The Tragedy of Pudd'nhead Wilson Part 3

CHAPTER 9 - Tom Practices Sycophancy

Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

It is easy to find fault, if one has that disposition.

There was once a man who, not being able to find any other fault with his coal, complained that there were too many prehistoric toads in it. -Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar Tom flung himself on the sofa, and put his throbbing head in his hands, and rested his elbows on his knees. He rocked himself back and forth and moaned.

"I've knelt to a n.i.g.g.e.r wench!" he muttered. "I thought I had struck the deepest depths of degradation before, but oh, dear, it was nothing to this... . Well, there is one consolation, such as it is-I've struck bottom this time; there's nothing lower."

But that was a hasty conclusion.

At ten that night he climbed the ladder in the haunted house, pale, weak, and wretched. Roxy was standing in the door of one of the rooms, waiting, for she had heard him.

This was a two-story log house which had acquired the reputation a few years ago of being haunted, and that was the end of its usefulness. n.o.body would live in it afterward, or go near it by night, and most people even gave it a wide berth in the daytime. As it had no compet.i.tion, it was called the haunted house. It was getting crazy and ruinous now, from long neglect. It stood three hundred yards beyond Pudd'nhead Wilson's house, with nothing between but vacancy. It was the last house in the town at that end.

Tom followed Roxy into the room. She had a pile of clean straw in the corner for a bed, some cheap but well-kept clothing was hanging on the wall, there was a tin lantern freckling the floor with little spots of light, and there were various soap and candle boxes scattered about, which served for chairs. The two sat down. Roxy said: "Now den, I'll tell you straight off, en I'll begin to k'leck de money later on; I ain't in no hurry. What does you reckon I's gwine to tell you?"

"Well, you-you-oh, Roxy, don't make it too hard for me! Come right out and tell me you've found out somehow what a shape I'm in on account of dissipation and foolishness."

"Disposition en foolishness! NO sir, dat ain't it. Dat jist ain't nothin' at all, 'longside o' what I knows."

Tom stared at her, and said: "Why, Roxy, what do you mean?"

She rose, and gloomed above him like a Fate.

"I means dis-en it's de Lord's truth. You ain't no more kin to ole Ma.r.s.e Driscoll den I is! dat's what I means!" and her eyes flamed with triumph.

"What?"

"Ya.s.sir, en dat ain't all! You's a n.i.g.g.e.r!-bawn a n.i.g.g.e.r and a slave!-en you's a n.i.g.g.e.r en a slave dis minute; en if I opens my mouf ole Ma.r.s.e Driscoll'll sell you down de river befo' you is two days older den what you is now!"

"It's a thundering lie, you miserable old blatherskite!"

"It ain't no lie, nuther. It's just de truth, en nothin' but de truth, so he'p me. Ya.s.sir-you's my son-"

"You devil!"

"En dat po' boy dat you's be'n a-kickin' en a-cuffin' today is Percy Driscoll's son en yo' marster-"

"You beast!"

"En his name is Tom Driscoll, en yo's name's Valet de Chambers, en you ain't GOT no fambly name, beca'se n.i.g.g.e.rs don't have em!"

Tom sprang up and seized a billet of wood and raised it, but his mother only laughed at him, and said: "Set down, you pup! Does you think you kin skyer me? It ain't in you, nor de likes of you. I reckon you'd shoot me in de back, maybe, if you got a chance, for dat's jist yo' style-I knows you, throo en throo-but I don't mind gitt'n killed, beca'se all dis is down in writin' and it's in safe hands, too, en de man dat's got it knows whah to look for de right man when I gits killed. Oh, bless yo' soul, if you puts yo' mother up for as big a fool as you is, you's pow'ful mistaken, I kin tell you! Now den, you set still en behave yo'self; en don't you git up ag'in till I tell you!"

Tom fretted and chafed awhile in a whirlwind of disorganizing sensations and emotions, and finally said, with something like settled conviction: "The whole thing is moons.h.i.+ne; now then, go ahead and do your worst; I'm done with you."

Roxy made no answer. She took the lantern and started for the door. Tom was in a cold panic in a moment.

"Come back, come back!" he wailed. "I didn't mean it, Roxy; I take it all back, and I'll never say it again! Please come back, Roxy!"

The woman stood a moment, then she said gravely: "Dat's one thing you's got to stop, Valet de Chambers. You can't call me Roxy, same as if you was my equal. Chillen don't speak to dey mammies like dat. You'll call me ma or mammy, dat's what you'll call me-leastways when de ain't n.o.body aroun'. Say it!"

It cost Tom a struggle, but he got it out.

"Dat's all right, don't you ever forgit it ag'in, if you knows what's good for you. Now den, you had said you wouldn't ever call it lies en moons.h.i.+ne ag'in. I'll tell you dis, for a warnin': if you ever does say it ag'in, it's de LAS' time you'll ever say it to me; I'll tramp as straight to de judge as I kin walk, en tell him who you is, en prove it. Does you b'lieve me when I says dat?"

"Oh," groaned Tom, "I more than believe it; I know it."

Roxy knew her conquest was complete. She could have proved nothing to anybody, and her threat of writings was a lie; but she knew the person she was dealing with, and had made both statements without any doubt as to the effect they would produce.

She went and sat down on her candle box, and the pride and pomp of her victorious att.i.tude made it a throne. She said: "Now den, Chambers, we's gwine to talk business, en dey ain't gwine to be no mo' foolishness. In de fust place, you gits fifty dollahs a month; you's gwine to han' over half of it to yo' ma. Plank it out!"

But Tom had only six dollars in the world. He gave her that, and promised to start fair on next month's pension.

"Chambers, how much is you in debt?"

Tom shuddered, and said: "Nearly three hundred dollars."

"How is you gwine to pay it?"

Tom groaned out: "Oh, I don't know; don't ask me such awful questions."

But she stuck to her point until she wearied a confession out of him: he had been prowling about in disguise, stealing small valuables from private houses; in fact, he made a good deal of a raid on his fellow villagers a fortnight before, when he was supposed to be in St. Louis; but he doubted if he had sent away enough stuff to realize the required amount, and was afraid to make a further venture in the present excited state of the town. His mother approved of his conduct, and offered to help, but this frightened him. He tremblingly ventured to say that if she would retire from the town he should feel better and safer, and could hold his head higher-and was going on to make an argument, but she interrupted and surprised him pleasantly by saying she was ready; it didn't make any difference to her where she stayed, so that she got her share of the pension regularly. She said she would not go far, and would call at the haunted house once a month for her money. Then she said: "I don't hate you so much now, but I've hated you a many a year-and anybody would. Didn't I change you off, en give you a good fambly en a good name, en made you a white gen'l'man en rich, wid store clothes on-en what did I git for it? You despised me all de time, en was al'ays sayin' mean hard things to me befo' folks, en wouldn't ever let me forgit I's a n.i.g.g.e.r-en-en-"

She fell to sobbing, and broke down. Tom said: "But you know I didn't know you were my mother; and besides-"

"Well, nemmine 'bout dat, now; let it go. I's gwine to fo'git it." Then she added fiercely, "En don't ever make me remember it ag'in, or you'll be sorry, I tell you."

When they were parting, Tom said, in the most persuasive way he could command: "Ma, would you mind telling me who was my father?"

He had supposed he was asking an embarra.s.sing question. He was mistaken. Roxy drew herself up with a proud toss of her head, and said: "Does I mine tellin' you? No, dat I don't! You ain't got no 'casion to be shame' o' yo' father, I kin tell you. He wuz de highest quality in dis whole town-ole Virginny stock. Fust famblies, he wuz. Jes as good stock as de Driscolls en de Howards, de bes' day dey ever seed." She put on a little prouder air, if possible, and added impressively: "Does you 'member Cunnel Cecil Burleigh Ess.e.x, dat died de same year yo' young Ma.r.s.e Tom Driscoll's pappy died, en all de Masons en Odd Fellers en Churches turned out en give him de bigges' funeral dis town ever seed? Dat's de man."

Under the inspiration of her soaring complacency the departed graces of her earlier days returned to her, and her bearing took to itself a dignity and state that might have pa.s.sed for queenly if her surroundings had been a little more in keeping with it.

"Dey ain't another n.i.g.g.e.r in dis town dat's as highbawn as you is. Now den, go 'long! En jes you hold yo' head up as high as you want to-you has de right, en dat I kin swah."

CHAPTER 10 - The Nymph Revealed

All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"-a strange complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live. -Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

When angry, count four; when very angry, swear. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar Every now and then, after Tom went to bed, he had sudden wakings out of his sleep, and his first thought was, "Oh, joy, it was all a dream!" Then he laid himself heavily down again, with a groan and the muttered words, "A n.i.g.g.e.r! I am a n.i.g.g.e.r! Oh, I wish I was dead!"

He woke at dawn with one more repet.i.tion of this horror, and then he resolved to meddle no more with that treacherous sleep. He began to think. Sufficiently bitter thinkings they were. They wandered along something after this fas.h.i.+on: "Why were n.i.g.g.e.rs and whites made? What crime did the uncreated first n.i.g.g.e.r commit that the curse of birth was decreed for him? And why is this awful difference made between white and black? ... How hard the n.i.g.g.e.r's fate seems, this morning!-yet until last night such a thought never entered my head."

He sighed and groaned an hour or more away. Then "Chambers" came humbly in to say that breakfast was nearly ready. "Tom" blushed scarlet to see this aristocratic white youth cringe to him, a n.i.g.g.e.r, and call him "Young Marster." He said roughly: "Get out of my sight!" and when the youth was gone, he muttered, "He has done me no harm, poor wretch, but he is an eyesore to me now, for he is Driscoll, the young gentleman, and I am a-oh, I wish I was dead!"

A gigantic eruption, like that of Krakatoa a few years ago, with the accompanying earthquakes, tidal waves, and clouds of volcanic dust, changes the face of the surrounding landscape beyond recognition, bringing down the high lands, elevating the low, making fair lakes where deserts had been, and deserts where green prairies had smiled before. The tremendous catastrophe which had befallen Tom had changed his moral landscape in much the same way. Some of his low places he found lifted to ideals, some of his ideas had sunk to the valleys, and lay there with the sackcloth and ashes of pumice stone and sulphur on their ruined heads.

For days he wandered in lonely places, thinking, thinking, thinking -trying to get his bearings. It was new work. If he met a friend, he found that the habit of a lifetime had in some mysterious way vanished -his arm hung limp, instead of involuntarily extending the hand for a shake. It was the "n.i.g.g.e.r" in him a.s.serting its humility, and he blushed and was abashed. And the "n.i.g.g.e.r" in him was surprised when the white friend put out his hand for a shake with him. He found the "n.i.g.g.e.r" in him involuntarily giving the road, on the sidewalk, to a white rowdy and loafer. When Rowena, the dearest thing his heart knew, the idol of his secret wors.h.i.+p, invited him in, the "n.i.g.g.e.r" in him made an embarra.s.sed excuse and was afraid to enter and sit with the dread white folks on equal terms. The "n.i.g.g.e.r" in him went shrinking and skulking here and there and yonder, and fancying it saw suspicion and maybe detection in all faces, tones, and gestures. So strange and uncharacteristic was Tom's conduct that people noticed it, and turned to look after him when he pa.s.sed on; and when he glanced back-as he could not help doing, in spite of his best resistance-and caught that puzzled expression in a person's face, it gave him a sick feeling, and he took himself out of view as quickly as he could. He presently came to have a hunted sense and a hunted look, and then he fled away to the hilltops and the solitudes. He said to himself that the curse of Ham was upon him.

He dreaded his meals; the "n.i.g.g.e.r" in him was ashamed to sit at the white folk's table, and feared discovery all the time; and once when Judge Driscoll said, "What's the matter with you? You look as meek as a n.i.g.g.e.r," he felt as secret murderers are said to feel when the accuser says, "Thou art the man!" Tom said he was not well, and left the table.

His ostensible "aunt's" solicitudes and endearments were become a terror to him, and he avoided them.

And all the time, hatred of his ostensible "uncle" was steadily growing in his heart; for he said to himself, "He is white; and I am his chattel, his property, his goods, and he can sell me, just as he could his dog."

For as much as a week after this, Tom imagined that his character had undergone a pretty radical change. But that was because he did not know himself.

In several ways his opinions were totally changed, and would never go back to what they were before, but the main structure of his character was not changed, and could not be changed. One or two very important features of it were altered, and in time effects would result from this, if opportunity offered-effects of a quite serious nature, too. Under the influence of a great mental and moral upheaval, his character and his habits had taken on the appearance of complete change, but after a while with the subsidence of the storm, both began to settle toward their former places. He dropped gradually back into his old frivolous and easygoing ways and conditions of feeling and manner of speech, and no familiar of his could have detected anything in him that differentiated him from the weak and careless Tom of other days.

The theft raid which he had made upon the village turned out better than he had ventured to hope. It produced the sum necessary to pay his gaming debts, and saved him from exposure to his uncle and another smas.h.i.+ng of the will. He and his mother learned to like each other fairly well. She couldn't love him, as yet, because there "warn't nothing to him," as she expressed it, but her nature needed something or somebody to rule over, and he was better than nothing. Her strong character and aggressive and commanding ways compelled Tom's admiration in spite of the fact that he got more ill.u.s.trations of them than he needed for his comfort. However, as a rule her conversation was made up of racy tales about the privacies of the chief families of the town (for she went harvesting among their kitchens every time she came to the village), and Tom enjoyed this. It was just in his line. She always collected her half of his pension punctually, and he was always at the haunted house to have a chat with her on these occasions. Every now and then, she paid him a visit there on between-days also.

Occasions he would run up to St. Louis for a few weeks, and at last temptation caught him again. He won a lot of money, but lost it, and with it a deal more besides, which he promised to raise as soon as possible.

For this purpose he projected a new raid on his town. He never meddled with any other town, for he was afraid to venture into houses whose ins and outs he did not know and the habits of whose households he was not acquainted with. He arrived at the haunted house in disguise on the Wednesday before the advent of the twins-after writing his Aunt Pratt that he would not arrive until two days after-and laying in hiding there with his mother until toward daylight Friday morning, when he went to his uncle's house and entered by the back way with his own key, and slipped up to his room where he could have the use of the mirror and toilet articles. He had a suit of girl's clothes with him in a bundle as a disguise for his raid, and was wearing a suit of his mother's clothing, with black gloves and veil. By dawn he was tricked out for his raid, but he caught a glimpse of Pudd'nhead Wilson through the window over the way, and knew that Pudd'nhead had caught a glimpse of him. So he entertained Wilson with some airs and graces and att.i.tudes for a while, then stepped out of sight and resumed the other disguise, and by and by went down and out the back way and started downtown to reconnoiter the scene of his intended labors.

But he was ill at ease. He had changed back to Roxy's dress, with the stoop of age added to the disguise, so that Wilson would not bother himself about a humble old women leaving a neighbor's house by the back way in the early morning, in case he was still spying. But supposing Wilson had seen him leave, and had thought it suspicious, and had also followed him? The thought made Tom cold. He gave up the raid for the day, and hurried back to the haunted house by the obscurest route he knew. His mother was gone; but she came back, by and by, with the news of the grand reception at Patsy Cooper's, and soon persuaded him that the opportunity was like a special Providence, it was so inviting and perfect. So he went raiding, after all, and made a nice success of it while everybody was gone to Patsy Cooper's. Success gave him nerve and even actual intrepidity; insomuch, indeed, that after he had conveyed his harvest to his mother in a back alley, he went to the reception himself, and added several of the valuables of that house to his takings.

After this long digression we have now arrived once more at the point where Pudd'nhead Wilson, while waiting for the arrival of the twins on that same Friday evening, sat puzzling over the strange apparition of that morning-a girl in young Tom Driscoll's bedroom; fretting, and guessing, and puzzling over it, and wondering who the shameless creature might be.

CHAPTER 11 - Pudd'nhead's Thrilling Discovery

There are three infallible ways of pleasing an author, and the three form a rising scale of compliment: 1-to tell him you have read one of his books; 2-to tell him you have read all of his books; 3-to ask him to let you read the ma.n.u.script of his forthcoming book. No. 1 admits you to his respect; No. 2 admits you to his admiration; No. 3 carries you clear into his heart. -Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar

As to the Adjective: when in doubt, strike it out. - Pudd'nhead Wilson's Calendar The twins arrived presently, and talk began. It flowed along chattily and sociably, and under its influence the new friends.h.i.+p gathered ease and strength. Wilson got out his Calendar, by request, and read a pa.s.sage or two from it, which the twins praised quite cordially. This pleased the author so much that he complied gladly when they asked him to lend them a batch of the work to read at home. In the course of their wide travels, they had found out that there are three sure ways of pleasing an author; they were now working the best of the three.

There was an interruption now. Young Driscoll appeared, and joined the party. He pretended to be seeing the distinguished strangers for the first time when they rose to shake hands; but this was only a blind, as he had already had a glimpse of them, at the reception, while robbing the house. The twins made mental note that he was smooth-faced and rather handsome, and smooth and undulatory in his movements-graceful, in fact. Angelo thought he had a good eye; Luigi thought there was something veiled and sly about it. Angelo thought he had a pleasant free-and-easy way of talking; Luigi thought it was more so than was agreeable. Angelo thought he was a sufficiently nice young man; Luigi reserved his decision. Tom's first contribution to the conversation was a question which he had put to Wilson a hundred times before. It was always cheerily and good-natured put, and always inflicted a little pang, for it touched a secret sore; but this time the pang was sharp, since strangers were present.

"Well, how does the law come on? Had a case yet?"

Wilson bit his lip, but answered, "No-not yet," with as much indifference as he could a.s.sume. Judge Driscoll had generously left the law feature out of Wilson's biography which he had furnished to the twins. Young Tom laughed pleasantly, and said: "Wilson's a lawyer, gentlemen, but he doesn't practice now."

The sarcasm bit, but Wilson kept himself under control, and said without pa.s.sion: "I don't practice, it is true. It is true that I have never had a case, and have had to earn a poor living for twenty years as an expert accountant in a town where I can't get a hold of a set of books to untangle as often as I should like. But it is also true that I did myself well for the practice of the law. By the time I was your age, Tom, I had chosen a profession, and was soon competent to enter upon it." Tom winced. "I never got a chance to try my hand at it, and I may never get a chance; and yet if I ever do get it, I shall be found ready, for I have kept up my law studies all these years."

"That's it; that's good grit! I like to see it. I've a notion to throw all my business your way. My business and your law practice ought to make a pretty gay team, Dave," and the young fellow laughed again.

"If you will throw-" Wilson had thought of the girl in Tom's bedroom, and was going to say, "If you will throw the surrept.i.tious and disreputable part of your business my way, it may amount to something," but thought better of it and said, "However, this matter doesn't fit well in a general conversation."

"All right, we'll change the subject; I guess you were about to give me another dig, anyway, so I'm willing to change. How's the Awful Mystery flouris.h.i.+ng these days? Wilson's got a scheme for driving plain window gla.s.s panes out of the market by decorating it with greasy finger marks, and getting rich by selling it at famine prices to the crowned heads over in Europe to outfit their palaces with. Fetch it out, Dave."

Wilson brought three of his gla.s.s strips, and said: "I get the subject to pa.s.s the fingers of his right hand through his hair, so as to get a little coating of the natural oil on them, and then press the b.a.l.l.s of them on the gla.s.s. A fine and delicate print of the lines in the skin results, and is permanent, if it doesn't come in contact with something able to rub it off. You begin, Tom."

"Why, I think you took my finger marks once or twice before."

"Yes, but you were a little boy the last time, only about twelve years old."

"That's so. Of course, I've changed entirely since then, and variety is what the crowned heads want, I guess."

He pa.s.sed his fingers through his crop of short hair, and pressed them one at a time on the gla.s.s. Angelo made a print of his fingers on another gla.s.s, and Luigi followed with a third. Wilson marked the gla.s.ses with names and dates, and put them away. Tom gave one of his little laughs, and said: "I thought I wouldn't say anything, but if variety is what you are after, you have wasted a piece of gla.s.s. The hand print of one twin is the same as the hand print of the fellow twin."

"Well, it's done now, and I like to have them both, anyway," said Wilson, returned to his place.

"But look here, Dave," said Tom, "you used to tell people's fortunes, too, when you took their finger marks. Dave's just an all-round genius-a genius of the first water, gentlemen; a great scientist running to seed here in this village, a prophet with the kind of honor that prophets generally get at home-for here they don't give shucks for his scientifics, and they call his skull a notion factory-hey, Dave, ain't it so? But never mind, he'll make his mark someday-finger mark, you know, he-he! But really, you want to let him take a shy at your palms once; it's worth twice the price of admission or your money's returned at the door. Why, he'll read your wrinkles as easy as a book, and not only tell you fifty or sixty things that's going to happen to you, but fifty or sixty thousand that ain't. Come, Dave, show the gentlemen what an inspired jack-at-all-science we've got in this town, and don't know it."

Wilson winced under this nagging and not very courteous chaff, and the twins suffered with him and for him. They rightly judged, now, that the best way to relieve him would be to take the thing in earnest and treat it with respect, ignoring Tom's rather overdone raillery; so Luigi said: "We have seen something of palmistry in our wanderings, and know very well what astonis.h.i.+ng things it can do. If it isn't a science, and one of the greatest of them too, I don't know what its other name ought to be. In the Orient-"

Tom looked surprised and incredulous. He said: "That juggling a science? But really, you ain't serious, are you?"

"Yes, entirely so. Four years ago we had our hands read out to us as if our plans had been covered with print."

"Well, do you mean to say there was actually anything in it?" asked Tom, his incredulity beginning to weaken a little.