Tales from Bohemia Part 18

"Ah, you thought because you didn't tell us, it wouldn't out. But you've been caught. I mean the lady to whom you take roses every week, of course."

Whiskers simply stared at the exchange editor, as if quite bewildered.

"Oh, pardon me," said the exchange editor, somewhat abashed. "I didn't mean to offend you. One's affairs of the heart are sacred, I know. But we all guy each other about each other's amours here. We're hardened to that sort of pleasantry."

A look of enlightenment, a blush, a deep sigh, and an "Oh, I'm not offended," were the only manifestations made by Whiskers after the exchange editor's apology.

It was inferred from his manner that he did not wish to make confidences or receive jests about his love-affairs.

A time came when Whiskers seemed to have something constantly on his mind. Not content with one day's vacation each week, he would go off for periods of three or four hours on other days.

"Do you notice how queerly the old man behaves?" said the editorial writer to the exchange editor thereupon. "Things are coming to a crisis."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Why, the wedding, of course."

This inference received a show of confirmation afterward when Whiskers had a private interview with the managing editor, received an order on the cas.h.i.+er for all the money due him, and for a part of the managing editor's salary as a loan, and quietly said to the exchange editor that he would be away for a week or so. The editorial writer happened to be at the cas.h.i.+er's window when Whiskers had his order cashed. So when the editorial writer and the exchange editor compared notes a few minutes later, the latter complimented the former upon the correctness of his prediction that Whiskers' marriage was imminent.

"He didn't invite us," said the exchange editor, "but then I suppose the affair is to be a very quiet one, and we can't take offence at that. The old man's not a bad lot, by any means. Let's do something to please him and to flatter his bride. What do you say to raising a fund to buy them a present, in the name of the staff?"

"I'm in for it," said the editorial writer, producing a half-dollar.

They canva.s.sed the office and found everybody willing to contribute. The managing editor and the a.s.sistant editor-in-chief had gone home, but as they had shown kindness to Whiskers, and were, in fact, the only two men on the staff who knew anything about his private affairs, the exchange editor took his chances and put in a dollar for each of them.

"And now, what shall we get--and where shall we send it?" said the exchange editor.

"Not to his lodging-house, certainly. He'll probably be married at the residence of his bride's parents, as the notices say. We'd better get it quick, and rush it up there--wherever that is--somewhere up-town."

"But say," interposed the city editor, who was present at this consultation, "maybe the ceremony has already come off. I saw the old man giving in a notice for advertis.e.m.e.nt across the counter at the business office an hour ago."

"Well, we may be able to learn from that where the bride lives, anyhow, and some one can go there and find out something definite about the happy pair's present and future whereabouts," suggested the editorial writer.

"That's so," said the city editor. "The notice is in the composing-room by this time. I'll run up and find it."

The city editor left the editorial writer and the exchange editor alone together in the room, each sitting at their own desk.

"What shall we get with this money?" queried the former, touching the bills and silver dumped upon his desk.

"Something to please the woman. That'll give Whiskers the most pleasure.

He evidently loves her deeply. These constant visits and gifts speak the greatest devotion."

"Of course, but what shall it be?"

The two were battling with this question when the city editor returned.

He came in and said quietly:

"I found the notice. At least, I suppose this is it. What is the old man's full name?"

"Horace W. Croydon."

"This is it, then," said the city editor, standing with his back to the door. "The notice reads: 'On March 3d, at the Arlington Hospital for Incurables, Rachel, widow of the late Horace W. Croydon, Sr., in her 59th year. Funeral services at the residence of Charles--'"

"Why," interrupted the editorial writer, in a hushed voice, "that is a death notice."

"His mother," said the exchange editor. "The Hospital for Incurables--that is where the flowers went."

The editorial writer's glance dropped to the desk, where the money lay for the intended gift. The exchange editor sat perfectly still, gazing straight in front of him. The city editor walked softly to the window and looked out.

XV. -- THE BAD BREAK OF TOBIT MCSTENGER

"I'm a bad man," said Tobit McStenger, after three gla.s.ses of whiskey.

And he was. In making the declaration, he echoed the expression of the community.

He looked it. Not only in the sneering mouth above the half-formed chin, and in the lowering eyes of undecided colour beneath the receding brow, but also in every s.h.i.+ftless att.i.tude and movement of his great gaunt body, and even in the torn coat and shapeless felt hat--both once black, but both now a dirty gray--his aspect proclaimed him the preeminent rowdy of his town.

When out of jail he was engaged in oyster opening at Couch's saloon, or selling fresh fish, caught in the river, or vagrancy in the streets of Brickville. He lived in a log house containing two rooms, by Muddy Creek, an intermittent stream that flowed--sometimes--through a corner of the town. He was a widower and had a son nine years old, little Tobe, who went to school occasionally, but gave most of his day to carrying a paper flour-sack around the town and begging cold victuals, in obedience to paternal commands, and throwing stones at other boys, who called him "Patches," a nickname descended from his father.

Little Tobe's face was always black, from the dust of the bituminous coal that he was compelled to steal at night from the railroad companies' yard. His attire was in miniature what his father's was in the large, as his character was in embryo what the elder Tobit's was in complete development. With long, entangled hair, a thin, crafty face, and stealthy eyes, he was a true type of malevolent gamin, all the more uncanny for the crudity due to his semirustic environments.

Such were Tobit and little Tobe, the most conspicuous of the village "characters" of Brickville, a Pennsylvania town deriving sustenance from its brick-kiln, its railroads, and its contiguous farming interests.

It was town talk that Tobit McStenger was a hard father; drunk or sober, he chastised little Tobe upon the slightest occasion.

"But," said Tobit McStenger, after admitting his severity as a parent before the bar in Couch's saloon, "let any one else lay a finger on that kid! Just let 'em! They'll find out, jail or no jail, I'm ugly!" And he went on to repeat for the thousandth time that when he was ugly he was a bad man.

Whereupon the other loungers in Couch's saloon, "Honesty Tom Yerkes,"

the hauler, Sam Hatch, the bill-poster, and the rest, agreed that a man's manner of governing his household was his own business.

Tobit McStenger had his word to say upon all village topics. When in Couch's saloon one night he learned that the school directors had decided to take the primary school from the tutors.h.i.+p of a woman and to put a man over it as teacher, Tobit p.r.i.c.ked up his ears and had many words to say. He was working at the time, and he spoke in loud, coa.r.s.e tones, as he wielded his oyster-knife, having for an audience the usual dozen barroom tarriers.

"I know what that means," cried Tobit McStenger. "It means they ain't satisfied with having our children ruled with kindness. It means Miss Wiggins, who's kep' a good school, which I know all about, fer my son's one of her scholars--it means she don't use the rod enough. They've made up their minds to control the kids by force, and they went and hired a man to lick book learnin' into 'em. Who is the feller, anyway?"

"Pap" Buckwalder read the answer to Tobit's question from the current number of the Brickville _Weekly Gazette_.

"The new teacher is Aubrey Pilling, the adopted son of farmer Josiah Pilling, of Blair Towns.h.i.+p. He has taught the school of that towns.h.i.+p for three winters, and is a graduate of the Brickville Academy."

Sam Hatch, standing by the stove, remembered him.

"Why, that's the backward fellow," said he, "that the girls used to guy.

His hair and eyebrows is as white as tow, and when he'd blush his face used to turn pink. He always walked in from the country, four miles, every morning to school and back again at night. There ain't much use getting him take a woman's place. He's about the same as a woman hisself. He hardly talks above a whisper, and he's afraid to look a girl in the face."

"Ain't he the boy Josiah Pilling took out o' the Orphans' Home, here about twenty years ago?" queried Pap Buckwalder.

"Yep," replied Hatch. "I heerd somethin' about that when he went to the 'cademy here. He was took out of a home by a farmer, who gave him his name 'cause the boy didn't know his own, nor no one else did, and so he was brought up on the farm."