"She was the same kind o' goods, anyhow," interpolated Ob Tarbox.

"Yes, she was one of them women folks that air so light-minded you can't anchor 'em down with a sewin'-machine, nor a dishpan, nor a husband 'n'

young ones, nor no namable kind of a thing; the least wind blows 'em here 'n' blows 'em there, like dandelion puffs. As time went on, the widder got herself a beau now 'n' then; but as fast as she hooked 'em, Fiddy up 'n' took 'em away from her. You see she 'd gethered in most of her husbands afore Fiddy was old enough to hev her finger in the pie; but she cut her eye-teeth early, Fiddy did, 'n' there wa'n't no kind of a feller come to set up with the widder but she 'd everlastin'ly grab him, if she hed any use fer him, 'n' then there 'd be Hail Columby, I tell yer. But Dixie, he was 's blind 's a bat 'n' deef 's a post. He could n't see nothin' but Fiddy, 'n' he couldn't see her very plain."

"He hed warnin's enough," put in Pitt Packard, though Jabe Sloc.u.m never needed any a.s.sistance in spinning a yarn.

"Warnin's! I should think he hed. The Seventh Day Baptist minister went so fur as to preach at him. 'The Apostle Paul gin heed,' was the text.

'Why did he gin heed?' says he. 'Because he heerd. If he hadn't 'a'

heerd, he couldn't 'a' gin heed, 'n' 't wouldn't 'a' done him no good to 'a' heerd 'thout he gin heed!' Wall, it helped consid'ble many in the congregation, 'specially them that was in the habit of hearin' 'n'

heedin', but it rolled right off Dixie like water off a duck's back. He 'n' Fiddy was seen over to the ballin' alley to Wareham next day, 'n'

they didn't come back for a week."

"'He gin her his hand, And he made her his own,'"

sang little Brad Gibson.

"He hed gin her his hand, but no minister nor trial-jestice nor eighteen-carat ring nor stificate could 'a' made Fiddy Maddox anybody's own 'ceptin' the devil's, an' he wouldn't 'a' married her; she'd 'a'

ben too near kin. We'd never 'spicioned she 'd git 's fur 's marryin'

anybody, 'n' she only married Dixie 'cause he told her he 'd take her to the Wareham House to dinner, 'n' to the County Fair afterwards; if any other feller hed offered to take her to supper, 'n' the theatre on top o' that, she 'd 'a' married him instid."

"How 'd the old woman take it?" asked Steve.

"She disowned her daughter _punctilio:_ in the first place, fer runnin'

away 'stid o' hevin' a church weddin'; 'n' second place, fer marryin' a pauper (that was what she called him; 'n' it was true, for they 'd spent every cent he hed); 'n' third place, fer alienatin' the 'fections of a travelin' baker-man she hed her eye on fer herself. He was a kind of a flour-food peddler, that used to drive a cart round by Hard Scrabble, Moderation, 'n' Scratch Corner way. Mis' Maddox used to buy all her baked victuals of him, 'specially after she found out he was a widower beginnin' to take notice. His cart used to stand at her door so long everybody on the rout would complain o' stale bread. But bime bye Fiddy begun to set at her winder when he druv up, 'n' bime bye she pinned a blue ribbon in her collar. When she done that, Mis' Maddox alles hed to take a back seat. The boys used to call it a danger signal. It kind o'

drawed yer 'tention to p'ints 'bout her chin 'n' mouth 'n' neck, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother, in a way that was cal'lated to snarl up the thoughts o' perfessors o' religion 'n' turn 'em earthways. There was a spell I hed to say, '_Remember_ _Rhapseny!_ _Remember_ _Rhapseny!_' over to myself whenever Fiddy put on her blue ribbons. Wall, as I say, Fiddy set at the winder, the baker-man seen the blue ribbons, 'n' Mis' Maddox's cake was dough. She put on a red ribbon; but land! her neck looked 's if somebody 'd gone over it with a harrer! Then she stomped round 'n' slat the dish-rag, but 't wa'n't no use. 'Gracious, mother,' says Fiddy, 'I don't do nothin' but set at the winder. The sun shines for all.' 'You're right it does,' says Mis' Maddox, ''n' that's jest what I complain of.

I'd like to get a change to shine on something myself.'

"But the baker-man kep' on comin', though when he got to the Maddoxes'

doorsteps he couldn't make change for a quarter nor tell pie from bread; an' sure 's you're born, the very day Fiddy went away to be married to Dixie, that mornin' she drawed that everlastin' numhead of a flour-food peddler out into the orchard, 'n' cut off a lock o' her hair, 'n' tied it up with a piece o' her blue ribbon, 'n' give it to him; an' old Mis'

Bascom says, when he went past her house he was gazin' at it 'n' kissin'

of it, 'n' his horse meanderin' on one side the road 'n' the other, 'n'

the door o' the cart open 'n' slammin' to 'n' fro, 'n' ginger cookies spillin' out all over the lot. He come back to the Maddoxes next morning' ('t wa'n't his day, but his hoss couldn't pull one way when Fiddy's ribbon was pullin' t'other); an' when he found out she 'd gone with Dixie, he cussed 'n' stomped 'n' took on like a loontic; an' when Mis' Maddox hinted she was ready to heal the wownds Fiddy 'd inflicted, he stomped 'n' cussed wuss 'n' ever, 'n' the neighbors say he called her a hombly old trollop, an' fired the bread loaves all over the dooryard, he was so crazy at bein' cheated.

"Wall, to go back to Dixie--I'll be comin' right along, boys." (This to Brad Gibson, who was taking his farewell drink of ginger tea preparatory to beginning work.)

"I pity you, Steve!" exclaimed Brad, between deep swallows. "If you 'd known when you was well off, you 'd 'a' stayed in Boston. If Jabe hed a story started, he 'd talk three days after he was dead."

"Go 'long; leave me be! Wall, as I was sayin', Dixie brought Fiddy home ('Dell,' he called her), an' they 'peared bride 'n' groom at meetin'

next Sunday. The last hundred dollars he hed in the world hed gone into the weddin' tower 'n' on to Fiddy's back. He hed a new suit, 'n' he looked like a major. You ain't got no idea what he was, 'cause his eyes is dull now, 'n' he 's bowed all over, 'n' ain't shaved nor combed, hardly; but they was the han'somest couple that ever walked up the broad aisle. She hed on a green silk dress, an' a lace cape that was like a skeeter nettin' over her neck an' showed her bare skin through, an' a hat like an apple orchard in full bloom, hummin'-bird an' all. Dixie kerried himself as proud as Lucifer. He didn't look at the minister 'n'

he didn't look at the congregation; his great eyes was glued on Fiddy, as if he couldn't hardly keep from eatin' of her up. An' she behaved consid'able well for a few months, as long 's the novelty lasted an' the silk dresses was new. Before Christmas, though, she began to peter out 'n' git slack-twisted. She allers hated housework as bad as a pig would a penwiper, an' Dixie hed to git his own breakfast afore he went to work, or go off on an empty stomach. Many 's the time he 's got her meals for her 'n' took 'em to her on a waiter. Them secesh fellers'll wait on women folks long as they can stan' up.

"Then bime bye the baby come along; but that made things wuss 'stid o'

better. She didn't pay no more 'tention to it than if it hed belonged to the town. She 'd go off to dances, an' leave Dixie to home tendin'

cradle; but that wa'n't no hardship to him for he was 'bout as much wropped up in the child as he was in Fiddy. Wall, sir, 'bout a month ago she up 'n' disappeared off the face o' the airth 'thout sayin' a word or leavin' a letter. She took her clo'es, but she never thought o' takin'

the baby; one baby more or less didn't make no odds to her s' long 's she hed that skeeter-nettin' cape. Dixie sarched fer her high an' low fer a fortnight, but after that he give it up as a bad job. He found out enough, I guess, to keep him pretty busy thinkin' what he 'd do next.

But day before yesterday the same circus that plays here this afternoon was playin' to Wareham. A lot of us went over on the evenin' train, an'

we coaxed Dixie into goin', so 's to take his mind off his trouble. But land! he didn't see nothin'. He 'd walk right up the lions 'n' tigers in the menagerie as if they was cats 'n' chickens, an' all the time the clown was singin' he looked like a dumb animile that 's hed a bullet put in him. There was lots o' side shows, mermaids 'n' six-legged calves 'n' spotted girls, 'n' one thing 'n' 'nother, an' there was one o' them whirligig machines with a mess o' rocking'-hosses goin' round 'n' round, 'n' an organ in the middle playin' like sixty. I wish we 'd 'a' kept clear o' the thing, but as bad luck would hev it, we stopped to look, an' there on top o' two high-steppin' white wooden hosses, set Mis'

Fiddy an' that dod-gasted light-complected baker-man! If ever she was suited to a dot, it was jest then 'n' there. She could 'a' gone prancin'

round that there ring forever 'n' forever, with the whoopin' 'n'

hollerin' 'n' whizzin' 'n' whirlin' soundin' in her ears, 'n' the music playin' like mad, 'n' she with nothin' to do but stick on 'n' let some feller foot the bills. Somebody must 'a' ben thinkin' o' Fiddy Maddox when the invented them whirl-a-go-rounds. She was laughin' 'n' carryin'

on like the old Scratch; her apple-blossom hat dome off, 'n' the baker-man put it on, 'n' took consid'able time over it, 'n' pulled her ear 'n' pinched her cheek when he got through; an' that was jest the blamed minute we ketched sight of 'em. I pulled Dixie off, but I was too late. He give a groan I shall remember to my dyin' day, 'n' then he plunged out o' the crowd 'n' through the gate like a streak o'

lightnin'. We follered, but land! we couldn't find him, an' true as I set here, I never expected to see him alive agin. But I did; I forgot all about one thing, you see, 'n' that was the baby. If it wa'n't no attraction to its mother, I guess he cal'lated it needed a father all the more. Anyhow, he turned up in the field yesterday mornin', ready for work, but lookin' as if he 'd hed his heart cut out 'n' a piece o' lead put in the place of it."

"I don't seem as if she 'd 'a' ben brazen enough to come back so near him," said Steve.

"Wall, I don't s'pose she hed any idea o' Dixie's bein' at a circus over Wareham jest then; an' ten to one she didn't care if the whole town seen her. She wanted to get rid of him, 'n' she didn't mind how she did it.

Dixie ain't one of the shootin' kinds, an' anyhow, Fiddy Maddox wa'n't one to look ahead; whatever she wanted to do, that she done, from the time she was knee high to a gra.s.shopper. I've seen her set down by a peck basket of apples, 'n' take a couple o' bites out o' one, 'n' then heave it fur 's she could heave it 'n' start in on another, 'n' then another; 'n' 't wa'n't a good apple year, neither. She'd everlastin'ly spile 'bout a dozen of 'em 'n' smaller 'bout two mouthfuls. Doxy Morton, now, would eat an apple clean down to the core, 'n' then count the seeds 'n' put 'em on the window-sill to dry, 'n' get up 'n' put the core in the stove, 'n' wipe her hands on the roller towel, 'n' take up her sewin' agin; 'n' if you 've got to be cuttin' 'nitials in tree bark an'

writin' of 'em in the gra.s.s with a stick like you 've ben doin' for the last half-hour, you 're blamed lucky to be doin' _D_'s not _F_'s, like Dixie there!"

It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The men had dropped work and gone to the circus. The hay was p.r.o.nounced to be in a condition where it could be left without much danger; but, for that matter, no man would have stayed in the field to attend to another man's hay when there was a circus in the neighborhood.

Dixie was mowing on alone, listening as in a dream to that subtle something in the swish of the scythe that makes one seek to know the song it is singing to the gra.s.ses.

"Hush, ah, hush, the scythes are saying, Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep; Hush, they say to the gra.s.ses swaying, Hush, they sing to the clover deep; Hush,--'t is the lullaby Time is singing,-- Hush, and heed not, for all things pa.s.s.

Hush, ah, hush! and the scythes are swinging Over the clover, over the gra.s.s."

And now, spent with fatigue and watching and care and grief,--heart sick, mind sick, body sick, sick with past suspense and present certainty and future dread,--he sat under the cool shade of the nooning tree, and buried his face in his hands. He was glad to be left alone with his miseries,--glad that the other men, friendly as he felt them to be, had gone to the circus, where he would not see or hear them for hours to come.

How clearly he could conjure up the scene that they were enjoying with such keen relish! Only two days before, he had walked among the same tents, staring at horses and gay trappings and painted Amazons as one who noted nothing; yet the agony of the thing he now saw at last lit up all the rest as with a lightning flash, and burned the scene forever on his brain and heart. It was at Wareham, too,--Wareham, where she had promised to be his wife, where she had married him only a year before.

How well he remembered the night! They left the parsonage; they had ten miles to drive in the moonlight before reaching their stopping-place,--ten miles of such joy as only a man could know, he thought, who had had the warm fruit of life hanging within full vision, but just out of reach,--just above his longing lips; and then, in an unlooked-for, gracious moment, his! He could swear she had loved him that night, if never again.

But this picture pa.s.sed away, and he saw that maddening circle with the caracoling steeds. He head the discordant music, the monotonous creak of the machinery, the strident laughter of the excited riders. As first the thing was a blur, a kaleidoscope of whirling colors, into which there presently crept form and order. ... A boy who had cried to get on, and was now crying to get off. ... Old Rube Hobson and his young wife; Rube looking white and scared, partly by the whizzing motion, and partly by the prospect of paying out ten cents for the doubtful pleasure. ...

Pretty Hetty Dunnell with that young fellow from Portland; she too timid to mount one of the mettle-some chargers, and snuggling close to him in one of the circling seats. The, good Got!--Dell! sitting on a prancing white horse, with the man he knew, the man he feared, riding beside her; a man who kept holding on her hat with fingers that trembled,--the very hat she "'peared bride in" a man who brushed a gra.s.shopper from her shoulder with an air of ownership, and, when she slapped his hand coquettishly, even dared to pinch her pink cheek,--his wife's cheek,--before that crowd of on-lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed! The horrible thing was well named; and life was just like it,--a whirl of happiness and misery, in which the music cannot play loud enough to drown the creak of the machinery, in which one soul cries out in pain, another in terror, and the rest laugh; but the prancing steeds gallop on, gallop on, and once mounted, there is no getting off, unless...

There were some things it was not possible for a mean to bear! The river! The river! He could hear it rippling over the sunny sands, swirling among the logs, dashing and roaring under the bridge, rushing to the sea's embrace. Could it tell whither it was hurrying? NO; but it was escaping from its present bonds; it would never have to pa.s.s over these same jagged rocks again. "On, on to the unknown!" called the river. "I come! I come!" he roused himself to respond, when a faint, faint, helpless voice broke in upon the mad clatter in his brain, cleaving his torn heart in twain; not a real voice,--the half-forgotten memory of one; a tender wail that had added fresh misery to his night's vigil,--the baby!

But the feeble pipe was borne down by the swirl of the water as it dashed between the rocky banks, still calling to him. If he could only close his ears to it! But it still called--called still--the river! And still the child's voice pierced the rush of sound with its pitiful flute note, until the two resolved themselves into contesting strains, answering each other antiphonally. The river--the baby--the river--the baby; and in and through, and betwixt and between, there spun the whirling merry-go-round, with its curveting wooden horses, its discordant organ, and its creaking machinery.

But gradually the child's voice gained in strength, and as he heard it more plainly the other sounds grew fainter, till at last, thank G.o.d!

they were hushed. The din, the whirlwind, and the tempest in his brain were lulled into silence, as under a "Peace, be still!" and, worn out with the contest, the man from Tennessee fell asleep under the grateful shade of the nooning tree. So deep was the slumber that settled over exhausted body and troubled spirit that the gathering clouds, the sudden darkness, the distant muttering of thunder, the frightened twitter of the birds, pa.s.sed unnoticed. A heavy drop of rain pierced the thick foliage and fell on his face, but the storm within had been too fierce for him to heed the storm without. He slept on.

Almost every man, woman, and child in the vicinity of Pleasant River was on the way to the circus,--Boomer's Grand Six-in-One Universal Consolidated Show; Brilliant Constellations of Fixed Stars shining in the same Vast Firmament; Glittering Galaxies of World-Famous Equestrian Artists; the biggest elephants, the funniest clowns, the pluckiest riders, the stubbornest mules, the most amazing acrobats, the tallest man and the shortest man, the thinnest woman and the thickest woman, on the habitable globe; and no connection with any other show on earth, especially Sypher's Two-in-One Show now devastating the same State.

If the advertis.e.m.e.nts setting forth these attractions were couched in language somewhat rosier than the facts would warrant, there were few persons calm enough to perceive it, when once the glamour of the village parade and the smell of the menagerie had intoxicated the senses.

The circus had been the sole topic of conversation for a fortnight. Jot Bascom could always be relied on for the latest and most authentic news of its triumphant progress from one town to another. Jot was a sort of town crier; and whenever the approach of a caravan was announced, he would go over on the Liberty road to find out just where it was and what were its immediate plans, for the thrilling pleasure of calling at every one of the neighbors' on his way home, and delivering his budget of news. He was an attendant at every funeral, and as far as possible at every wedding, in the village; at every flag-raising and husking, and town and county fair. When more pressing duties did not hinder, he endeavored to meet the two daily trains that pa.s.sed through Milliken's Mills, a mile or two from Pleasant River. He accompanied the sheriff on all journeys entailing serving of papers and other embarra.s.sing duties common to the law. On one occasion, when the two lawyers of the village held an investigation before Trial Justice Simeon Porter, they waited an hour because Jot Bascom did not come. They knew that something was amiss, but it was only on reflection that they remembered that Jot was not indispensable. He went with all paupers to the Poor Farm, and never missed a town meeting. He knew all the conditions attending any swapping of horses that occurred within a radius of twenty miles,--the terms of the trade and the amount paid to boot. He knew who owed the fish-man and who owed the meat-man, and who could not get trusted by either of them.

In fact, so far as the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence could be vested in a faulty human creature, they were present in Jot Bascom. That he was quite unable to attend conscientiously to home duties, when overborne by press of public service, was true. When Diadema Bascom wanted kindling split, wood brought in, the cows milked, or the pigs fed, she commonly found her spouse serving humanity in bulk.

All the details of the approach of the Grand Six-in-One Show had, therefore, been heralded to those work-sodden and unambitious persons who tied themselves to their own wood-piles or haying-fields.