the holy hilarity which father baguss enjoyed on his way home, after having assisted in bringing harry wainright back, did not depart with the shades of night. the old man was out of bed at his usual hour, and he took his spiritual songs to the barn with him, to the astonishment of his mild-eyed cows and quick-eared horses; and when his drove of porkers demanded their morning meal with the vocal power peculiar to a chorus of swine, the old man defiantly jumped an occasional octave, and made the spiritual songs dominate over the physical. he seemed so happy that his single hired man could not resist the temptation of asking for an increase of pay; but the sobriety to which this interruption and its consequent refusal reduced father baguss was of only temporary duration, and the broken strain was resumed with renewed energy. the ecstasy lasted into and through the old man’s matutinal repast, and manifested itself by[123] an occasional hum through the good man’s nose, which did the duty ordinarily performed by a mouth which was now busied about other things; it caused father baguss to read a glorious psalm as he officiated at the family altar after breakfast; it made itself felt half way through the set prayer which the old farmer had delivered every morning for forty years; but it seemed suddenly to depart as its whilom possessor uttered the petition, “may we impart to others of the grace with which thou hast visited us so abundantly.” for the tappelmines had come suddenly into father baguss’s mind, and as that receptacle was never particularly crowded, the tappelmines made themselves very much at home there. the prayer having ended, the old man loitered about the house instead of going directly to the “clearing,” in which he had been getting out some oak fence-rails; he stared out of the window, walked up and down the kitchen with his hands in his pockets, lit a pipe, relit it half a dozen times at two minute intervals, sighed, groaned, and at length strode across the room like a bandit coming upon the boards of a theater, seized his hat, and started for the tappelmine domicile.
[124]
as he plodded along over the rough road, he had two very distinct ideas in his mind: one was, that he hadn’t the slightest notion of what to say to tappelmine; the other, and stronger, was, that it would be a relief to him to discover that tappelmine was away from home, or even sick in bed—yes, or even drunk. but this hope was of very short duration, for soon the old man heard the tappelmine axe, and, as he rounded the corner of the miserable house, he saw tappelmine himself—a tall, gaunt figure in faded homespun, torn straw hat, and a tangled thicket of muddy-gray hair. the face which tappelmine turned, as he heard the approaching footsteps, was not one to warm the heart of a man inspired only by an unwelcome sense of duty; it was thin, full of vagrant wrinkles; the nose had apparently started in different directions, and each time failed to return to its original line; the eyes were watery and colorless, and the lips were thin and drawn into the form of a jagged volcano crater.
“the idee of doin’ anything for such!” exclaimed father baguss under his breath. “o lord! you put me up to this here job—unless it was all crupp’s work; now see me through!” then he said,
[125]
“how are you, neighbor?”
“oh! off an’ on, ’bout as usual,” said tappelmine, with a look which seemed to indicate that his usual condition was not one upon which he was particularly to be felicitated.
“how’d your crop turn out?” asked father baguss, well knowing that “crop” was a terribly sarcastic word to apply to the acre or two of badly cultivated corn which tappelmine had planted, but yet feeling a frantic need of talking against time.
“well, not over’n above good,” said tappelmine, as impervious to the innocent sarcasm as he would have been to anything but a bullet or a glass of whiskey. “i dunno what would have ’come of us ef i hadn’t knocked over a couple of deer last week.”
“you might have given a hint to your neighbors, if worst had come to worst,” suggested father baguss, perceiving a gleam of light, but not so delighted over it as a moment or two before he had expected to be. “nobody’d have stood by an’ seen you starve.”
“glad you told me,” said tappelmine, abruptly raising his axe, and starting two or three large chips in quick succession.
[126]
the light seemed suddenly to be departing, and father baguss made a frantic clutch at it.
“you needn’t have waited to be told,” said he. “you know well enough we’re all human bein’s about here.”
“well,” said tappelmine, leaning on his axe, and taking particular care not to look into his neighbor’s eye, “i used to borry a little somethin’—corn, mebbe, or a piece of meat once in a while; but folks didn’t seem over an’ above glad to lend ’em, an’ i’m one of the kind of fellows that can take a hint, i am.”
“that was ’cause you never said a word ’bout payin’ back—leastways, you didn’t at our house.”
tappelmine did not reply, except by looking sullen, and father baguss continued:
“besides, it’s kinder discouragin’ to lend to a feller that gets tight a good deal—gets tight sometimes, anyhow; it’s hard enough to get paid by folks that always keep straight.”
as tappelmine could say nothing to controvert this proposition, he continued to look sullen, and father baguss, finding the silence insupportably annoying, said rather more than he had intended to say. there are natures which, while containing[127] noble qualities, are most awkward expositors of themselves, and that of baguss was one of this sort. such people are given to action which is open to criticism on every side; yet, in spite of their awkwardnesses, they find in their weakness the source of whatever strength they discover themselves to be possessed of. father baguss was one of this special division of humanity; but—perhaps for his own good—he was unconscious of his strength and painfully observant of his weakness. yet he continued as follows:
“look here, tappelmine, i came over here on purpose to find out if i could do anything to help you get into better habits. you don’t amount to a row of pins as things are now, and i don’t like it; it’s throwed up to me, because i’m your neighbor, and there’s folks that stick to it that i’m to blame. i don’t see how; but if there’s any cross layin’ around that fits my shoulders, i s’pose i ought to pick it up an’ pack it along. now, why in creation don’t you give up drinkin,’ an’ go to church, an’ make a crop, an’ do other things like decent folks do? you’re bigger’n i am, an’ stouter, an’ your farm’s as good as mine if you’d only work it. now why you don’t do it, i don’t see.”
[128]
“don’t, eh?” snarled tappelmine, dropping his axe, and leaning against the house with folded hands. “well, ’cause i hain’t got any plow, nor any harrow, nor but one hoss, nor rails enough to keep out cattle, nor seed-corn or wheat, nor money to buy it with, nor anything to live on until the crop’s made, nor anything to prevent the crop when it’s made from being grabbed by whoever i owe money to; that’s why i don’t make a crop. an’ i don’t go to church, ’cause i hain’t got any clothes excep’ these ’uns that i’ve got on, an’ my wife’s as bad off as i be. an’ i don’t give up drinkin’, ’cause drinkin’ makes me feel good, an’ the only folks i know that care anything for me drink too. you fellers that only drink on the sly——”
“i never touched a drop in all my life!” roared father baguss.
“that’s right,” said tappelmine; “stick to it; there’s some that’ll believe that yarn. but what i was goin’ to say was, folks that drink on the sly know it’s comfortin’, an’ i don’t see what they go a-pokin’ up fellers that does it fair an’ square for.”
father baguss groaned, and some influence—the old man in later days laid it upon the arch-enemy of souls—suggested to him the foolishness of[129] having gone into so great an operation without first counting the cost; hadn’t the great founder of the old man’s religious faith enjoined a counting of the cost of any enterprise before entering upon it? father baguss wished that chapter of holy writ might have met his eye that morning at the family altar; but it had not, and, worse yet, tappelmine was becoming wide awake and excited. it was not what the drunkard had said about drinking or church-going that troubled this would-be reformer; tappelmine’s outline of his material condition was what annoyed father baguss; for, in spite of an occasional attempt to mentally allay his fears by falling back upon prayer, the incentive with which he had called upon tappelmine had taken strong hold of his conscience, and persisted in making its influence felt. plows and prayers, harrows and hopes, seed-corn and the seed sown by the wayside mixed themselves inextricably in his mind, as parallels often do when men dream, or when they are confronted by an emergency beyond the control of their own intellects. the old man prayed silently and earnestly for relief, and his prayer was answered in a manner not entirely according to his liking, for he felt moved to say,
[130]
“i’ll lend you seed, if you’ll go to work an’ put it right in, an’ i’ll lend you a plow and a team to break up the ground with—i mean, i’ll hire ’em to you, an’ agree to buy your crop at rulin’ price, an’ pay you the difference in cash.”
“that sounds somethin’ like,” remarked tappelmine, thrusting his hands into his trowsers’ pockets, and making other preparations for a business talk; “but,” he continued, “what am i to live on along till harvest? ’tain’t even winter yet.”
father baguss groaned, and asked, “what was you a-goin’ to live on if i hadn’t offered seed and tools, tappelmine?”
“the lord knows,” answered the never-do-well, with unimpeachable veracity.
“then,” said the old farmer, “i guess he knows what you’ll do in t’other case. you can work, i reckon. i hain’t got much to do, but you can do it, at whatever prices is goin’, an’ that’ll help you get work of other folks; nobody can say i get stuck on the men i hire. so they’re generally glad enough to hire ’em themselves.”
tappelmine did not seem overjoyed at his prospects, but he had the grace to say that they were better than he had expected. father baguss went[131] home, feeling but little more comfortable than when he had started on his well-intended mission. tappelmine sauntered into his own cabin, wondering how much of the promised seed-corn and wheat he could smuggle into town and trade for whiskey; but he was rather surprised to have his wife, a short, thin, sallow, uninteresting-looking woman, who had been listening at the broken window, approach him, throw her arms about his neck, and exclaim,
“now, old man, we can be respectable, can’t we? the chance has been a long time a-comin’, but we’ve got it now.”
the surprise was too great for tappelmine, and he spent the remainder of the day in nursing his knee on the single hearthstone of his mansion. he was not undisturbed, however, and as men of his mental caliber hate persistent reason even worse than they do work, mrs. tappelmine not only coaxed her lord into resolving to be respectable, but allowed that gentleman to persuade himself that he had formed the resolution of his own accord.
