet that awaited them.
"I foresee, Thomas," he exclaimed, joyfully, "a resuscitation of the poetic faculty. I feel that, surrounded by these shapes of beauty, and not oppressed by such inappropriate cacophonies as Blork and Snob—I would say Snork and Blob—I shall often joyfully, as well as strictly, meditate the—I find myself unable to characterize the Muse as 'thankless,' in spite of my profound admiration for the immortal Milton. My spirit will, I feel it, once more sing, and—wing, sir! 'Mermaid's Comb!' In gazing on this symmetrical shape, my young friend, may we not in our mind's eye, Horatio—I would say Thomas—the remark is Hamlet's, as you are without doubt aware—behold it in the hand of some fair nymph, or siren, or—or person of that description—and behold her 'sleeking her soft alluring locks,' in Milton's immortal phrase? A—candor compels me to state, Thomas, that on the few—the very few—occasions when—when I have seen the locks of the fair sex in a state of—a—dampness;—of—humidity;—a—of—moisture, I have not thought" (Mr. Homer blushed very red) "that the condition was one which enhanced; which—a—added to, the charms with which that sex is—in a large number of cases—endowed."
"That's so!" said Tommy. "Take 'em after a shampoo, and they're a sight, even the good-lookin' ones."
Mr. Homer blushed still redder, and took out his handkerchief. "I have never,—" he began, and then coughed, and waved the subject delicately away.
"It is probable," he said, "that if—a—such semi-celestial individuals as those described by the poet existed—a—possessed a corporal envelope—a—were endowed with a local habitation and a name—Shakespeare—they would not be subject to conditions which—which tend to the—a—obscuration of beauty; but we will proceed, if you please, Thomas. Hark! was that a knock at the door?"
They listened. There was a silence; then, beyond question, came a knock on the outer door; a loud, imperative rap, with a suggestion of rhythm, almost of flourish, in its repetition. "Rat-ta-tat, rat-ta-tat, rat-ta-tat!" Then silence again.
"Direxia is in bed," said Tommy Candy. "I'll go."
"Wait; wait a moment, Thomas!" said Mr. Homer, nervously. "Do you think—it is near nine o'clock—do you think that courtesy absolutely demands our opening the door?"
Tommy looked at him in amazement.
"It—it is probably a lady!" said Mr. Homer, piteously. "She is without doubt bringing me—a—food;—a—bodily pabulum;—a—refreshment for the inner man. Thomas, I—I do not feel as if I could receive another dish at present. I have received four—have I not?—assaults—a—I would say, gifts, to-day, all tending to—overtax the digestive powers, even if Direxia's friendly ministrations did not invite—or more properly demand—all the powers of that description which I possess."
"Pineapple cream, Miss Wax," replied Tommy Candy, briefly. "That was good; I ate it myself. Lobster salad, Miss Goby; claws round it; might have boiled her own for a garnish; calf's-foot jelly, Widder Ketchum; plum cake, Mis' Pottle. Seth Weaver says that when Doctor Pottle is short of patients, the old lady always bakes a batch of fruit-cake and sends it round. It's sure to fetch somebody; you could ballast a schooner with it, Seth says. Yes, that makes four, sir. But maybe this isn't a woman, Mr. Homer. I don't think it sounds like one, and anyhow, I wouldn't let one in, noways. You'd better let me go, sir."
The knock sounded again, still more imperative; and now a voice was heard, a man's voice, thin and high, crying, impatiently: "Within there! house! what ho! within!"
Mr. Homer gasped, and loosened his necktie convulsively.
"My mind is probably failing," he said. "That voice—is probably a hallucination;—a—an aberration; a—you hear no voice, I should surmise, Thomas?"
He gazed eagerly at Tommy, who, really alarmed for his friend's reason, stared at him in return.
"Of course I hear it, sir," he said. "He's hollering fit to raise the roof. Riled, I expect; you'd better let me go, Mr. Homer."
Mr. Homer relaxed his hold. "Thomas," he said, solemnly, "I think it improbable that you will find any corporal substance at that door: nevertheless, open it, if you will be so good! open it, Thomas!"
Greatly wondering, Tommy Candy ran to the door and flung it wide open. There on the threshold stood a man, his hand raised in the act of knocking again. A little man, in a flyaway cloak, with a flyaway necktie and long, fluttering mustaches; a little man who looked in the dim light like a cross between a bat and the Flying Dutchman.
"House!" said the little man. "Within there!"
"Well," said Tommy, slowly, "I never said it was a monument!"
The stranger made a gesture of brushing him away.
"Minion," he said, "bandy no words, but straightway tell me, does Homer Hollopeter lurk within?"
"Did you wish to see him?" inquired Tommy, civilly yet cautiously. A backward glance over his shoulder gave him a curious impression. Mr. Homer's shadow, as he stood just within the parlor door, was thrown on the pale shining wood of the hall floor; this shadow seemed to flutter, with motions singularly like those of the stranger. Another moment, and the little gentleman came forward, carrying a candle. He was trembling violently, and, as he held the candle high, its wavering light fell on the countenance of the stranger.
"AS HE HELD THE CANDLE HIGH, ITS WAVERING LIGHT FELL ON THE COUNTENANCE OF THE STRANGER"
"Gee whiz!" muttered Tommy Candy. "It's himself over again in black."
"It is my brother Pindar!" cried Mr. Homer, dropping the candle. "It is my only brother, whom I thought dead—a—defunct;—a—wafted to—my dear fellow, my dear brother, how are you? This is a joyful moment; this is—a—an auspicious occasion; this is—a—an oasis in the arid plains which—"
"Encircle us!" said Mr. Pindar. "Precisely! Homer, embrace me!"
He flung his arms abroad, and the batlike cloak fluttered out to its fullest width. Mr. Homer seemed to shrink together, and it was himself he embraced, with a frightened gesture.
"Oh, quite so!" he cried, hurriedly. "Very much so, indeed, my dear brother. The spirit, Pindar, the spirit, returns your proffered salute; but foreign customs, sir, have never obtained in Quahaug. I bid you heartily, heartily welcome, my dear brother. Come in, come in!"
Mr. Pindar flung up his hand with a lofty gesture. "My benison upon this house!" he cried. "The wanderer returns. The traveller—a—sets foot upon his native heath—I would say door-step. Flourish and exeunt. Set on!"
The two brothers vanished. Tommy Candy, still standing on the threshold, stared after them with his mouth wide open, and slowly rumpled his hair till it stood on end in elfish spikes, as it had done in his childhood.
"I swan!" said Tommy Candy. "I swan to everlastin' gosh! the Dutch is beat this time!"
CHAPTER VIII.
MR. PINDAR
Tommy Candy was about to reënter the house, when something seemed to attract his attention. He gazed keenly through the soft darkness at the house opposite; then he uttered a low whistle, and, leaning on his stick (for Miss Penny was right; poor Tommy was very lame, and had climbed his last steeple), made his way down the garden-path to the gate. "Annie Lizzie, is that you?" he asked, in a low tone.
"Hush!" the answer came in a soft voice. "Yes, Tommy. How you scared me! I didn't think there was any one up. Ma thought she heard something, and wanted I should look out and see if there was any one round."
"You tell her the Sheriff has come to get Isaac," said Tommy, "and he's stopping with us overnight. He'll be over in the morning, tell her, with the handcuffs, bright and early."
"Oh, hush, Tommy! you hadn't ought to talk so!" said the soft voice, and a slender figure slipped across the road in the dark, and came to the gate. "Honest, Tommy, I wish you wouldn't talk so about Isaac and the rest of 'em. It don't seem right."
"Annie Lizzie," said Tommy, "I never said a word against ary one of 'em, so long as I thought they was your kin; but since I found out that you was only adopted, why, I don't see no reason why or wherefore I shouldn't give 'em as good as they deserve, now I don't."
"Well, they did adopt me," said Annie Lizzie. "Don't, Tommy, please! Ma says—"
"She ain't your Ma!" interrupted Tommy; "and I don't want you should call her so, Annie Lizzie; there!"
"Well, she says I would have gone on the town only for them," the soft voice went on. "You wouldn't want I should be ungrateful, would you, Tommy?"
"No, I wouldn't," said Tommy, grimly. "I'm willing you should be grateful for all the chance you've had to wash and scrub and take care of them Weight brats. But this ain't what I called you over for, Annie Lizzie. Say, there did some one come just now; Mr. Homer's brother!"
"I want to know!" said Annie Lizzie. In the darkness, Tommy could almost see her glow with gentle wonder and curiosity. "What is he like, Tommy? I didn't know Mr. Homer had a brother, nor any one belongin' to him nearer than Mis' Strong."
"No more did I," said Tommy. "But here he is, as like Mr. Homer as two peas, only he's a black one."
"For gracious' sake, Tommy Candy! you don't mean a colored man?"
"No, no! I mean dark-complected, with black eyes. You make an errand over to-morrow, and you'll see him. He looks to be a queer one, I tell you!"
"If he's as good as Mr. Homer," said Annie Lizzie, "I shouldn't care how queer he was."
"No more should I," cried Tommy, warmly; "but he'd have to work pretty hard to ketch up with Mr. Homer in goodness. Say, Annie Lizzie, come a mite nearer, can't you?"
"I can't, Tommy. I must go home this minute; Ma will be wonderin' where I am. There! do let me go, Tommy!"
A window was raised in the house opposite, and the wheezy voice of Mrs. Weight was heard:
"Annie Lizzie, where are you? Don't you l'iter there now, and me ketchin' my everlastin' hollerin' for you. Come in this minute, do you hear?"
There was a soft sound that was not a voice; and Annie Lizzie slipped back like a shadow across the road.
"I'm comin', Ma!" she said. "It's real warm and pleasant out, but I'm comin' right in."
"Do you see any one round?" asked the Deacon's widow.
Annie Lizzie shut her eyes tight, for she was a truthful girl. "No'm," she said; "I don't."
In the Captain's room, Mr. Homer's favorite apartment, the two brothers stood and looked each other in the face. As Tommy said, the likeness was intimate, spite of the difference in color: the same figure, the same gestures, the same general effect of waviness in outline, of flutter in motion; yet, to speak in paradox, with a difference in the very likeness. There was an abruptness of address in the newcomer, foreign to the gentle ambiguous flow of Mr. Homer's speech; where Mr. Homer waved, Mr. Pindar jerked; where Mr. Homer fluttered feebly, his brother fluttered vivaciously. They fluttered now, both of them, as they stood facing each other. For a moment neither found words, but it was Mr. Pindar who spoke first.
"I have surprised you, brother!" he cried; "confess it! Surprise, chief tidbit at the Feast of Life! Alarums and excursions! enter King Henry, with forces marching. You did not expect to see the Wanderer?"
"I certainly did not, my dear brother!" cried Mr. Homer, the tears standing in his mild eyes. "I have not even felt sure, Pindar, of your being alive in these latter years. Why, why have you kept this silence, my dear fellow? think how many years it is since I have heard a word from you!"
Mr. Pindar fluttered vivaciously; he was certainly more like a bat than the Flying Dutchman. "I apologize!" he cried. "I have been at fault, Homer, I admit it. To own him wrong, the haughty spirit bows—no more of it! The past"—he swept it away with one wing—"is buried. This night its obsequies! Hung be the heavens with black; a pickaxe and a spade, a spade; other remarks of a similar nature. Homer, our cousin Marcia loved me not!" (it was true. "I can stand a beetle," Mrs. Tree was used to say, "or I can stand a bat; but a bat-beetle, and a dancing one at that, is more than I can abide. Cat's foot! don't talk to me!").
"Yet when I heard—through the medium of the public prints—that she was no more, I felt a pang, sir, a pang. I would have assisted at the funeral solemnities; it would have been a pleasure to me to compose a dirge; the first strophe even suggested itself to me. 'Ta-ta, tarum, tarum' (muffled drums); 'ta tee, ta tidol' (trombones); but these things require time, sir, time."
"Surely!" said Mr. Homer, with a meek bow; "surely; and indeed, Pindar, the ceremonies were of the simplest description, in accordance with the wishes of our revered and deceased relative. But sit down, my dear brother; sit down, and let me procure some refreshment;—a—sustenance;—a—bodily pabulum, for you. Have you come far, may I ask?"
"From the metropolis, sir; from New York!" replied Mr. Pindar, seating himself and throwing back his little batlike cloak.
"By rail to the Junction; the evening stage, a jolt, a rattle, and a crawl,—behold me! A crust, Homer, a crust! no disturbance of domestic equilibrium. A consort lurks within?"
"I beg your pardon, Brother!" said Mr. Homer, with a bewildered look.
"A wife, sir, a wife!" said Mr. Pindar. "Are you married, Homer?"
"Oh, no; no, indeed, my dear brother!" said Mr. Homer, hastily, and blushing very red. "Nothing of the kind, I assure you. And you?"
"Perish the thought!" said Mr. Pindar; and he waved the Sex out of existence.
Mr. Homer looked troubled, but hastened out of the room, and, after some ineffective appeals to Tommy, who, as we know, was talking with Annie Lizzie at the gate, foraged for himself, and returned with crackers and cheese, doughnuts and cider. Seated together at this simple feast, the two brothers looked at each other once more, and both rubbed their hands with precisely the same gesture.
"Food!" cried Mr. Pindar, vivaciously; "and drink! necessities, base if you will, but grateful, sir, grateful! Brother, I pledge you!"
"Brother, I drink to you!" cried Mr. Homer, filling his glass with a trembling hand. "To our reunion, sir! the—the rekindling of—of affection's torch, my dear brother. Long may it—"
"Blaze!" cried Mr. Pindar, with a sudden skip in his chair. "Snap! crackle! flame! crepitate! Pindar to Homer shall, bright glass to glass—enough!" He ceased suddenly, and fell upon the crackers and cheese with excellent appetite.
Mr. Homer watched him in anxious and bewildered silence: once or twice he opened his lips as if about to speak, but closed them each time with a sigh and a shake of the head. The visitor was the first to speak, beginning, when the last cracker had disappeared, as suddenly as he had left off.
"Brother," he said, "why am I here?"
Mr. Homer repeated the words vaguely: "Why are you here, my dear brother? I doubt not that affection's call, the—voice of sympathy, of—a—brotherhood, of—consanguinity,—a—sounded in your ears—"
"Trumpets!" Mr. Pindar struck a sonorous note, and nodded thrice with great solemnity. "Alarums and excursions; enter long-lost brother, centre. You are right, Homer; but this was not all. The Dramatic Moment, sir, had struck."
With these words, he folded his arms, and, dropping his head on his breast, gazed up through his eyebrows in a manner which Mr. Homer found highly disconcerting.
"Oh, indeed!" said Mr. Homer, with vague politeness.
"Struck!" repeated Mr. Pindar, nodding solemnly. "Sounded. Knelled—no! tolled—not precisely! larumed, sir, larumed!"
"'Larumed' is a fine word," said Mr. Homer, meekly, "but I fail to apprehend your precise meaning, Brother Pindar."
"You know what 'dramatic' means, I suppose, Homer," replied Mr. Pindar, testily, "though you never had an atom of the quality in your composition. And you know what a moment is. The Dramatic Moment—I repeat it—in your life and the life of this village—has larumed, sir. Listen to it, Homer; look upon it, sir; grasp it! The old order—gone!" he swept it away. "The new—its foot upon the threshold!" he beckoned toward the door, and Mr. Homer looked round nervously. "Usher it in, to sound of trump and drum. We must celebrate, Homer, celebrate. To that end, behold me!"
Mr. Homer passed his hand across his brow and sighed wearily. "My dear brother," he said, "you must excuse me if I do not yet altogether understand,—a—comprehend,—a—accord the hospitality of the intellect, to—to the idea that you desire to convey. I feel little if any resemblance at this moment to a watcher of the skies—Keats, as I need not remind you; but I cannot feel that this is a time for rejoicing, Pindar."
"For celebration, sir! for celebration!" cried Mr. Pindar, eagerly. "The words are not synonymous, as you are no doubt aware. Let the mysteries be solemn, if you will, the sable scarf of cinerary pomp, the muffled drum, and wail of deep bassoon; but this was my idea, sir; thus the vision rose before my mind's eye, Horatio,—I would say, Homer. A procession, sir. Maidens, white-clad, flower-crowned, scattering roses; matrons, in kirtle and gown, twirling the distaff; village elders, in—in—our native costume is ill adapted, I confess, but suitable robes might be obtained at trifling cost, sir, at trifling cost. You in the midst, crowned with bays, the poet's robe your manly limbs enfolding. Following,—or preceding, as you will,—musicians, with brass instruments. You write an ode, I set it to music. Rhymes will readily suggest themselves: 'jog,' no! 'clog;' hardly! 'agog;' precisely!
Quahaug! (bang!) Quahaug! (bang!) Quahaug!
Kettledrums, you understand; cymbals; superb effect! You see it, Homer? you take it in?"
He paused, and gazed on his brother with kindling eyes, his arms extended, the little cloak fluttering from them; certainly nothing human ever looked so like a bat.
"A goblin!" said Mr. Homer to himself. "My only brother is a goblin!"
He sighed again, yet more wearily, and once more passed his hand across his brow.
"My dear brother," he said, "the hour is late. I find myself incapable of—of thought. The weary pinion of the brain—I find myself incapable even of metaphor, sir. You must excuse me. To-morrow—"
"To fresh fields and pastures new!" cried Mr. Pindar, rising with a batlike wave. "Precisely! Enter attendants with torches. The minion waits without?"
"Oh!" said Mr. Homer, "not exactly, Pindar. Direxia Hawkes has—a—retired to rest; has—a—sought the sleep which—which—"
"Knits up the ravelled sleeve of care!" suggested Mr. Pindar.
"Oh, very much so!" cried Mr. Homer. "You surely remember Direxia, brother, and will no doubt agree with me that the term 'minion' cannot properly be applied to Cousin Marcia's old and faithful retainer. And—the youth who—who admitted you, is Thomas Candy, my friend and fellow trustee. Thomas is an invaluable person, Pindar; he is like a son to me, I assure you. You will, I am sure, value Thomas. I will suggest to him the advisability of bringing candles. Oh, here he is! Thomas, this is my brother Pindar, my only brother, returned after the lapse of many years to—to his native heath, if I may so express myself. Thomas Candy, my dear brother!"
"Son of Silas?" cried Mr. Pindar. "Ha! 'tis well. Stripling, thy hand! lives yet thy father, ha?"
Tommy grinned, and rumpled his hair with an elfish look eminently unfitting a trustee.
"You are the one he used to play ghost with, and scare the Weightses," he said. "I've heard of you, sir. Father isn't livin', but Mis' Tree told me about it. Glad to see you, sir!"
CHAPTER IX.
"QUAND ON CONSPIRE"
Mr. Pindar Hollopeter slept long and late the next morning, as became a gentleman of metropolitan habits; he had not yet made his appearance when Will Jaquith came swinging along the street and turned in at the gate. Tommy Candy was at work in the garden, trimming the roses, as Will himself had been used to do before he was a family man and a postmaster, and at sight of him Will stopped.
"Just the man I was looking for, Tom!" he said. "I want to consult you."
"Same here!" said Tommy, straightening himself and looking over the sweetbriar bush. "What's up your way?"
"This!" said Will, taking a postal card from his pocket. "I don't make a practice of reading postal cards, Tom, but I thought I'd better do it this time, as I recognized the handwriting;" and he read aloud: "'Expect me to-morrow at eleven, for the day. M. Darracott Pryor.'"
"Gee!" said Tommy Candy.
"Whiz!" said Will Jaquith. "Exactly. Now what are we to do? I promised Mr. Homer that she should not torment him."
"And I promised Her," said Tommy, slowly ("Her" was Mrs. Tree, once and for all time, with Tommy Candy), "that that woman should never stay in this house. Didn't I tell you? It was the last time ever I was sittin' with her. I'll never forget it; she knew she hadn't long to stay, for as brisk and chirk as she was; she knew it right enough. 'Tommy,' she says, 'when I'm gone, I look to you to keep cats off the place; do you hear?' She couldn't abide cats, you know. I says, 'There sha'n't any cat come on the place if I can help it, Mis' Tree,' I says, 'and I expect I can.' I didn't have no idea at first what she meant. She raps her stick and looks at me. Gorry! when she looked at you, she hadn't hardly no need to speak; her eyes did the talkin'. 'Cats!' she says. 'Four-legged cats, two-legged cats. Cats that say "miaouw!" cats that say "Maria!" keep 'em off, Tommy! worry 'em, Tommy! Worry 'em! do you hear?'
"'I hear, Mis' Tree,' I says, 'and I'll do it.'
"'Good boy, Tommy!' she says; and she pulls out the table-drawer, same as she always did—Gorry! I can't talk about it!" His voice faltered, and he turned away. "She was my best friend!" he said, brokenly; "she was the best friend ever a fellow had."
"Mine, too, Tommy," said Will, laying his hand kindly on the lad's shoulder. "We'll think of her together, boy, and we'll carry out her wishes if it takes a—"
He checked himself, with a glance at the stick that never left Tommy's side; but Tommy finished the sentence simply:
"A leg! that's what we'll do. I'd give my good leg, let alone the poor one; I shouldn't have had that if it hadn't been for her; if she hadn't sent for Doctor Strong that day. Old Pottle was going to take it off, you know. 'I'll take off your ears first!' she says, and 'rap' goes her stick. 'Ninnyhammer!' she says; 'noodle!' she says; 'send for Geoffrey Strong.' That rap was the first thing I heard; I believe it brought me back, too, from—from wherever there is. Gorry! I wish't I could bring her back!"
"We cannot do that, Tommy," said Will Jaquith, sadly; "but what we can do, we will. Now about this—lady!"
"Look-a-here!" said Tommy, eagerly. "I don't believe but what this fays in with what has been goin' on here. Last night—" and he told briefly of the advent of Mr. Pindar.
"He's plum crazy," he added, "crazy as a loon; but yet it's a knowin' kind of crazy, and I don't believe but what he could help us."
Will pondered. "I should not wonder if he could, Tom," he said at length. "I'd like to see him, anyhow. Where is he, and where is Mr. Homer?"
"Mr. Homer's gone for a walk," said Tommy. "He was all worked up about his brother's comin', and some kind of rinktum he wants to get up, here in the village; kind of crazy circus, near as I could make out from the little he said. He didn't eat hardly any breakfast, and Direxia was in a caniption, so I got him to go for a walk in the woods, to ca'm him down. That ca'ms him down better than 'most anything, generally, unless it's Miss Wax's barrel-organ, and she's busy mornin's. Come in, Will. The other one wasn't down when I come out, but I presume likely he is now. I tell you he's a queer one!"
They went in; and, sure enough, Mr. Pindar was in the dining-room, eating toast and marmalade, and holding forth to Direxia Hawkes, who stood in the doorway, half-admiring, half-distrustful. Her early opinion of Pindar Hollopeter had been unfavorable, but he certainly had an elegant way with him, and used beautiful language.
"The orange," he was saying, as he waved a spoonful of the translucent sweetmeat, "has ever been the friend of man; unless, indeed, we share the view of those who hold that it was the original Apple of Discord. The answer to this theory would appear to lie in the fact that it is not an apple at all. But soft! whom have we here? A stranger! alarums and entrances. Enter mysterious individual, r. u. e."
"It's Willy Jaquith and Tommy," said Direxia. "I'll go now; if you want more toast, you can ring the bell."
"Good morning, sir!" said Tommy, advancing. "I hope you slept well. Let me make you acquainted with Mr. Jaquith; this is Mr. Homer's brother, Will, that I was telling you about."
"I am glad to meet you, sir!" said Will. "Mr. Homer is a great friend of mine."
Mr. Pindar rose, and held out his hand with a superb gesture.
"My brother's friends," he said, "find safe asylum in this rugged breast. Sir, I salute you. Can I offer you refreshment—the wheaten loaf, the smooth, unrifled egg, the bland emollience of the butter-pat? No?"
"Thanks!" said Will. "I have breakfasted, Mr. Hollopeter; but don't let me interrupt you. Thanks." He seated himself in response to a magnificent wave. "Pray finish your breakfast, sir!"
But Mr. Pindar had apparently finished, and was besides in a communicative mood. After explaining to them at great length the theory of Até's apple, he gave them a brief disquisition on the proper boiling of eggs, touched lightly on the use of butter among the Hebrews, and then, to their great delight, proceeded to advert to his own coming. It was a sudden inspiration, he informed them. Some thirty years had blossomed o'er his head since his foot had trod the soil from which he sprang. He left, a stripling in his early flower; he returned—"what you see!" His gesture transformed the little shabby bat-cloak into an ermine mantle. "A son of Thespis, gentlemen, at your command!"
Tommy opened wide eyes at this, having always heard that Mr. Hollopeter senior had rejoiced in the name of Ecclesiastes Nudd; but Will bowed respectfully in response to the wave. "An actor, sir?" he asked, deferentially.
Mr. Pindar bowed and waved again. "Actor, dramatist, musician, composer!
In many lands I dwell;
Well Philadelphia knows me,
Manhattan knows me well.
A man of cities, sir, of cities! I have come to assist at the celebration of the New Order, and shall be glad to count you among my aids." Here Mr. Pindar bowed profoundly, twirled his mustaches, fluttered his wings, and proceeded to unfold his scheme of a Processional Festival Jubilee, matrons, maidens, distaffs, and all. He declared that Will was the very figure of Apollo, and that Tommy, on account of his lameness, was evidently created for the part of Vulcan.
"A disparity of years, I grant you, my young friend," he said, graciously; "but what! the gods were young when time was. The Boy Hephæstos! what say you?"
Tommy Candy, probably for the first time in his young life, found nothing to say; but Will pronounced the scheme a most interesting one. Before going fully into it, however, he said, he was anxious to consult Mr. Pindar on a matter connected with his brother.
Mr. Pindar bowed again, still more profoundly, and crossing his arms on his breast, nodded thrice, each time more impressively than the last.
"Concerning Homer!" he said. "My father's son; my mother's fair-haired joy; in short, my brother. Gentles, say on; my ears are all your own."
"We have—learned," Will began cautiously, "that a visitor is coming here this morning whom we think Mr. Homer would greatly prefer not to see. The lady is a cousin of yours, sir; Mrs. Pryor, formerly Miss Darracott—"
He stopped, for Mr. Pindar fixed him with a gleaming eye and an outstretched forefinger, and uttered one word.
"Maria?"
"The same!" said Will.
"Maria!" repeated Mr. Pindar. "Ye gods! Strike home, young man! my bosom to the knife—strike home!"
"Mr. Homer has dreaded her coming," said Will, taking courage; "and Mrs. Tree—a—did not—was not fond of her, we will say. We thought that you might possibly help us, sir, in devising some plan by which, without being uncivil, we might spare Mr. Homer the distress which—which an interview with this lady could hardly fail to give him."
Mr. Pindar still looked fixedly at him. "Maria!" he muttered once more. "My boyhood's knotted scourge! the most horrid child that ever—What does she want?"
"She desires to be a sister to Mr. Homer, sir," said Will, simply.
Mr. Pindar recoiled. "Perish the thought!" he exclaimed. "Sepulchred deep the curst conception lie! and you? ye seek assistance, ha?"
"We thought you might be able to help us out, sir," said Will.
"I bet you could fix her!" said Tommy.
Mr. Pindar's eyes flashed. "Your hands!" he cried. "The Dramatic Moment strikes. Ding dong! But soft; we must dissemble!"
Mr. Pindar laid his finger on his lips, and rolled his eyes on his visitors with a warning glance. Then rising, he stole with measured and elaborately noiseless steps to the door, and listened at the keyhole, then to the window, and peered out with dramatic caution; then, still with his finger on his lips, he turned to his companions.
"All is well!" he said; he waved the little bat-cloak, and then drew it round him with a flap of mystery.
"Approach!" he whispered, beckoning the two friends toward him, "Conspiracy is the soul of Drama: approach, friends, and give—or rather receive—the counter-sign!"
It was a pleasant sight to see Mr. Pindar Hollopeter, his eyes gleaming with dramatic fire, yet with a twinkle in the black depths of them, waving his arms abroad (the gesture so like his brother's, yet so unlike), expounding, suggesting, illustrating. It was pleasant, too, to see the responsive twinkle that danced and deepened in the blue and gray eyes as they met his.
"I said you would fix it, sir!" cried Tommy Candy, smiting his thigh.
"That will be capital, sir!" said Will. "Your coming seems really providential just at this time. Of course we could not have shown any incivility to a member of your family; but if you can arrange this—"
"Sir," said Mr. Pindar, dropping his head forward, and gazing up through his eyebrows. "I know not 'if.' Regard the thing as done!"
Punctually at eleven o'clock, Mrs. Pryor bustled and crackled up the garden path, and rang a defiant peal at the bell. She had brought no luggage with her; this was a preliminary skirmish, so to speak, merely to try her ground and assert her rights; but she was prepared to do fierce battle with Direxia Hawkes or any one else who might attempt to impede her progress in the Path of Duty. Accordingly, when she heard footsteps approaching along the hall, she stood with heaving breast and glittering eye, ready and determined to effect an entrance the instant a crack of the door should be opened.
But there was no question of a crack this time. The door swung open to its fullest extent, and, instead of the small and warlike figure of Direxia Hawkes, it was Tommy Candy who stood on the threshold, with subdued and sorrowful looks.
"How do you do, Mis' Pryor?" he said. "I'm rejoiced you have come. I took the liberty of reading your postal, and it seemed as though I couldn't hardly wait till eleven o'clock came. We need you here, the wust way, Mis' Pryor."
Mrs. Pryor's bristling panoply smoothed itself, and she even gave an approving look at the youth, who certainly was a good-looking youth, and had probably been subjected to evil influences in his childhood.
"I am glad that I have come at the right moment, Tommy," she said, benignly. "People sometimes say that when I come, it is apt to be the right moment, but we will not speak of that now. What is wrong? Have you had difficulty in getting rid of the old woman? I will attend to that with pleasure; it is my duty." And she stepped into the hall, Tommy making way for her with alacrity.
"Oh, no'm," said Tommy. "It wasn't that; I don't suppose you could hire Direxia to stay—now!"
"What do you mean?" asked the visitor. "What has happened? Mr. Homer is not ill? nothing contagious, I—" and she made a step backward.
"Oh, no'm!" said Tommy, mournfully. "No, I never heard of its bein' contagious, any more than a person couldn't stand it long; but now you have come, you will see to everything, I expect, and how thankful shall we be. This way, mum!" and he opened the parlor door.
"There can't but one go in at a time," he whispered. "It excites him too much; but he's been pretty quiet this last hour or so; I guess there won't be no danger, not for a spell at least."
"What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Pryor, in alarm. "Tell me at once what has happened, Thomas Candy!"
Tommy shook his head sadly, and turned away with something like a sob. "You'll find out soon enough!" he murmured. "There's things you don't care to put into words. I'm real glad you've come, Mis' Pryor."
"I can't tell you all he said," said Tommy over the garden gate that evening, "for I wasn't in the room. I couldn't hear only a scrap now and again, when he'd give a kind of screech; but you'd sworn, to look at him, it was Mr. Homer gone crazy. He looks like him, anyway, and he put on one of his co'ts and blue neckties, and sort of flopped his hair down over his forehead,—I tell ye, he was complete! and of course she never suspicioned anything about the other—Mr. Pindar—bein' in the land of the livin', or this part of it anyway. We had the room darkened, and he sot there hunched up in a big chair with his back to the light, sort o' mutterin' to himself, when I shew her in.
"I kinder prepared her mind, just as he told me, and she felt a mite scary, I guess; well, Annie Lizzie, he did the rest; I had no part or lot in it. I tell you he's a circus, that man! I heard him ask her right off the first thing would she marry him, and be his young gazelle: that pleased her, and yet she was took aback a mite, and said: 'Oh, Homer, this is very sudden!'
"'We'll be married by candle-light,' he says, 'and go off in a balloon, by registered mail. The Emperor of China is expecting us to tea; we are to wear our skulls outside, and cross-bones in our clustering locks. Hark to the wedding knell! tzing boom! tzing boom! cymbals and bass drum!'
"I heard that plain, but then he went on muttering for a spell, and I couldn't make out a word, till she said, kinder sharp and twittery: 'I must go now, Homer; I have an important engagement;' and she said something about coming back soon. But he hollers out:
Red sperits and gray,
Mingle, mingle, mingle,
Ye that mingle may!'
And I heard them fussin' round, as if she was tryin' to get out the room and he was keepin' between her and the door. At last and finally, he must have got right up close't the door, for I heard him as plain as I do you. 'Rats and bears! rats and bears!' he says, 'all over the room! all over the room! look at 'em! look at 'em!' She let one yell out—that was the one you heard—and come runnin' out, and he come as fur as the door after her, flappin' his arms and hoppin' up and down—great Jonas! I expect she'd ben runnin' now if she hadn't have caught the down stage. I tell ye, I won't forget that one while."
"Oh, Tommy!" said Annie Lizzie, in her soft, reproachful voice. "I think 'twas awful mean to scare a lady that way, now I do. I don't think you'd oughter have done it; 'twasn't pretty actin', no way, shape, or manner, don't tell me it was."
"Annie Lizzie," said Tommy, "you don't know Mis' Pryor; you warn't nothin' but a child when she was here before. There's some folks you have to scare; it's the only way to git red of 'em, and we had to git red of her. Let alone what Mis' Tree said to me the last time ever I saw her,—though that was enough for me, and what she said goes, as long as I live,—but let that alone, do you think we was goin' to let that woman set right down on Mr. Homer, and smother him with sarce? I guess not. If Prov'dence hadn't sent his brother right in the nick of time, Will and me'd have had to do it ourselves, and like as not made a mess of it, and Mr. Homer found out, and ben worked up worse than what he is now; but, as it was, it was all done in the family, and there warn't a word said but what was polite, if 'twas crazy. He couldn't do no more than ask her to marry him, could he?"
"Oh, well, Tommy, you can always talk!" said Annie Lizzie.
"There's other things I can do besides talk," said Tommy Candy; and he did one of them.
"Tommy!" said Annie Lizzie. "How you act!"
CHAPTER X.
A PLEASANT HOUR
One of the spots I have always liked best in Quahaug (it is hard for me even now not to say "Elmerton," though I highly approve the change) is Salem Rock's back yard. The front yard is the special province of Mrs. Rock, a person whose mind runs to double petunias, and coleus; but the back premises are Salem's own, and quaint and homely as himself. A neat path of oyster shells pounded fine runs straight from the back porch to the little pier where the white dory lies sunning herself, and the sailboat dips and rises on the ripple. On either side of the path is a square space of green, with a few ancient apple-trees here and there, a white lilac-bush, and a little round summer-house so overgrown with honeysuckle and clematis, and so clustered round by bees that it looks like a quaint flowering beehive itself. There are real beehives, too, six of them, set along the wall; and in a narrow border that runs all round the yard are the flowers that bees like best, sweet rocket and foxglove, mignonette and sweet alyssum, and a dozen others. All these pleasant things may be found in other back yards, but there are some things that belong to this alone. In the exact centre of one green space is a ship's spar, set upright, with a tiny flag fluttering from its top; in the other stand two life-size figures, facing each other; the figures of a man and a woman. The man is in the dress of the thirties, high stock and collar, shirt-frill and frock-coat; the lady in flowing classical draperies; the man is painted in lively colors, his coat and wig (it is certainly a wig!) a bright snuff-brown, his eyes and waistcoat sky-blue, his cheeks and stock a vivid crimson; but the lady is all white, cheeks, lips, robes and all; she might be marble, if she were less palpably wood. The most singular thing about this singular pair is that they seem to be coming up out of the earth; to have got out as far as their knees, and then to have given it up and stopped. It is evident that they are not coming any farther, for the grass grows close about them, and a wild convolvulus has crept up into the lady's lap and round her arm, making the prettiest of bracelets; while, actually, a yellow warbler has built his nest in the gentleman's shirt-frill, and sings there all summer long.
There the two stand, facing each other, with cheerful looks; and there they have stood for fifty years.
On a certain pleasant morning, about the time of which I am writing, Salem Rock and Seth Weaver were having what they called their annual spree. Seth had brought his brushes and a variety of paint-pots; Salem, according to custom, had provided tobacco, and a great stone pitcher containing ginger, molasses, and water, with plenty of ice tinkling in it. This pitcher was set down between the two images, within reach of either man: Seth was at work on the white lady, while Salem, with infinite and loving care, went over the gentleman's attire, picking out the waistcoat pattern, and doing wonderful things to the buttons with a tiny brush dipped in gold leaf.
"Old Sir's goin' to look tasty this time, now I tell ye!" he said, drawing back, with his head on one side, to study the effect. "I've give him a yeller sprig to his vest, see? I expect Old Marm'll say 'yes' this time, for as long as she's held out."
"Yes!" grumbled Seth, pipe in mouth. "You never let me have a chanst at him, nor yet you won't let me brisk the Old Lady up to match. Give her a pink dress now, and hair her up some, and she'd be a fine-lookin' woman as there is in this village. I'll do it, too, some night; you'll see."
"No, you don't!" said Salem, slowly, as he drew a scarlet line down the seams of "Old Sir's" coat. "White Old Marm begun, and white she'll stay. Wal, you was beginnin' to tell me about this ruction up to Home's. What is it Pindar's after? I ain't seen him yet."
"He's after a strait-weskit, and he'll get it, don't you have no fears!" replied Seth. "He calls it a Pro-cessional Festival Jubilee. He's hired the band from the Corners, and he's got the women-folks churned up till they don't know whether they're butter or cheese. They're routin' out all their old clo'es from up attic, and tryin' of 'em on, and cacklin'—there! I thought I'd heerd hens before; but this mornin' I was in to Penny's store, and there was a passel of 'em in there talkin' it over, and I tell you there ain't a hen-yard in this State to ekal it. I come away without my bird seed. Gorry! there's times when it feels good to be a single man."
"That may be so, Seth," replied Mr. Rock, soberly; "but there's other times—meal-times, and rheumatiz, and such—when it ain't so handy. How does Homer feel about all this ran-tan?"
"Poor old Home!" said Seth, shaking his head. "He's pooty well broke up. He was jest beginnin' to take notice, and get used to things the new way, and sense it that it warn't goin' to kill him to have money in the bank; and now comes Pindar, flappin' and squeakin' like a ravin'-distracted June-bug, and stands him on his head, and he don't know where he is again; Home don't, I mean. He never could stand up against Pindar, you know. You remember at school we used to call 'em Loony and Moony; Homer was Moony. We used to call after 'em—