t
he good old times! and the old times were good, my dear; better, much better, than the times that you live in. i know i am an old fogy, nelly,” said ephraim batterby, refilling his pipe, and looking at his granddaughter, who sat with him in front of the fire, with her head bending over her sewing; “i know i am an old fogy, and i glory in it.”
“but you never will be for me, grandpa,” said nelly, glancing at him with a smile.
“yes, my dear, i am for everybody. i am a man of the past. everything i ever cared for and ever loved, excepting you, belongs to the years that have gone, and my affections belong to those years. i liked the people of the old time better than i do those of the new. i loved their simpler ways, the ways that i knew in my boyhood, threescore and more years ago. i am sure the world is not so good as it was then. it is smarter, perhaps; it knows more, but its wisdom vexes and disgusts me. i am not certain, my dear, that, if i had my222 way, i would not sweep away, at one stroke, all the so-called ‘modern conveniences,’ and return to the ancient methods.”
“they were very slow, grandpa.”
“yes, slow; and for that i liked them. we go too fast now; but our speed, i am afraid, is hurrying us in the wrong direction. we were satisfied in the old time with what we had. it was good enough. are men contented now? no; they are still improving and improving; still reaching out for something that will be quicker, or easier, or cheaper than the things that are. we appear to have gained much; but really we have gained nothing. we are not a bit better off now than we were; not so well off, in my opinion.”
“but, grandpa, you must remember that you were young then, and perhaps looked at the world in a more hopeful way than you do now.”
“yes, i allow for that, nelly, i allow for that; i don’t deceive myself. my youth does not seem so very far off that i cannot remember it distinctly. i judge the time fairly, now in my old age, as i judge the present time, and my assured opinion is that it was superior in its ways, its life, and its people. its people! ah, nelly, my dear, there were three persons in that past who alone would consecrate it to me. i am afraid there are not many women now like your mother and mine, and like my dear wife, whom you never saw. it seems223 to me, my child, that i would willingly live all my life over again, with its strifes and sorrows, if i could clasp again the hand of one of those angelic women, and hear a word from her sweet lips.”
as the old man wiped the gathering moisture from his eyes, nelly remained silent, choosing not to disturb the reverie into which he had fallen. presently ephraim rose abruptly, and said, with a smile,—
“come, nelly dear, i guess it is time to go to bed. i must be up very early to-morrow morning.”
“at what hour do you want breakfast, grandpa?”
“why, too soon for you, you sleepy puss. i shall breakfast by myself before you are up, or else i shall breakfast down town. i have a huge cargo of wheat in from chicago, and i must arrange to have it shipped for liverpool. there is one thing that remains to me from the old time, and that is some of the hard work of my youth; but even that seems a little harder than it used to. so, come now; to bed! to bed!”
while he was undressing, and long after he had crept beneath the blankets, ephraim’s thoughts wandered back and back through the spent years; and, as the happiness he had known came freshly and strongly into his mind, he felt drawn more and more towards it; until the new and old mingled together in strange but placid confusion in his brain, and he fell asleep.
224 when he awoke it was still dark, for the winter was just begun; but he heard—or did he only dream that he heard?—a clock in some neighboring steeple strike six. he knew that he must get up, for his business upon that day demanded early attention.
he sat up in bed, yawned, stretched his arms once or twice, and then, flinging the covering aside, he leaped to the floor. he fell, and hurt his arm somewhat. strange that he should have miscalculated the distance! the bed seemed more than twice as high from the floor as it should be. it was too dark to see distinctly, so he crept to the bed with extended hands, and felt it. yes, it was at least four feet from the floor, and, very oddly, it had long, slim posts, such as bedsteads used to have, instead of the low, carved footboard, and the high, postless headboard, which belonged to the bedstead upon which he had slept in recent years. ephraim resolved to strike a light. he groped his way to the table, and tried to find the match-box. it was not there; he could not discover it upon the bureau either. but he found something else, which he did not recognize at first, but which a more careful examination with his fingers told him was a flint and steel. he was vexed that any one should play such a trick upon him. how could he ever succeed in lighting the gas with a flint and steel!
but he resolved to try, and he moved over225 towards the gas-bracket by the bureau. it was not there! he passed his cold hand over a square yard of the wall, where the bracket used to be, but it had vanished. it actually seemed, too, as if there was no paper on the wall, for the whitewash scaled off beneath his fingers.
perplexed and angry, ephraim was about to replace the flint and steel upon the bureau, and to dress in the dark, when his hand encountered a candlestick. it contained a candle. he determined to try to light it. he struck the flint upon the steel at least a dozen times, in the way he remembered doing so often when he was a boy, but the sparks refused to catch the tinder. he struck again and again, until he became really warm with effort and indignation, and at last he succeeded.
it was only a poor, slim tallow candle, and ephraim thought the light was not much better than the darkness, it was so dim and flickering and dismal. he was conscious then that the room was chill, although his body felt so warm; and, for fear he should catch cold, he thought he would open the register, and let in some warm air. the register had disappeared! there, right before him, was a vast old-fashioned fireplace filled with wood. by what means the transformation had been effected, he could not imagine. but he was not greatly displeased.
“i always did like an open wood fire,” he said, “and now i will have a roaring one.”
226 so he touched the flame of the candle to the light kindling-wood, and in a moment it was afire.
“i will wash while it is burning up,” said ephraim.
he went to the place where he thought he should find the fixed wash-stand, with hot and cold water running from the pipes, but he was amazed to find that it had followed the strange fashion of the room, and had gone also! there was an old hand-basin, with a cracked china pitcher, standing upon a movable wash-stand, but the water in the pitcher had been turned to solid ice.
with an exclamation of impatience and indignation, ephraim placed the pitcher between the andirons, close to the wood in the chimney-place; and he did so with smarting eyes, for the flue was cold, and volumes of smoke were pouring out into the room. in a few moments he felt that he should suffocate unless he could get some fresh air, so he resolved to open the upper sash of the window.
when he got to the window he perceived that the panes of glass were only a few inches square, and that the woodwork inclosing them was thrice thicker and heavier than it had been. he strove to pull down the upper sash, but the effort was vain; it would not move. he tried to lift the lower sash; it went up with difficulty; it seemed to weigh a hundred pounds; and, when he got it up, it would not stay. he succeeded, finally, in keeping it open by placing a chair beneath it.
227 when the ice in the pitcher was thawed, he finished his toilette, and then he descended the stairs. as nobody seemed to be moving in the house, he resolved to go out and get his breakfast at a restaurant. he unlocked the front door, and emerged into the street just as daylight fairly had begun.
as ephraim descended the steps in front of his house, he had a distinct impression that something was wrong, and he was conscious of a feeling of irritation; but it seemed to him that his mind, for some reason, did not operate with its accustomed precision; and, while he realized the fact of a partial and very unexpected change of the conditions of his life, he found that when he tried, in a strangely feeble way, to grapple with the problem, the solution eluded him and baffled him.
the force of habit, rather than a very clearly defined purpose, led him to walk to the corner of the street, just below his dwelling, and to pause there, as usual, to await the coming of the horse-car which should carry him down town. following a custom, too, he took from his waistcoat pocket two or three pennies (which, to his surprise, had swollen to the uncomfortable dimensions of the old copper cents), and looked around for the news-boy from whom he bought, every morning, the daily paper.
the lad, however, was not to be seen; and ephraim was somewhat vexed at his absence, because228 he was especially anxious upon that morning to observe the quotations of the chicago and liverpool grain markets, and to ascertain what steamers were loading at the wharves.
the horse-car was delayed much longer than he expected, and, while he waited, a man passed by, dressed oddly, ephraim noticed, in knee-breeches and very old-fashioned coat and hat. ephraim said to him, politely,—
“can you tell me, sir, where i can get a morning paper in this neighborhood? the lad i buy from, commonly, is not at his post this morning.”
the stranger, stopping, looked at ephraim with a queer expression, and presently said,—
“i don’t think i understand you; a morning paper, did you say?”
“yes, one of the morning papers; the argus or commercial—any of them.”
“why, my dear sir, there is but one newspaper published in this city. it is the gazette. it comes out on saturday, and this, you know, is only tuesday.”
“do you mean to say that we have no daily papers?” exclaimed ephraim, somewhat angrily.
“daily papers! papers published every day! why, sir, there is not such a newspaper in the world, and there never will be.”
“pshaw!” said ephraim, turning his back upon the man in disgust.
229 the stranger smiled, and, shaking his head as if he had serious doubts of ephraim’s sanity, passed onward.
“the man is cracked,” said ephraim, looking after him. “no daily papers! the fellow has just come from the interior of africa, or else he is an escaped lunatic. it is very queer that car does not come,” and ephraim glanced up the street anxiously. “there is not a car in sight. a fire somewhere, i suppose. too bad that i should have lost so much time. i shall walk down.”
but, as ephraim stepped into the highway, he was surprised to find that there were no rails there. the cobblestone pavement was unbroken.
“well, upon my word! this is the strangest thing of all. what on earth has become of the street-cars? i must go afoot, i suppose, if the distance is great. i am afraid i shall be too late for business, as it is.”
as he walked onward at a rapid pace, and his eyes fell upon the buildings along the route, he was queerly sensible that the city had undergone a certain process of transformation. it had a familiar appearance, too. he seemed to know it in its present aspect, and yet not to know it. the way was perfectly familiar to him, and he recognized all the prominent landmarks easily, and still he had an indefinable feeling that some other city had stood where this did; that he had known this very230 route under other conditions, and that the later conditions were those that had passed away, while those that he now saw belonged to a much earlier period.
he felt, too, that the change, whatever it was, had brought a loss with it. the buildings that lined the street now he thought very ugly. they were old, misshapen, having pent-roofs with absurdly high gables, and the shop-windows were small, dingy, and set with small panes of glass. he had known it as a handsome street, edged with noble edifices, and offering to the gaze of the pedestrian a succession of splendid windows filled with merchandise of the most brilliant description.
but ephraim pressed on with a determination to seek his favorite restaurant, for he began to feel very hungry. in a little while he reached the corner where the restaurant should have been, but to his vexation he saw that the building there was a coffee-house of mean appearance, in front of which swung a blurred and faded sign.
he resolved to enter, for he could get a breakfast here, at least. he pushed through the low doorway and over the sanded floor into a narrow sort of box, where a table was spread; and, as he did so, he had a hazy feeling that this, too, was something that he was familiar with.
“it must be,” he said, “that my brain is producing a succession of those sensations that i have231 had sometimes before, which persuade the credulous that we move continually in a circle, and forever live our lives over again.”
as he took his seat a waiter approached him.
“give me a bill of fare,” said ephraim.
“bill of fare, sir? have no bill of fare, sir. never have them, sir; no coffee-house has them, sir. get you up a nice breakfast though, sir.”
“what have you got?”
“ham, sir; steak, sir; boiled egg, sir; coffee, tea, muffins. just in from furrin countries, sir, are you?”
“never mind where i am from,” said ephraim, testily. “bring me a broiled steak, and egg, and some muffins and coffee, and bring them quickly.”
“yes, sir; half a minute, sir. anything else, sir?”
“bring me a newspaper.”
“yes, sir; here it is, sir, the very latest, sir.”
ephraim took the paper, and glanced at it. it was the weekly gazette, four days old; a little sheet of yellow-brown paper, poorly printed, containing some fragments of news, and nothing later from europe than november 6, although the gazette bore date december 19. so soon as ephraim comprehended its worthlessness, he tossed it contemptuously upon the floor, and waited, almost sullenly, for his breakfast.
when it came in upon the tray, carried by the brisk waiter, it looked dainty and tempting enough, and the fumes that rose from it were so savory that232 he grew into better humor. as it was spread before him, he perceived that the waiter had given him a very coarse, two-pronged steel fork.
“take that away,” said ephraim, tossing it to the end of the table; “i want a silver fork.”
“silver fork, sir! bless my soul, sir! we haven’t got any; never heard of such a thing, sir.”
“never heard of a silver fork, you idiot!” shouted ephraim; “why, everybody uses them.”
“no, sir; i think not, sir. i’ve lived with first quality people, sir, and they all use this kind. never saw any other kind, sir; didn’t know there was any. do they have ’em in furrin parts, sir?”
“get out!” said ephraim, savagely. he was becoming somewhat annoyed and bewildered by the utter disappearance of so many familiar things.
but the breakfast was good, and he was hungry, so he fell to with hearty zest, and, although he found the steel fork clumsy, it did him good service. at the conclusion of the meal, ephraim walked rapidly to his office—the office that he had occupied for nearly sixty years. as he opened the door, he expected to find his letters in the box wherein the postman thrust them twice or thrice a day. they were not there. the box itself was gone.
“too bad! too bad!” exclaimed ephraim. “everything conspires to delay me to-day. i suppose i must sit here and wait for that lazy letter-carrier233 to come, and meantime my business must wait too.”
with the intent not to lose the time altogether, ephraim resolved to write a letter or two. he took from the drawer a sheet of rough white paper, and opened his inkstand. he could not find his favorite steel pen anywhere, and there were no other pens in the drawer, only a bundle of quills. ephraim determined to try to use one of these. he ruined four, and lost ten minutes before he could make with his knife a pen good enough to write with; but with this he finished his letter. then he had another hunt for an envelope, but he could find one nowhere, and nothing was to be done but to fold the sheet in the fashion that he had known in his boyhood, and to seal it with sealing-wax. he burned his fingers badly while performing the last-named operation.
still the postman had not arrived, and ephraim, being very anxious to mail his letter, resolved to go out and drop it into the letter-box at the corner of the street. when he reached the corner, he found that the letter-box had disappeared as so many other things had done; so he resolved to push on to the post-office, where he could leave the letter and get his morning’s mail. as he approached what he had supposed was the post-office, he was dismayed to perceive that another building occupied the site. the post-office had vanished.
234 he turned to a man standing with a crowd which was observing him, and asked him where the post-office could be found. obeying the direction, he sought the place and found it. rushing to the single window, behind which a clerk stood, he asked,—
“are there any letters for ephraim batterby?”
“i think not,” said the clerk; “there will be no mail in till to-morrow.”
“till to-morrow!” shouted ephraim. “what is the matter?”
“the matter! nothing at all. what’s the matter with you?”
“i am expecting letters from new york and chicago. are both mails delayed?”
“chicago’s a place i never heard of, and the mail from new york comes in only three times a week. it came yesterday, and it will come in to-morrow.”
“three times a week!” exclaimed ephraim; “why, it comes four or five times a day, unless i am very much mistaken.”
the clerk turned to a fellow-clerk behind him and said in a low tone something at which both laughed.
“how do you suppose the mails get here four or five times a day?” asked the clerk.
“upon the mail trains, of course,” replied ephraim, tartly; and then the clerks laughed again.
235 “well, sir,” said the man at the window, “we don’t appear to understand each other; but it may straighten things out if i tell you that the new york mails come here upon a stage-coach, which takes twenty-four hours to make the journey, and which reaches here on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays.”
ephraim was about to make an angry reply, but the clerk shut the window and made further discussion impossible. for a moment ephraim was puzzled. he stopped to think what he should do next, and while he was standing there, he noticed a curious crowd gathering about him, a crowd which seemed to regard him with peculiar interest. and now and then a rude fellow would make facetious comments upon ephraim’s dress, at which some of the vulgar would laugh. ephraim was somewhat bewildered, and his confusion became greater when he observed that all of the bystanders wore knee-breeches and very ugly high collars and cravats, in which their chins were completely buried. ephraim perceived near to him a gentleman who held in his hand a newspaper. encouraged by his friendly countenance, ephraim said to him,—
“i am rather confused, sir, by some unexpected changes that i have found about here this morning, will you be good enough to give me a little information?”
“with pleasure, sir.”
236 “i have missed some important letters that i looked for from new york and the west. i wish to communicate with my correspondents at once. will you please tell me where i can find the telegraph office?”
“the telegraph office! i don’t understand you, sir.”
“i wish to send messages to my friends at those points.”
“well, sir, i know of no other way to send them than through the post-office here.”
“do you mean to say that there is no telegraph line from here to new york?”
“my dear sir, what do you mean by a telegraph line?”
“a telegraph line—a line of wire on which i can send messages by electricity.”
“i fear something is wrong with you, sir,” said the gentleman gravely. “no such thing exists. no such thing can exist.”
“nonsense!” said ephraim, waxing indignant. “how do you suppose the afternoon papers to-day will get the quotations of the liverpool markets of to-day? how will the brokers learn to-day the price of securities at the meeting of the london stock exchange this morning?”
“you are speaking very wildly, sir,” said the gentleman, stepping close to ephraim and using a low tone, while the crowd laughed. “you must be237 more careful, or persons will regard you as insane.”
“insane! why? because i tell you, what everybody knows, that we get cable news from europe every day.”
“cable news! cable news! what does the old fool mean?” shouted the crowd.
“what do i mean!” exclaimed ephraim, in a passion; “i mean that you are a pack of idiots for pretending to believe that there is no such thing as a telegraph, and no such thing as a telegraph cable to europe.”
the crowd sent up a shout of derisive laughter and rushed at him as if to hustle him and use him roughly. the gentleman to whom he had spoken seized him by the arm and hurried him away. when they had turned the corner, the man stopped and said to ephraim,—
“you appear to be a sane man, although you speak so strangely. let me warn you to be more careful in the future. if you should be taken up as a madman and consigned to a madhouse, you would endure terrible suffering, and find it very difficult to secure release.”
“i am perfectly sane,” said ephraim, “and i cannot comprehend why you think what i have said strange. i wanted my letters, and i wished in their absence to correspond by telegraph, because i am expecting a cargo of wheat to-day, which i am to ship to liverpool by steamer.”
238 “by steamer! there you go again. nobody can know what you mean by ‘steamer.’”
“steamer! steamship! a ship that crosses the ocean by steam, without sails. you know what that is, certainly?”
“i have heard some talk about a rattle-trap invention which used steam to make a little boat paddle about on the river here; but as for crossing the ocean—well, my dear sir, that is a little too ridiculous.”
“ridiculous! why—”
“pardon me,” said the man, “i see you are incorrigible; i must bid you good morning;” and he bowed politely and walked quickly away.
“well, well!” said ephraim, standing still and looking after him helplessly. “it’s queer, very queer. i don’t begin to understand it at all, i am half inclined to believe that the world has conspired to make game of me, or else that my poor wits really are astray. i don’t feel as certain of them as a clear-headed man should.”
while he spoke, the bells of the city rang out an alarm of fire with furious clangor, and in a few moments he saw, dashing past him, an old-fashioned hand-engine, pulled by a score or two of men who held a rope. the burning building was not many hundred yards distant from ephraim, and he felt an inclination to see it. when he reached the scene, men with leathern buckets were pouring water into239 the engine, while other men were forcing the handles up and down, with the result that a thin stream fell upon the mass of flame.
he had an impulse to ask somebody why the steam fire-engines were not used, but every one seemed to be excited and busy, and he remembered what his friend had said to him about steamers.
so he expressed his disgust for the stupidity of these people in a few muttered ejaculations; and then, suddenly, bethought him of his business.
he resolved to go down to the wharf where he had expected to ship his cargo, and to ascertain what the situation was there.
as he came near to the place, he saw that it had changed since he last saw it, but a handsome ship lay in the dock, and men were carrying bags of grain aboard of her.
“that must be my cargo,” he said; “but what on earth do they mean by loading it in that manner, and upon a sailing vessel?”
he approached the man who seemed to be superintending the work, and said,—
“is this ephraim batterby’s wheat?”
the man looked at him in surprise for a moment, and then, smiling, said,—
“no, sir; it is brown and martin’s.”
“when did it arrive?”
“yesterday.”
“by rail?”
240 “by rail! what do you mean by that?”
“i say, did it come by rail?”
“well, old man, i haven’t the least idea what you mean by ‘rail,’ but if you want to know, i’ll tell you the grain came by canal-boat.”
“from chicago?”
“never heard of chicago. the wheat came from pittsburg. what are you asking for, any way?”
“why, i’m expecting some myself, by rail from chicago, and i intend to ship it to liverpool in a steamer—that is,” added ephraim, hesitatingly, “if i can find one.”
“chicago! rail! steamer! old chap, i’m afraid you’re a little weak in the top story. what do you mean by chicago?”
“chicago! why, it’s a city three or four hundred miles west of pittsburg; a great centre for the western grain traffic. certainly you must have heard of it.”
“oh, come now, old man, you’re trying to guy me! i know well enough that the country is a howling wilderness, three hundred miles beyond pittsburg. grain market! that’s good!”
“i don’t know,” said ephraim, somewhat feebly. “it used to be there. and i expected a cargo of wheat from chicago to be here this morning, by railroad.”
“what kind of a railroad?”
241 “a railroad: iron rails, with cars propelled with steam! i expected to find an elevator here to put the grain on board of an iron vessel; to load the whole twenty thousand bushels to-day; but things have gone wrong somehow, and i don’t understand precisely why!”
“bill,” said the man, turning to a young fellow, one of his assistants, near him, “trot this poor old chap up to the mayor’s office, so that he’ll be taken care of. he’s talking to me about bringing twenty thousand bushels of wheat on a rail, and loading it in an iron vessel—an iron vessel, mind you—in one day! it’s a shame for the old fellow’s relations to let him wander about alone.”
before “bill” had a chance to offer his assistance, ephraim, alarmed, and more than ever bewildered, walked quickly away.
as he gained the street, a man of about middle age suddenly stopped in front of him, and said,—
“good morning, mr. batterby.”
ephraim had gotten into such a frame of mind, that he was almost startled at the sound of his own name.
he looked hard at the stranger, but, although the features were somewhat familiar, he could not really recognize the man.
“don’t know me, batterby? impossible! don’t know tony miller!”
“bless my soul!” exclaimed ephraim; “tony242 miller! so it is! tony miller! not tony miller? why—why—why, miller, i thought you died thirty years ago!”
“died! ha, ha! not a bit of it, man. why, it’s absurd! i saw you only two or three weeks since!”
“strange, strange!” said ephraim, almost sadly, in his mind trying to recall some fragments of the past. “i could have sworn that you were dead!”
“no, sir; just as hearty and lively as i ever was. by the way, mr. batterby, what has become of ephraim? i don’t see him about any more.”
“ephraim? ephraim batterby? why, who do you think i am?”
“joshua batterby, of course; who else? you don’t seem very well to-day, i think.”
“he mistakes me for my father,” said ephraim to himself. “when will all this wild, puzzling mystery end?” then, addressing miller, he said, “i would like to have some conversation with you, miller; i am strangely confused and upset to-day.”
“certainly; be glad to have a chat with you. i say, suppose you come home and dine with me? i am on my way to dinner now. will you go?”
“gladly,” replied ephraim.
as they walked on, miller, with intent to break the silence, said,—
“i think we shall have rain to-day, mr. batterby.”
243 “perhaps; it looks like it. what does the signal service say?”
“what does the what say?”
“the signal service. what are the indications?”
“i haven’t the least idea what you mean, mr. batterby.”
“why,” said ephraim, timidly, “were you not aware that a bureau in the war department collects information which enables it to indicate approaching conditions of the weather, and that it gives this information to the newspapers?”
“never heard of such a thing, mr. batterby, and i don’t believe it. somebody has been joking with you. the only weather indications we have are in the almanacs, and they are not at all reliable.”
the two walked along in silence for a time, and then ephraim said,—
“miller!”
“well?”
“i am going to ask you a good many queer questions to-day, for a private purpose of my own; will you agree to answer them candidly?”
“if i can.”
“and not to think me insane, or absurd, or stupid?”
“of course i should not think so.”
“very well,” said ephraim; “and when we are done, i may explain why i asked them, and perhaps you can solve a mystery for me.”
244 they reached the house and entered it. the first thing miller did was to proceed to the side-board, fill two glasses with wine from a decanter, and ask ephraim to drink.
“thank you,” said ephraim, “i never touch it.”
miller looked at him for a moment in amazement. he concluded that this must be one of the phases of batterby’s newly-developed queerness. so he emptied his own glass and put it down.
they entered the parlor to wait for dinner. ephraim’s eye was caught by a very pretty miniature on the wall.
“who is that?” he asked.
“mrs. miller; my wife.”
“is it a photograph?”
“i don’t know what a photograph is.”
“ah!” sighed ephraim, “i remember. let me ask you something else. did you ever hear of a place named chicago?”
“never! there is no such place.”
“you know nothing of railroads, or steamships, or telegraphs?”
“you are talking greek to me.”
“did you ever hear of a telegraph cable to europe?”
“well, you are asking queer questions, sure enough. no, i never did.”
“is there, or is there not, a railway line across the continent to the pacific?”
245 “what a funny kind of an idea! no, there isn’t.”
“are there any such things as daily papers?”
“no, sir.”
“one question more: i see you have a wood fire. do you never burn coal?”
“charcoal, sometimes, for some purposes.”
“i mean hard coal—stone coal?”
“there is no such thing in existence, so far as i know. what are you up to, anyhow? going to invent something?”
“i will tell you after awhile, may be,” replied ephraim; and then to himself he said, “i am beginning to catch the meaning of all this experience. how strange it is!”
a lady entered from the front door, and passed the parlor. ephraim saw that she had on a very narrow dress, with a high waist almost beneath her armpits, that she wore upon her head an enormous and hideous green “calash” which bore some resemblance to a gig-top.
he had not seen one of those wonderful bits of head-gear for fifty years.
in a few moments the lady entered the parlor. as mr. miller presented batterby to his wife, ephraim was shocked to perceive that she seemed to have on but a single, thin, white garment, and that even this appeared to be in immediate danger of slipping downward. he thought it shockingly246 immodest, but he remembered the figures of women he had seen in the remote past, and thought he knew what this meant. so he gave no indication of surprise.
they went to the dining-room. ephraim was very careful in conducting his share of the conversation. mrs. miller, unlike her husband, had not been forewarned. however, once, when she was lamenting the absence of fruits and vegetables from the markets in winter, ephraim incautiously asked her why she did not use canned goods; and this opened the way to some vexatious questions. a little later, miller began talking about the warners, people whom ephraim in his soul knew had been dead forty years; and miller had mentioned that two of them were down with smallpox. thereupon ephraim asked if the malady was prevalent, and if miller had been vaccinated. and thus again he got into trouble, for neither his host nor hostess knew his meaning. he was tripped up again by a reference to sewing-machines; and, finally, by remarking, innocently, when miller observed that it had just begun to rain, that he was sorry he had not his rubbers with him.
but he would not try to explain his meaning when they pressed him. he had, indeed, an increasing tendency to taciturnity. he shrank247 more and more from the thought of attempting a discussion of the situation in which some wondrous mischance had placed him. as miller waxed boisterous and lively in his talk, ephraim was strongly impelled to complete reserve.
for he had creeping over him, gradually, a horrible feeling that these people, in whose company he was lingering, were not real people; that they were dead, and that by some awful jugglery they had been summoned forth and compelled to play over, before him, a travesty of their former lives.
he became gloomy and wretched beneath the oppression of the thoughts that crowded his brain. as the hour slipped away, his distress was made more intense by the conduct of miller, who, warmed with wine, mingled oaths with his conversation. ephraim felt as if that blasphemy came to him clothed with a new horror from the region of mystery beyond the grave. finally, after mrs. miller had left the room, her husband’s utterance became thick and harsh, and presently he slipped, drunken and helpless, beneath the table.
ephraim sat alone at the board. the room grew darker, for the rain was now swirling without, against the window-panes. there was something ghastly and fearful in the appearance of the apartment. the outlines of the furniture, seen through the dusk, were distorted and misshapen. ephraim248 felt as if he were in the presence of phantoms. he had the sensations of one who sits in a charnel-house, and knows that he is the only living thing among the dead.
his good sense half revolted against the fear that overspread him; but it seemed not strong enough to quell the tremulous terror in his soul; for that grew and grew until it filled him with a kind of panic. he had such a meaningless dread as the bravest know when they find themselves amid darkness and loneliness in a dwelling wherein, of late, have been pleasant company and merriment and laughter; wherein has been joyousness that has suddenly been quenched by utter, dismal silence.
he was seized by a sudden impulse to fly. he pushed away his chair, and glanced timorously around him. then he trod swiftly, and with a fiercely-beating heart, to the hall-way. grasping his hat from the table, he opened the door, and fled out into the tempest.
as he sped away through the gloomy street, now wet and slippery, and covered with pools of rain, it smote his heart with a new fear to think that even the city about him, with its high walls and impending roofs, its bricks and stones and uplifting spires, was unreal to ghastliness. but even his great dread did not forbid his mind to recall the mysteries of the day.
“i know,” he said, as he rushed onward, “what249 it all means. this is the past. some mighty hand has swept away the barrier of years, and plunged me once more into the midst of the life that i knew in my youth, long ago. and i have loved and worshipped that past. blind and foolish man! i loved it! ah, how i hate it now! what a miserable, miserable time it was! how poor and insufficient life seems under its conditions! how meanly men crawled about, content with their littleness and folly, and unconscious of the wisdom that lay within their reach, ignorant of the vast and wonderful possibilities that human ingenuity might compass!”
“there was nothing in that dreary past that i could love, excepting”—and ephraim was almost ready to weep as he thought that the one longing of his soul could not be realized—“excepting those who were torn from my arms, my heart, my home, by the cruel hand of death.”
the excitement, the distress, the anguish, the wild terror of the day, came back to him with accumulated force as he hurried along the footway; and when he reached his own home he was distracted, unnerved, hysterical.
with eager but uncertain fingers he pushed open the front door, and went into his sitting-room. there a fresh shock came to him, for he saw his wife in the chair she had occupied in the old time, long, long ago. she arose to greet him, and he250 saw that her dear face wore the kindly smile he had known so well, and that had added much to his sum of happiness in the years that were gone. he leaped to clasp her in his arms when he heard the sweet tones of her voice welcoming him; his eyes filled with tears, and the sobs came, as he said,—
“ah, my dearest, my dearest! have you, too, come up from the dead past to meet me? it was you alone that hallowed it to me. i loved—loved you—i—”
he felt his utterance choked, the room swam before him, there was a ringing noise in his ears, he felt himself falling; then he lost consciousness.
he knew nothing more until he realized that there was a gentle knocking near to him, as of some one who demanded admittance at the door. he roused himself with an effort, and almost mechanically said,—
“come in.”
he heard a light step, and he opened his eyes. he was in his own bed-room, the room of the present, not of the past, and in his own bed. it was nelly who knocked at the door; she stood beside him.
“it is time to get up, grandpa,” she said.
“wh—where am i? what has happened?” then, as his mind realized the truth, he said, “oh, nelly, nelly, how i have suffered.”
“how, grandpa?”
251 “i—i—but never mind now, my dear; i will tell you after awhile. run down-stairs while i prepare for breakfast. but, nelly, let me tell you not to believe what i said to you about the glories of the past; it was not true, my child, not true. i have learned better; i talked to you like a foolish old man. thank god, my dear, that you live late in the world’s history. no man is more unwise or more ungrateful than he who finds delight in playing the part of an old fogy.”
