Hepsey Burke Part 16

As Charley rose to the occasion and quickened his pace, the heat of the sun, the violent exercise of riding bareback, and the nervous excitement produced by the horror of the situation, threw Nickey into a profuse sweat. The bluing began to run. The decorations on his forehead trickled down into his eyes; and as he tried to rub off the moisture with the back of his hand the indigo was smeared liberally over his face. His personal ident.i.ty was hopelessly obscured in the indigo smudge; and the most vivid imagination could not conjecture what had happened to the boy. It was by no means an easy feat to retain his seat on Charley's back; it would have been still more difficult to dismount, at his steed's brisk pace; and Nickey was most painfully conscious of his attire, as Charley turned up the road which led straight to the village. At each corner the procession was reinforced by a number of village boys who added their quota to the general uproar and varied the monotony of the proceeding by occasionally throwing a tin can at the rider on the white horse. When Charley pa.s.sed the rectory, and the green, and turned into Church Street, Nickey felt that he had struck rock bottom of shameful humiliation.

For many years it had been Charley's habit to take Mrs. Burke down to church on Wednesday afternoons for the five o'clock service; and although he had been out of commission and docked for repairs for some time, his subliminal self must have got in its work, and the old habit a.s.serted itself: to the church he went, attended at a respectful distance by the Bearded Lady, the Fat Man, the Snake Charmer, the King of the Cannibal Islands, the Living Skeleton, and the Wild Man from Borneo, to say nothing of a large and effective chorus of roaring villagers bringing up the rear.

It really was quite clever of Charley to recall that, this being Wednesday, it was the proper day to visit the church,--as clever as it was disturbing to Nickey when he, too, recalled that it was about time for the service to be over, and that his mother must be somewhere on the premises, to say nothing of the a.s.sembled mothers of the entire stock company--and the rector, and the rector's wife.

Mrs. Burke, poor woman, was quite unconscious of what awaited her, as she emerged from the service with the rest of the congregation. It was an amazed parent that caught sight of her son and heir scrambling off the back of his steed onto the horse-block in front of the church, clad in short swimming trunks and much bluing. The freaks, the regular artists, the gymnasts, and the circus audience generally shrieked and howled and fought each other, in frantic effort to succeed to Nickey's place on Charley's back--for Charley now stood undismayed and immovable, with a gentle, pious look in his soft old eyes.

For one instant, Mrs. Burke and her friends stood paralyzed with horror; and then like the good mothers in Israel that they were, each jumped to the rescue of her own particular darling--that is, as soon as she could identify him. Consternation reigned supreme. Mrs. Cooley caught the Bearded Lady by the arm and shook him fiercely, just as he was about to land an uppercut on the jaw of the King of the Cannibal Islands. Mrs. Burns found her offspring, the Fat Man, lying dispossessed on his back in the gutter, while Sime Wilkins, the Man Who Ate Gla.s.s, sat comfortably on his stomach. Sime immediately apologized to Mrs. Burns and disappeared. Next, Mrs. Perkins took the Snake Charmer by his collar, and rapped him soundly with the piece of garden hose which she captured as he was using it to chastise the predatory Wild Man from Borneo. Other members of the company received equally unlooked-for censure of their dramatic efforts.

Nickey, meantime, had fled to the pump behind the church, where he made his ablutions as best he could; then, seeing the vestry room door ajar, he, in his extremity, bolted for the quiet seclusion of the sanctuary.

To his surprise and horror, he found Maxwell seated at a table looking over the parish records; and when Nickey appeared, still rather blue, attired in short red trunks, otherwise unadorned, Donald gazed at him in mute astonishment. For one moment there was silence as they eyed each other; and then Maxwell burst into roars of uncontrollable laughter, which were not quite subdued as Nickey gave a rather incoherent account of the misfortune which had brought him to such a predicament.

"So you were the Tattooed Man, were you! Well, I suppose you know that it's not generally customary to appear in church in red tights; but as you couldn't help it, I shall have to see what can be done for you, to get you home clothed and in your right mind. I'll tell you!

You can put on one of the choir boy's ca.s.socks, and skip home the back way. If anybody stops you tell them you were practising for the choir, and it will be all right. But really, Nickey, if I were in your place, the next time I posed as a mounted Tattooed Man, I'd be careful to choose some old quadruped that couldn't run away with you!"

"Then you aren't mad at me!"

"Certainly not. I'll leave that to my betters! You just get home as fast as you can."

"Gee! but you're white all right--you know it didn't say nothing in the book, about what kind of paint to use!"

Maxwell's eyes opened. "What book are you talking about, Nickey?" he asked.

"The one you let me take, with the Indians in it."

Maxwell had to laugh again. "So that's where the idea for this 'Carnival of Wild West Sports' originated, eh?"

"Yes, sir," Nickey nodded. "Everybody wanted to be the tattooed man, but seeing as I had the book, and old Charley was my horse, I couldn't see any good reason why I shouldn't get tattooed. Gee! I'll bet ma will be mad!"

After being properly vested in a ca.s.sock two sizes too large for him, Nickey started on a dead run for home, and, having reached the barn, dressed himself in his customary attire. When he appeared at supper Mrs. Burke did not say anything; but after the dishes were washed she took him apart and listened to his version of the affair.

"Nicholas Burke," she said, "if this thing occurs again I shall punish you in a way you won't like."

"Well, I'm awfully sorry," said Nickey, "but it didn't seem to feaze Mr. Maxwell a little bit. He just sat and roared as if he'd split his sides. I guess I 'aint goin' to be put out of the church just yet, anyway."

Mrs. Burke looked a bit annoyed.

"Never mind about Mr. Maxwell. _You_ won't laugh if anything like this occurs again, I can tell you," she replied.

"Now, ma," soothed Nickey, "don't you worry about it occurrin' again.

You don't suppose I did it on purpose, do you? Gosh no! I wouldn't get onto Charley's back again, with my clothes off, any more than I'd sit on a hornet's nest. How'd you like to ride through the town with nothin' on but your swimmin' trunks and drippin' with bluin water, I'd like to know?"

Mrs. Burke did not care to prolong the interview any further, so she said in her severest tones:

"Nicholas Burke, you go to bed instantly. I've heard enough of you and seen enough of you, for one day."

Nickey went.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XIV

ON THE SIDE PORCH

In the evening, after his work was done, a day or two after his talk with Mrs. Maxwell, Jonathan went into the house and took a long look at himself in the gla.s.s, with the satisfactory conclusion that he didn't look so old after all. Why shouldn't he take Mrs. Betty's advice and marry? To be sure, there was no fool like an old fool, but no man could be called a fool who was discriminating enough, and resourceful enough, to win the hand of Hepsey Burke. To his certain knowledge she had had plenty of eligible suitors since her husband's death. She was the acknowledged past-master of doughnuts; and her pickled cuc.u.mbers done in salad oil were dreams of delight. What more could a man want?

So he found that the question was deciding itself apparently without any volition whatever on his part. His fate was sealed; he had lost his heart and his appet.i.te to his neighbor. Having come to this conclusion, it was wonderful how the thought excited him. He took a bath and changed his clothes, and then proceeded to town and bought himself a white neck-tie, and a scarf-pin that cost seventy-five cents. He was going to do the thing in the proper way if he did it at all.

After supper he mustered sufficient courage to present himself at the side porch where Mrs. Burke was knitting on a scarlet sweater for Nickey.

"Good evenin', Hepsey," he began. "How are you feelin' to-night?"

"Oh, not so frisky as I might, Jonathan; I'd be all right if it weren't for my rheumatiz."

"Well, we all have our troubles, Hepsey; and if it isn't one thing it's most generally another. You mustn't rebel against rheumatiz. It's one of those things sent to make us better, and we must bear up against it, you know."

Hepsey did not respond to this philosophy, and Jonathan felt that it was high time that he got down to business. So he began again:

"It seems to me as if we might have rain before long if the wind don't change."

"Shouldn't be surprised, Jonathan. One--two--three--four--" Mrs. Burke replied, her attention divided between her visitor and her sweater.

"Got your hay all in?"

"Yes, most of it. 'Twon't be long before the long fall evenin's will be comin' on, and I kinder dread 'em. They're awful lonesome, Hepsey."

"Purl two, knit two, an inch and a half--" Mrs. Burke muttered to herself as she read the printed directions which lay in her lap, and then she added encouragingly:

"So you get lonesome, do you, Jonathan, durin' the long evenin's, when it gets dark early."

"Oh, awful lonesome," Jonathan responded. "Don't you ever get lonesome yourself, Hepsey?"

"I can't say as it kept me awake nights. 'Tisn't bein' alone that makes you lonesome. The most awful lonesomeness in the world is bein'

in a crowd that's not your kind."

"That's so, Hepsey. But two isn't a crowd. Don't you think you'd like to get married, if you had a right good chance, now?"

Hepsey gave her visitor a quick, sharp glance, and inquired:

"What would you consider a right good chance, Jonathan?"

"Oh, suppose that some respectable widower with a tidy sum in the bank should ask you to marry him; what would you say, Hepsey?"

"Can't say until I'd seen the widower, to say nothin' of the bank book--one, two, three, four, five, six--"