Elbow-Room Part 16

"I'll see you in Egypt first."

Peter whipped; but if Keyser _did_ give in first, Peter went home with a bleeding nose, and the next day he was arrested for killing the pig. The case is coming up soon, and Peter's brother is on, ready to testify about that cane. Peter himself walks now with a hickory stick.

CHAPTER XIV.

_RESPECTING CERTAIN SAVAGES_.

When young Mr. Spooner, Judge Twiddler's nephew, left college, he made up his mind to enter the ministry and become a missionary. One day he met Captain Hubbs; and when he mentioned that he thought of going out as a missionary, Captain Hubbs asked him, "Where are you going?"

_S_. "To the Navigator Islands. I sail in October."

_Capt_. (shaking his head mournfully). "Pore young man! Pore young man! It is too bad--too bad indeed! Going to the Navigator Islands!

Not married yet, I reckon? No? Ah! so much the better. No wife and children to make widows and orphans of. But it's sad, anyway. A promising young fellow like you! My heart bleeds for you."

_S_. "What d'you mean?"

_Capt_. "Oh, nothing. I don't want to frighten you. I know you're doing it from a sense of duty. But I've been there to the Navigator Islands, and I'm acquainted with the people's little ways, and I--well, I--I--the fact is, you see, that--well, sooner'n disguise the truth, I don't mind telling you straight out that the last day I was there the folks et one of my legs--sawed it off an' et it. Now you can see how things are yourself. Those Navigators gobbled that leg right up. It was a leg a good deal like yours, only heavier, I reckon."

_S_. "You astonish me!"

_Capt._ "Oh, that's nothing. They did that just for a little bit of fun. The chief told me the day before that they never et anything but human beings. He said his family consumed about three a day all the year round, counting holidays and Sundays. He was a light eater himself, he said, on account of gitting dyspepsia from a tough Australian that he et in 1847, but the girls and the old woman, so he said, were very hearty eaters, and it kept him busy prowling around after human beings to satisfy 'em. The old woman, he said, rather preferred to eat babies, on account of her teeth being poor, but the girls could eat the grizzliest sailor that ever went aboard s.h.i.+p."

_S_. "This is frightful."

_Capt_. "And the chief said sometimes the supply was scarce, but lately they had begun to depend more on imported goods than on the home products. And they were better, anyhow, for all the folks preferred white meat. He said the missionary societies were s.h.i.+pping them some nice lots of provender, and the tears came in his eyes when he said how good they were to the poor friendless savage away on a distant island. He said he liked a missionary not too old or too young. But let's see; what's your age, did you say?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: MR. SPOONER IS ALARMED]

_S_. "I am twenty-eight."

_Capt._ "I think he mentioned twenty-seven; but howsomedever, he liked 'em old enough to be solid and young enough to be tender. And he said he liked missionaries because they never used rum or tobacco and always kept their flavor. I know I seen one young fellow who came out there from Boston. He got up a camp-meeting in the woods; and while he was giving out the hymn, one of the congregation banged him on the head with a club, and in less than no time he was sizzling over a fire right in front of the pulpit. They lit the fire with his hymn-book and kept her going with his sermons. He was a man just about your build--a little leaner'n you, maybe. And they like a man to be stoutish. He eats more tender."

_S_. "I had no idea that such awful practices existed."

_Capt_. "I haven't told you half, for I don't want to discourage you.

I know you mean well, and maybe they'll let you alone. But I remember, when I told the chief that there was a whole lot of you chaps studying to be missionaries, he laughed and rubbed his hands, and ordered the old woman to plant more horseradish and onions the following year. He was a forehanded kind of a man for a mere pagan. He said that if they would only give his tribe time, if they would send him along the supplies regular, so's not to glut the market, they could put away the entire clergy of the United States and half the deacons without an effort. He was nibbling at a missionary-bone when he spoke, and the old woman was making a new club out of another one. They are an economical people. They utilize everything."

_S_. "This is the most painful intelligence that I ever received. If I felt certain about it, I would remain at home."

_Capt_. "Don't let me induce you to throw the thing up. I wouldn't a told you, anyway, only you kind of drew the information out of me. And as long as I've gone this far, I might as well tell you that I got a letter the other day from a man who'd just come from there, and he said the crops were short, eatable people were scarce, and not one of them savages had had a square meal for months. When he left, they were sitting on the rocks, hungry as thunder, waiting for a missionary-society s.h.i.+p to arrive. And now I must be going.

Good-bye. I know I'll never see you again. Take a last look at me.

Good-morning."

Then the captain hobbled off.

Mr. Spooner has concluded to stay at home and teach school.

Another rather more enthusiastic friend of the savage is Mr. Dodge. He came into the office the _Patriot_ one day and sought a desk where a reporter was writing. Seating himself and tilting the chair until it was nicely balanced upon two legs, he smiled a serene and philanthropic smile, and said,

"You see, I'm the friend of the poor Indian; he regards me as his Great White Brother, and I reciprocate his confidence and affection by doing what I can to alleviate his sufferings in his present unfortunate situation. Young man, you do not know the anguish that fills the soul of the red man as civilization makes successive inroads upon his rights. It is too sacred for exhibition. He represses his emotion sternly, and we philanthropists only detect it by observing that he betrays an increased longing for firewater and an aggravated indisposition to wash himself. Now, what do you suppose is the _last_ sorrow that has come to blast the happiness of this persecuted being?

What do you think it is?"

"I don't know, and I don't care."

"I will tell you. It is the increasing tendency of the white man to baldness. As civilization pushes upward, the hair of the pale face recedes. Eventually, I suppose, about every other white man will be bald. I notice that even you are gradually being reduced to a mere fringe around the base of your skull. Now, imagine how an Indian feels when he considers this tendency. Is it any wonder that the future seems dark and gloomy and hairless to him? The scalping operation to him is a sacred rite. It is interwoven with his most cherished traditions. When he surrenders it, he dies with a broken heart. What then, is to be done?"

"Oh, do hush up and quit."

"There is but one thing to be done to meet this grave emergency. We cannot justly permit that grand aboriginal man who once held sway over this mighty continent to be filled with desolation and misery by the inaccessibility of the scalps of his fellow-creatures. My idea, therefore, is to bring those scalps within his reach, even when they are baldest and s.h.i.+niest. But how?"

"That'll do now. Don't want to hear any more."

"Here my ingenuity comes into play. I have invented a simple little machine which I call 'The Patent Adjustable Atmospheric Scalp-lifter.'

Here it is. The device consists of a disk of thin leather about six inches in diameter. In the centre is a hole through which runs a string. When the Indian desires to deal with a man with a bald head, he proceeds as follows--observe the simplicity of the operation: He wets the leather, stamps it carefully down upon the surface of the scalp, slides his knife around over the ears, gives the string a jerk, and off comes the scalp as nicely as if it had been Absalom's. In fact, you will see at once that it is an ingenious application of the 'sucker' used by boys to raise bricks and stones. I know what you are going to say--that a white man who is to be manipulated by an Indian needs succor worse than the red man. It is an old joke, and a good one; but my desire is to bring joy to the wigwam of the Kickapoo and to make the heart of the Arapahoe glad."

"Oh, do dry up and go down stairs."

"You catch the idea, of course; but perhaps you'd like to see the apparatus in operation. Wait a moment; I'll show you how splendidly it works."

Then, as the reporter resolutely continued at his task with his nose almost against the desk, the friend of the disconsolate red man suddenly produced a moist sucker and clapped it firmly upon the bald place on the reporter's head, and then, before the indignant victim could offer resistance, the Great White Brother, with the string in his hand, careered around the office a couple of times, drawing the helpless journalist after him. As he withdrew the machine he smiled and said,

"Elegant, isn't it? Could pull a horse-car with it. I wish you'd come to Was.h.i.+ngton with me and lend me your head, so's I can show the Secretary of the Interior how the thing works. You have the best scalp for a good hold of any I've tried yet."

But the reporter was at the speaking-tube calling for a boy to go for a policeman, and he didn't seem to hear the suggestion. And so Mr.

Dodge folded up the machine, placed it in his carpet-bag, and went out smiling as though he had been received with enthusiasm and been promised a gratuitous advertis.e.m.e.nt. He pa.s.sed the policeman on the stairs, and then sailed serenely out of reach, perhaps to seek for another and more sympathetic bald man upon whom to ill.u.s.trate the value of his invention.

Reference to the Indians reminds me of the very ungenerous treatment that Mr. Bartholomew, one of our citizens, received at the hands of certain red men with whom he trafficked in the West.

A year or two ago Mr. Bartholomew was out in Colorado for a few months, and just before he started for the journey home he wrote to his wife concerning the probable time of his arrival. As a postscript to the letter he added the following message to his son, a boy about eight years old:

"Tell Charley I am going to bring with me a dear little baby-bear that I bought from an Indian."

Of course that information pleased Charley, and he directed most of his thoughts and his conversation to the subject of the bear during the next two weeks, wis.h.i.+ng anxiously for his father to come with the little pet. On the night which been fixed by Bartholomew for his arrival he did not come, and the family were very much disappointed.

Charley particularly was dreadfully sorry, because he couldn't get the bear. On the next evening, while Mrs. Bartholomew and the children were sitting in the front room with the door open into the hall, they heard somebody running through the front yard. Then the front door was suddenly burst open, and a man dashed into the hall and up stairs at a frightful speed. Mrs. Bartholomew was just about to go up after him to ascertain who it was, when a large dark animal of some kind darted in through the door and with an awful growl went bowling up stairs after the man. It suddenly flashed upon the mind of Mrs. Bartholomew that the man was her husband, and that that was the little baby-bear. Just then the voice of Bartholomew was heard calling from the top landing:

"Ellen, for gracious sake get out of the house as quick as you can, and shut all the doors and window-shutters."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE LITTLE BABY-BEAR]