Tiverton Tales Part 29

There was about him at that moment an amazing physical energy, apparent even in the dark. He seemed a different man, and one woman whispered to another, "Why, that can't be Mr. Oldfield! It's a head taller."

He walked across the green, and the crowd turned also, to follow him.

There, just opposite the church, lay his own Flat-Iron Lot, and he stepped into it, over the low stone boundary, and turned about.

"Don't ye come no nearer," called he. "This is my land. Don't ye set foot on it."

The Flat-Iron Lot was a triangular piece of ground, rich in drooping elms, and otherwise varied only by a great boulder looming up within the wall nearest the church. Nicholas paused for a moment where he was; then with a thought of being the better heard, he turned, ran up the rough side of the boulder, and faced his fellows. As he stood there, illumined by the rising moon, he seemed colossal.

"He'll break his infernal old neck!" said Brad Freeman admiringly. But no one answered, for Nicholas Oldfield had begun to speak.

"Don't ye set foot on my land!" he repeated. "Ye ain't wuth it. Do you know what this land is? It belonged to a man that settled in a place that knows enough to celebrate its foundin', but don't know enough to prize what's fell to it. Do you know what I was doin' of, when I tolled that bell? I'll tell ye. I tolled a hunderd an' ten strokes. That's the age of the bell you're goin' to throw aside to flatter up a man that made money out o' the war. A hunderd an' twelve years ago that bell was cast in England; a hunderd an' ten years ago 't was sent over here."

"Now, how's father know that?" whispered Hattie disparagingly.

"I've cast my vote. Them hunderd an' ten strokes is all the voice I'll have in the matter, or any matter, so long as I live in this G.o.d-forsaken town. I'd ruther die than talk over a thing like that in open meetin'. It's an insult to them that went before ye, an' fit hunger and cold an' Injuns. I've got only one thing more to say," he continued, and some fancied there came a little break in his voice. "When ye take the old bell down, send her out to sea, an' sink her; or bury her deep enough in the woods, so 't n.o.body'll git at her till the Judgment Day."

With one descending step, he seemed to melt away into the darkness; and though every one stood quite still, expectant, there was no sound, save that of the crickets and the night. He had gone, and left them trembling. Well as they knew him, he had all the effect of some strange herald, freighted with wisdom from another sphere.

"Well, I swear!" said Brad Freeman, at length, and as if a word could s.h.i.+ver the spell, men and woman turned silently about and went down the hill. When they reached a lower plane, they stopped to talk a little, and once indoors, discussion had its way. Young Nick and Hattie had walked side by side, feeling that the eyes of the town were on them, reading their emblazoned names. But Mary marched behind them, solemnly and alone. She held her head very high, knowing what her kinsfolk thought: that gran'ther had disgraced them. A pa.s.sionate protest rose within her.

That night, everybody watched the old house in the shade of the poplars, to see if Nicholas had "lighted up." But the windows lay dark, and little Mary, slipping over across the orchard, when her mother thought her safe in bed, tried the door in vain. She pushed at it wildly, and then ran round to the front, charging against the sentinel hollyhocks, and letting the knocker fall with a desperate and repeated clang. The noise she had herself evoked frightened her more than the stillness, and she fled home again, crying softly, and pursued by all the unresponsive presences of night.

For weeks Tiverton lay in a state of hushed expectancy; one miracle seemed to promise another. But Nicholas Oldfield's house was really closed; the windows shone blankly at men and women who pa.s.sed, interrogating it. Young Nick and his Hattie had nothing to say, after Hattie's one unguarded admission that she didn't know what possessed father. The village felt that it had been arraigned before some high tribunal, only to be found lacking. It had an irritated conviction that, meaning no harm, it should not have been dealt with so harshly; and was even moved to declare that, if Nicholas Oldfield knew so much about what was past and gone, he needn't have waited till the trump o' doom to say so. But, somehow, the affair of clock and bell could not be at once revived, and a vague letter was dispatched to the prospective donor stating that, in regard to his generous offer, no decision could at the moment be reached; the town was too busy in preparing for its celebration, which would take place in something over two weeks; after that the question would be considered. The truth was that, at the bottom of each heart, still lurked the natural cupidity of the loyal citizen who will not see his town denied; but side by side with that desire for the march of progress, walked the spectre of Nicholas Oldfield's wrath.

The trembling consciousness prevailed that he might at any moment descend again, wrapped in that inexplicable atmosphere of loftier meanings.

Still, Tiverton was glad to put the question by, for she had enough to do. The celebration knocked at the door, and no one was ready. Only Brad Freeman, always behindhand, save at some momentary exigency of rod or gun, was fulfilling the prophecy that the last shall be first. For he had, out of the spontaneity of genius, elected to do one deed for that great day, and his work was all but accomplished. In public conclave a.s.sembled to discuss the parade, he had offered to make an elephant, to lead the van. Tiverton roared, and then, finding him gravely silent, remained, with gaping mouth, to hear his story. It seemed, then, that Brad had always cherished one dear ambition. He would fain fas.h.i.+on an elephant; and having never heard of Frankenstein, he lacked antic.i.p.ation of the dramatic finale likely to attend a meddling with the creative powers. He did not confess, save once to his own wife, how many nights he had lain awake, in their little dark bedroom, planning the anatomy of the eastern lord; he simply said that he "wanted to make the critter,"

and he thought he could do it. Immediately the town gave him to understand that he had full power to draw upon the public treasury, to the extent of one elephant; and the youth, who always flocked adoringly about him, intimated that they were with him, heart and soul. Thereupon, in Eli Pike's barn, selected as of goodly size, creation reveled, the while a couple of men, chosen for their true eye and practiced hand, went into the woods, and chopped down two beautiful slender trees for tusks. For many a day now, the atmosphere of sacred art had hung about that barn. Brad was a maker, and everybody felt it. Fired by no tradition of the horse that went to the undoing of Troy, and with no plan before him, he set his framework together, nailing with unerring hand. Did he need a design, he who had brooded over his bliss these many months when Tiverton thought he was "jest lazin' round?" Nay, it was to be "all wrought out of the carver's brain," and the brain was ready.

Often have I wished some worthy chronicler had been at hand when Tiverton sat by at the making of the elephant; and then again I have realized that, though the atmosphere was highly charged, it may have been void of homely talk. For this was a serious moment, and even when Brad gave sandpaper and gla.s.s into the hands of Lothrop Wilson, the cooper, bidding him smooth and polish the tusks, there was no jealousy: only a solemn sense that Mr. Wilson had been greatly favored. Brad's wife sewed together a dark slate-colored cambric, for the elephant's hide, and wet and wrinkled it, as her husband bade her, for the shambling shoulders and flanks. It was she who made the ears, from a pattern cunningly conceived; and she stuffed the legs with fine shavings brought from the planing-mill at Sudleigh. Then there came an intoxicating day when the trunk took shape, the gla.s.s-bottle eyes were inserted, and Brad sprung upon a breathless world his one surprise.

Between the creature's fore-legs, he disclosed an opening, saying meantime to the smallest Crane boy,--

"You crawl up there!"

The Crane boy was not valiant, but he reasoned that it was better to seek an unguessed fate within the elephant than to refuse immortal glory. Trembling, he crept into the hole, and was eclipsed.

"Now put your hand up an' grip that rope that's hangin' there,"

commanded Brad. Perhaps he, too, trembled a little. The heart beats fast when we approach a great fruition.

"Pull it! Easy, now! easy!"

The boy pulled, and the elephant moved his trunk. He stretched it out, he drew it in. Never was such a miracle before. And Tiverton, drunk with glory, clapped and shouted until the women-folk clutched their sunbonnets and ran to see. No situation since the war had ever excited such ferment. Brad was the hero of his town. But now arose a natural rivalry, the reaction from great, impersonal joy in n.o.ble work. What lad, on that final day, should ride within the elephant, and move his trunk? The Crane boy contended pa.s.sionately that he held the right of possession. Had he not been selected first? Others wept at home and argued the case abroad, until it became a common thing to see two young scions of Tiverton grappling in dusty roadways, or stoning each other from afar. The public accommodated itself to such spectacles, and grown-up relatives, when they came upon little sons rolling over and over, or sitting triumphantly, the one upon another's chest, would only remark, as they gripped two s.h.i.+rt collars, and dragged the combatants apart:--

"Now, what do you want to act so for? Brad'll pick out the one he thinks best. He's got the say."

In vain did mothers argue, at twilight time, when the little dusty legs in overalls were still, and stubbed toes did their last wriggling for the day, that the boy who moved the trunk could not possibly see the rest of the procession. The candidates, to a boy, rejected that specious plea.

"What do I want to see anything for, if I can jest set inside that elephant?" sobbed the Crane boy angrily. And under every roof the wail was repeated in many keys.

Meantime, the log cabin had been going steadily up, and a week before the great day, it was completed. This was a typical scene-setting,--the cabin of a first settler,--and through one wild leap of fancy it became suddenly and dramatically dignified.

"For the land's sake!" said aunt Lucindy, when she went by and saw it standing, in modest worth, "ain't they goin' to _do_ anythin' with it?

Jest let it set there? Why under the sun don't they have a party of Injuns tackle it?"

The woman who heard repeated the remark as a sample of aunt Lucindy's desire to have everything "all of a whew;" but when it came to the ears of a certain young man who had sat brooding, in silent emulation, over the birth of the elephant, he rose, with fire in his eye, and went to seek his mates. Indians there should be, and he, by right of first desire, should become their leader. Thereupon, turkey feathers came into great demand, and wattled fowl, once glorious, went drooping dejectedly about, while maidens sat in doorways sewing wampum and leggings for their favored swains. The first rehearsal of this aboriginal drama was not an entire success, because the leader, being unimaginative though faithful, decreed that faces should be blackened with burnt cork; and the result was a tribe of the African race, greatly astonished at their own appearance in the family mirror. Then the doctor suggested walnut juice, and all went conformably again. But each man wanted to be an Indian, and no one professed himself willing to suffer the attack.

"I'll stay in the cabin, if I can shoot, an' drop a redskin every time,"

said Dana Marden stubbornly; but no redskin would consent to be dropped, and naturally no settler could yield. It would ill befit that glorious day to see the log cabin taken; but, on the other hand, what loyal citizen could allow himself to be defeated, even as a skulking redman, at the very hour of Tiverton's triumph? For a time a peaceful solution was promised by the doctor, who proposed that a party of settlers on horseback should come to the rescue, just when a settler's wife, within the cabin, was in danger of immolation. That seemed logical and right, and for days thereafter young men on astonished farm horses went sweeping down Tiverton Street, alternately pursuing and pursued, while Isabel North, as Priscilla, the Puritan maiden, trembled realistically at the cabin door. Just why she was to be Priscilla, a daughter of Ma.s.sachusetts, Isabel never knew; the name had struck the popular fancy, and she made her costume accordingly. But one day, when young Tiverton was galloping about the town, to the sound of ecstatic yells, a farmer drew up his horse to inquire:--

"Now see here! there's one thing that's got to be settled. When the day comes, who's goin' to beat?"

An Indian, his face scarlet with much sound, and his later state not yet apparent, in that his wampum, blanket, and horsehair wig lay at home, on the best-room bed, made answer hoa.r.s.ely, "We be!"

"Not by a long chalk!" returned the other, and the settlers growled in unison. They had all a patriot's pride in upholding white blood against red.

"Well, by gum! then you can look out for your own Injuns!" returned their chief. "_My_ last gun's fired."

Settlers and Indians turned sulkily about; they rode home in two separate factions, and the streets were stilled. Isabel North went faithfully on, making her Priscilla dress, but it seemed, in those days, as if she might remain in her log cabin, unattacked and undefended.

Tiverton was to be deprived of its one dramatic spectacle. Young men met one another in the streets, remarked gloomily, "How are ye?" and pa.s.sed by. There were no more curdling yells at which even the oxen lifted their dull ears; and one youth went so far as to pack his Indian suit sadly away in the garret, as a jilted girl might lay aside her wedding gown. It was a sullen and all but universal feud.

Now in all this time two prominent citizens had let public opinion riot as it would,--the minister and the doctor. The minister, a grave-faced, brown-bearded young man, had seen fit to get run down, and have an attack of slow fever, from which he was just recovering; and the doctor had been spending most of his time in Saltash, with an epidemic of mumps. But the mumps subsided, and the minister gained strength; so, being public-spirited men, these two at once concerned themselves in village affairs. The first thing the minister did was to call on Nicholas Oldfield, and Young Nick's Hattie saw him there, knocking at the front door.

"Mary! Mary!" cried she, "if there ain't the young pa'son over to your grandpa's. I dunno when anybody's called there, he's away so much. Like as not he's heard how father carried on that night, an' now he's got out, he's come right over, first thing, to tell him what folks think."

Mary looked up from the serpentine braid she was crocheting.

"Well, I guess he'd better not," she threatened. And her mother, absorbed by curiosity, contented herself with the reproof implied in a shaken head and pursed-up lips.

A sad and curious change had befallen Mary. She looked older. One week had dimmed her brightness, and little puckers between her eyes were telling a story of anxious care. For gran'ther had been home without her seeing him. Mary felt as if he had repudiated the town. She knew well that he had not abandoned her with it, but she could guess what the loss of larger issues meant to him. Young Nick, if he had been in the habit of expressing himself, would have said that father's mad was still up.

Mary knew he was grieved, and she grieved also. She had not expected him until the end of the week. Then watching wistfully, she saw the darkness come, and knew next day would bring him; but the next day it was the same. One placid afternoon, a quick thought a.s.sailed her, and stained her cheek with crimson. She laid down the sheet which was her "stent" of over-edge, and ran with flying feet to the little house.

Hanging by her hands upon the sill of the window nearest the clock, she laid her ear to the gla.s.s. The clock was ticking serenely, as of old.

Gran'ther had been home to wind it. So he had come in the night, and slipped away again in silence!

"There! he's gi'n it up!" cried Hattie, still watching the minister.

"He's turnin' down the path. My land! he's headed this way. He's comin'

here. You beat up that cus.h.i.+on, an' throw open the best-room door. My soul! if your grandpa's goin' to set the whole town by the ears, I wisht he'd come home an' fight his own battles!"

Hattie did not look at her young daughter; but if she had looked, she might have been amazed. Mary stood firm as iron; she was more than ever a chip o' the old block.

When the young minister had somewhat weakly climbed the two front steps, he elected not to sit in the best room, for he was a little chilly, and would like the sun. Presently he was installed in the new cane-backed rocker, and Mrs. Oldfield had offered him some currant wine.

"Though I dunno's you would," said she, anxiously flaunting a principle righteous as his own. "I s'pose you're teetotal."

The minister would not have wine, and he could not stay.

"I've really come on business," said he. "Do you know anything about Mr.

Oldfield?"