The Postmaster Part 17

"Indeed you won't. I was prepared for a difficult case when I came here.

Cousin Lot told me about your foolish 'nerves' and all the other errors your selfishness has brought onto you. I made up my mind to set you in the right path and I'm goin' to do it."

"I'll have that tea."

"No, you sha'n't. When folks are in error I never give in to 'em. That's my principle and I stick to it."

When she said "principle" I pretty nigh fell over. If _she'd_ got the "principle" disease the case was desperate. Anyhow, I thought 'twas about time for somebody with a teaspoonful of common sense to take a hand.

"See here," says I, "for grown-up folks this is the most ridiculous doin's I ever heard of. Mrs. Hammond, for the land sakes let him have his tea and maybe we'll have peace along with it."

She turned to me. "Cap'n Snow," she says, "speakin' as one who has learned to rise above their baser self, and perfectly calm and good-tempered, I advise you to mind your own business. I don't care nothin' about the tea itself; it's the principle I'm strivin' for, I tell you. Do you s'pose I'll let that little withered-up, sa.s.sy, benighted scoffer-"

"There! there!" says I. Then I bent down to the keyhole. "Lemuel," I says, "be a man and not prize inmate in a feeble-minded home. You're not an idiot. Apologize to this lady and, if you can't get tea, take hot water."

The answer I got was hotter than any water he was likely to get, enough sight. And there was some "principle" in it, too.

"Well," says I, disgusted, "I'm durn glad that I'm unprincipled. Fight it out amongst yourselves, but don't you either of you dare come nigh me. I mean that." And I went into my room and locked _that_ door.

For two hours I stayed there, readin' some and thinkin' a whole lot more. Down-stairs Aunt Lucindy was singin' at the top of her lungs-to show how good her temper was, I presume likely-and out in the upper hall Cousin Lemuel was tiptoein' back and forth and yellin' at her that he'd have his tea in spite of her, and pa.s.sin' comments on her music. I never knew two such stubborn critters in my life, and I couldn't see any signs of either of 'em givin' in, long as their principles held out.

I remembered a conundrum that, when I was a young one in school, the teacher used to spring on the big boys in the first cla.s.s in arithmetic.

'Twas somethin' like this:

"If an irresistible force runs afoul of an immovable object, what's the result?"

The boys used to grin and say they didn't know. Neither did I-then; but I was learnin' the answer that very minute. When an irresistible force meets an immovable object it's a matter of principle, and the result is liable to be 'most anything. That was the answer, and I was learnin' it by observation and experience, same as the barefooted boy learned where the snappin'-turtle's mouth was.

Now the force and the object was in the same house with me, and the minute the doctor, or Jim Henry Jacobs, or anybody else with a horse and team, come to that house, they could take me away with 'em. I'd contracted for quiet and rest, not for a session in Bedlam.

Twelve o'clock struck and I begun to think of dinner. I hobbled over to my door, unlocked it and looked out. Cousin Lemuel's door was open, too, but he wasn't in his room or in the hall either. I wondered where on earth he could be. Next minute I found out.

There was a whoop from the kitchen-Lemuel's voice and brimmin' with pure joy. Then, somewhere in the same neighborhood, began a most tremendous thumpin' and bangin'. A "cast" horse in a narrow stall was the only sounds I ever heard that compared with it. It kept on and kept on, and Lemuel was whoopin' and hurrahin' accompaniments. Such a racket you never heard in your born days.

Thinks I, "The critter's nerves have gone back on him for good. He's really crazy and he's killin' that poor mind-curer out of principle."

Somehow or other I hopped down them stairs on my sound foot, draggin'

t'other after me. Through the dinin'-room I hobbled and into the kitchen. There was a roarin' fire in the cookstove and in front of that stove was Cousin Lemuel dancin' round with a teapot in his hand. The cellar door opened out of the kitchen. It was shut tight, and somebody behind it was bangin' the panels till I expected every second to see 'em go by the board. If they hadn't been built in the days when they made things solid they would have.

"What in the world-" I commenced. "You-Lemuel-whatever your name is-what are you doin'?"

He turned and saw me. His bald head was all s.h.i.+nin' with the heat, his big round specs was almost droppin' off the end of his long nose, and he sartin did look like somethin' the cat brought in.

"What am I doin'?" he says. "Can't you see? I'm gettin' my tea, same as I said I would. Ho! ho!"

"Where's Aunt Lucinda?" I sung out. "You loon, have you killed her?"

He laughed. "No, no!" he says. "She deserves to be killed, but she's alive. She refused to give me my tea; she refused to stop her horrible singin'. She was utterly impossible and I got rid of her. I crept down and watched until she went into the cellar. Then I closed the door and locked it. Cap'n Snow, I have never been treated as that woman treated me in my life! It was a matter of principle with me and I was obliged-"

He couldn't say any more because the poundin' on the door broke out again louder than ever. I headed for it and he got in front of me.

"She is absolutely unharmed, I a.s.sure you," he says.

She sounded healthy, that was a fact. The names she called that insect-hunter was a caution!

"Let me out!" she kept hollerin'. "You let me out of this cellar, you miserable little good-for-nothin'! If I ever get my hands on you I'll-"

"Ha! ha!" laughs Lemuel. "I couldn't make her lose her temper, could I?

Oh, no, she's perfectly calm now! You're not in the cellar, madam," he calls to her, "you're in error. Thought can do anything; think yourself out."

I looked at him. "Well," says I, "for a person with twitterin' nerves, you-"

"D-n my nerves!" says he, which was the most human remark he'd ever made in my hearin' and proved that he wasn't beyond hopes. "You told me that all I needed was somethin' to keep me interested. Well, I've got it."

"You let me out!" whoops Aunt Lucindy. "Cap'n Snow, if you're there, you let me out!"

I think maybe I would have let her out, but when I heard what she intended doin' to Lemuel I thought 'twas too big a risk. I turned and hobbled through the dinin'-room to the front outside door. And there, just turnin' into the yard, was Jim Henry Jacobs, with his horse and buggy. When he saw me he almost fell off the seat. And maybe I wa'n't glad to see him!

"You!" he says. "You! _walkin'!_"

"Yes," says I, "and in five minutes I'd have been flyin', I cal'late.

Don't stop to talk. Help me into that buggy.... There! drive home as fast as you can!"

"But what under the canopy is the row?" he says.

"Row enough," says I. "I've been shut up along with an irresistible force and an immovable object, and I want to get away from 'em. Git dap."

We turned the horse's head. We had just left the yard when he looked back. I looked, too. The cellar had an outside entrance, a bulkhead door. This door was bendin' and heavin' as if an earthquake was under it. Next minute the staple flew, the door slammed back, and Aunt Lucindy popped out like a jack-in-the-box. She never paid no attention to us, but made for the kitchen.

"Who-what is that?" gasps Jacobs.

"That," says I, "is the irresistible force."

There was a yell from the kitchen and then out of the door flew Cousin Lemuel. _He_ didn't stop for us, either, but ran like a lamplighter to the fence, fell over it, and dove head-fust into the woods. After he was away out of sight we could hear the bushes crackin'.

"And-and _what_," gasps Jim Henry, "was _that_?"

"That," says I, "was the immovable object. Drive on, for mercy sakes!"

Next day Lot came to see me at the Poquit House. He was dreadful upset.

Seems he hadn't stayed his time out at camp-meetin'. One of the mediums or spooks or somethin' over there told him there was a destructive influence hoverin' over his house and he'd hurried back to find out about it.

"Humph!" says I. "I should have said it had quit hoverin' and had lit.

How's Cousin Lemuel?"

Seems Cousin Lemuel was at the hotel over to Bayport. He'd telephoned for his trunks.