The Boss of Little Arcady Part 9

"Why, how do you _do?_ Yes, it's lovely weather we're having. Are your children got the scarlet fever? That's too bad. So has mine. I'm afraid they'll die. Well, I must be going now. _Good_ day!"

Sometimes she ran back to say, "Now do come over some day and bring your work!"

The b.u.t.terflies pursued by my namesake were various, and some of them were more secret.

For one he made me stand with him while he gazed long into the drug-store window. I divined at last that those giant chalices, one of green and one of ruby liquor, were the objects of his wors.h.i.+p. He could not have told me this, but I knew that in his mind these were compounds of unparalleled richness, potent with Heaven knows what wondrous charms.

It was not that he dreamed ever of securing any of the stuff; the spell endured only while they must stand there, remote, splendid, inaccessible.

Then we strolled down the quiet street to a road that went close to the railway. And there, with beating hearts, we beheld the two-twenty Eastern freight rattle superbly by us. From the cab of its inspiring locomotive one of fortune's favorites rang a priceless gold bell with an air of indifference which we believed in our hearts was a.s.sumed to impress us. And notwithstanding our suspicion, we _were_ impressed, for did we not know that he could reach up his other hand and blow the splendid whistle if he happened to feel like it?

After the locomotive came the closed and mysterious box-cars, important with big numbers and initials in cabalistic sequence, indicating a wide and exciting range of travels. Then came stock cars, from between the slats of which strange and envied cattle looked out on their way to a wondrous city; and there was a car of squealing pigs, who seemed not to want to ride on a real train; and some cars of sheep that were stupidly indifferent about the whole thing. At the last was a palatial "caboose", and toward this, over the tops of the moving cars, a happy brakeman made his exciting progress, not having to hold on, or anything. He casually waved an arm at us, a salute that one of our number, in acknowledging, sought to imitate, for the cool, indifferent flourish of its arm, as if it were a common enough thing for us to be noticed by the mighty from their eminences.

This was my namesake's most beautiful of b.u.t.terflies. Any one could understand that. As the train lost itself in smoke I knew well what he felt. I knew that that smoke of soft coal was so delicious, so wonderful of portent in his nostrils, that throughout his life it would bring up the wander-bidding in him--always a strange sweet pa.s.sion of _starting_.

Even now the journey-wonder was in his eyes. I knew that he saw himself jauntily stepping the perilous tops of cars, clad in a coat of padded shoulders bound with wide braid, a lantern on his arm, coal dust smudging the back of his neck, and two fingers felicitously gone from his left hand.

I coughed, to recall him from visions. He looked up at me, a little shyly, debating--but why should it not be told?

"Uncle Maje--when I grow up, I'm going off to be a brakeman."

"I know it," I said quietly.

"Won't it be just fine!"

"It's the very finest life in all the world. I hoped for it myself once, but I was disappointed."

He gave me a quick look of sympathy.

"Wouldn't they let you?"

"Well, they were afraid I'd be hurt--only I knew I wouldn't be--anything to speak of--a couple of fingers, perhaps--"

"Off the left hand," he suggested understandingly.

"Of course,--off the left hand."

"That brakeman on No. 3 has got two off _his_ left hand," was the final comment.

We retraced our steps; but there was yet another b.u.t.terfly of my namesake's. He led us to a by-path that followed the river bank up to the bridge, running far ahead of us. When we reached him he was seated, dumb with yearning, before a newly painted sign,

"GO TO BUDD'S FOR AN UP-TO-DATE 25 CT. DINNER."

He was obliged to limp that day, for his stone-bruise was coming on finely; but he had gone half a mile out of his way to wors.h.i.+p at this wayside shrine. Again he was dreaming. In the days of his opulence he saw himself going to Budd's. Fortunately for his illusions the price was now prohibitive. I had been to Budd's myself.

"Have you ever been there?" I asked of the dreamer.

"I've been in his store, in the front part, where the candy is--and if you go 'round when he's freezing ice cream, he'll give you a whole ten-cent dish just for turning the freezer; but Pop won't let me stay out of school to do it, and Budd don't freeze Sat.u.r.days. But some day--"

he paused. Then, with seemingly another idea:--

"He's got an awful funny sign up over the counter."

He would not tell me what the sign was, though, He shuffled and talked of other things. I entered Budd's on the morrow, purposely to read it, and I knew that my namesake had quailed before it. The sign was in white, frosted letters, on a blue ground, and it ran:--

TO TRUST IS TO BUST TO BUST IS h.e.l.l NO TRUST, NO BUST, NO h.e.l.l.

Its syllogistic hardness was repellant, but I dare say it preserved a gorgeous b.u.t.terfly from utter extinction.

Home again at early twilight, we ate of a cold supper set out for us by Mrs. Sullivan. And here I reflected that good days often end badly, for my namesake betrayed extreme dissatisfaction with the food.

"Why don't we have that pudding oftener--with lather on top of it?" was his first outbreak. And at last he felt obliged to declare bitterly, "We don't have a thing that's fit to eat!"

"Calvin," said his father, "if I have to whip, it will hurt you worse than it does me."

Whereupon the complainer was wisely silent, but later I heard him a.s.serting, between catches of his breath, and out of his father's hearing:--

"I don't care--(_a sniff_)--when I'm rich, I'll go to Budd's for an up-to-date dinner, you bet--(_a snuffle_)--I'll probably go there every day of my life--(_two snuffles_)--yes, sir--Sundays and all!"

I cheered him as best I could.

His sister had saved her day to a happy end, babbling off to bed with the distressing Irene, to whom she would show a book of pictures until sleep shut off her little eyelid.

A wise old man--I believe he was a bishop--once said he knew "that outside the real world is a world of fine fabling."

I had stolen a day from that world. Now I hurried through the gloom of the hall, past the poor striving hands, to sit with Solon Denney and tell him of a peculiar thing I had observed during the afternoon's walk.

CHAPTER VIII

ADVENTURE OF BILLY DURGIN, SLEUTH

I spoke to Solon of Billy Durgin, whose peculiar, not to say mysterious, behavior I had been compelled to notice. I had first observed him that afternoon as we pa.s.sed the City Hotel. Through the window of the little wash-room, where I saw that he was polis.h.i.+ng a pair of shoes, he had winked at me from over his task, and then erected himself to make a puzzling gesture with one hand. Again, while we stood dream-bound before the window of the corner drug store, he had sent me a low whistle from across the street, following this with another puzzling arm wave; whereat he had started toward us. But instead of accosting me, as I had thought he meant to, he rushed by, with eyes rigidly ahead and his thin jaws grimly set. Throughout the stroll he haunted us, adhering to this strange line of conduct. I would turn a corner, to find Billy apparently waiting for me a block off. Then would follow a signal of no determinable import, after which he would walk swiftly past me as if unaware of my presence. Once I started to address him, but was met with "_Not a word_!" hissed at me in his best style from between clenched teeth.

I decided at last that Billy was playing a game of his own. For Billy Durgin, though sixteen years old, had happy access to our world of fine fabling; and to this I knew he resorted at those times when his duties as porter at the City Hotel palled upon his romantic spirit.

Billy, in short, was a detective, well soaked in the plenteous literature of his craft and living in the dream that criminals would one day shudder at the bare mention of his name.

Nor was he unprovided with a badge of office. Upon his immature chest, concealed by his waist-coat, was an eight-pointed star emblazoned with an open eye. Billy had once proudly confided to me that the star was "pure German Silver." A year before he had answered an advertis.e.m.e.nt which made known that a trusty man was wanted in every community "to act for us in a confidential capacity. Address for particulars, with stamp."

The particulars were that you sent the International Detective a.s.sociation five dollars for a badge. After that you were their confidential agent, and if a "case" occurred in your territory, you were the man they turned to.

Billy's five hard-earned dollars had gone to the great city, and back had come his star. He wore it secretly at first, but was moved at length to display it to a few chosen friends; not wisely chosen, it would appear, for now there were mockers of Billy among the irreverent of the town. As he sat aloft on his boot-blacking throne, waiting for crime to be done among us, conning meantime one of those romances in which his heroes did rare deeds, he would be subjected to intrusion. Some coa.r.s.e town humorist would leer upon him from the doorway--a leer of furtive, devilish cunning--and whisper hoa.r.s.ely, "Hist! Are we alone?"

Struck thus below the belt of his dignity, our hero could only respond:--

"Aw, that's all right! You g'wan out a' here now an' quit your foolin'!"

But criminals seemed to have conspired against Little Arcady, to cheat it of its rightful distinction. In vain had Billy waited for a "case" to be sent him by the International Detective Agency. In vain had he sought to develop one by his own ferreting genius. Each week he searched the columns of the police paper in Harpin Gust's barber-shop, fixing in his mind the lineaments of criminals there advertised as wanted in various corners of our land. These were counterfeiters, murderers, embezzlers, horse-thieves, confidence men, what not--criminals to satisfy a sleuth of the most catholic tastes; but they were all wanted elsewhere--at Altoona, Pennsylvania, or Deming, New Mexico; at Portland, Maine, or Dodge City, Kansas. In truth, the country elsewhere swarmed with Billy's lawful prey, and only Little Arcady seemed good.