Tales from Bohemia Part 13

"Of course you get a pension," many would observe.

He would shake his head and answer, in a mild tone of a man consciously repressing a pardonable pride.

"I never 'plied, and as long as the retail tobacker trade keeps up like this, I reckon I won't make no pull on the gover'ment treash'ry."

And he would puff at his cigar vigorously, beam upon the group that surrounded his chair, and start on one of his long trains of reminiscences.

He was an amiable old fellow, with gray hair carefully combed back from his curved forehead, a florid countenance, boyish blue eyes, puffed cheeks, a smooth chin, and very military-looking gray moustache. He was manifestly a man who ate ample dinners and amply digested them. He would glance contentedly downward at his broad, round body, and smilingly remark:

"I didn't have that girth in my fightin' days. I got it after the war was over."

All who knew him admired him. He would tell with simple frankness how, after distinguis.h.i.+ng himself at Antietam, he chose to remain a private rather than take the lieutenancy that was placed within his reach. He would frequently say:

"I ain't none o' them that thinks the country belongs to the soldiers because they saved it. No, sir! If they want the country as a reward, where's the credit in savin' it?"

How could one help exclaiming: "What a really n.o.ble old man!"

Finally some of the young men who received daily inspiration from his autobiographical narratives arranged a surprise for the old soldier.

They presented him with a finely framed picture of the battle of Gettysburg, under which was the inscription:

"To a True Patriot. Who Fought and Suffered Not for Self-Interest or Glory, but for Love of His Country."

This hung in his shop until the day of his death. Then his brother came from his native village to attend to his burial. The brother stared at the picture, inquired as to the meaning of the inscription, and then laughed vociferously.

In the old soldier's trunk was found a faded newspaper that had been published in his village in 1865. It contained an account of an accident by which a grocer's clerk had lost his arm in a thras.h.i.+ng-machine. The grocer's clerk and the old soldier were one person.

He had never seen a battle, but so often had he told his war stories that in his last days he believed them.

X. -- A VAGRANT

On a July evening at dusk, two boys sat near the crest of a gra.s.s-grown embankment by the railroad at the western side of a Pennsylvania town.

They talked in low tones of the sky's glow above where the sun had set beyond the low hills across the river, and also of the stars, and of the moon, which was over the housetop behind them. Then there was noise of insects chirping in the gra.s.s and of steam escaping from the locomotive boilers in the engine shed.

A rumble sounded as from the north, and in that direction a locomotive headlight came into view. It neared as the rumble grew louder, and soon a freight-train appeared. This rolled past at the foot of the embankment.

From between two grain cars leaped a man, and after him another. So rapidly was the train moving that they seemed to be hurled from it.

Both alighted upon their feet. One tall and lithe, led the way up the embankment, followed by the other, who was short and stocky.

"b.u.ms," whispered one of the boys at the top of the embankment.

The tramps stood still when they reached the top. Even in the half-light it could be seen that their clothes were ill-fitting, frayed, and torn.

They wore cast-off hats. The tall man, whose face was clean-cut and made a pretence of being smooth-shaven, had a pliable one; the other was capped by a dented derby.

"Here's yer town at last! And it looks like a very jay place at that,"

said the short tramp to the tall one, casting his eyes toward the house roofs eastward.

The boys sitting twenty feet away became silent and cautiously watched the newcomers.

"Yep," replied the tall tramp, in a deep but serious and quiet voice, "and right about here is the spot where I jumped on a freight-train fifteen years ago, the night I ran away from home. That seems like yesterday, though I've not been here since."

"Skipped a good home because the old lady brought you a new dad! You wouldn't catch me being run out by no stepfather. Billy, you was rash."

"Mebby I was. But, on the dead, Pete, it was mostly jealousy. I thought my mother couldn't care for me any more if she could take a second husband. My sister thought so too, but she wasn't able to get away like me. Of course I was strong. It was boyish pique that drove me away. I didn't fancy having another man in my dead father's place, either. And I wanted to get around and see the world a bit. After I'd gone I often wished I hadn't. I'd never imagined how much I loved mother and sis.

But I was tougher and prouder in some ways than most kids. You can't understand that sort of thing, Pete. And you can't guess how I feel, bein' back here for the first time in fifteen years. Think of it, I was just fifteen when I came away. Why, I spent half my life here, Petie!"

"Oh, I've read somewhere about that,--the way great men feel when they visit their native town."

The short tramp took a clay pipe from his coat pocket and stuffed into it a cigar-end fished from another pocket. Then he inquired:

"And now you're here, Billy, what are you go'n to do?"

"Only ask around what's become o' my folks, then go away. It won't take me long."

"There'll be a through coal-train along in about an hour, 'cordin' to what the flagmen told us at that last town. Will you be back in time to bounce that?"

"Yes. We needn't stay here. There's little to be picked up in a place like this."

"Then skin along and make your investigations. I'll sit here and smoke till you come back. If you could pinch a bit of bread and meat, by the way, it wouldn't hurt."

"I'll try," answered the tall tramp. "I'm goin' to ask the kids yonder, first, if any o' my people still live here."

The tall tramp strode over to the two boys. His companion shambled down the embankment to obtain, at the turntable near the locomotive shed across the railroad, a red-hot cinder with which to light his pipe.

"Do you youngsters know people here by the name of Kershaw?" began the tall tramp, standing beside the two boys.

Both remained sitting on the gra.s.s. One shook his head. The other said, "No."

The tramp was silent for a moment. Then it occurred to him that his mother had taken his stepfather's name and his sister might be married.

Therefore he asked:

"How about a family named Coates?"

"None here," replied one of the boys.

But the other said, "Coates? That's the name of Tommy Hackett's grandmother."

The tramp drew and expelled a quick, audible breath.

"Then," he said, "this Mrs. Coates must be the mother of Tommy's mother.

Do you know what Tommy's mother's first name is?"

"I heard Tom call her Alice once."

The tramp's eyes glistened.

"And Mr. Coates?" he inquired.