Paul Prescott's Charge Read online

  XI.

  WAYSIDE GOSSIP.

  This was the pedler's promised story about Mrs. Mudge.

  "The last time I was round that way, I stopped, thinking maybe theymight have some rags to dispose of for tin-ware. The old lady seemedglad to see me, and pretty soon she brought down a lot of white rags.I thought they seemed quite heavy for their bulk,--howsomever, I wasn'tlooking for any tricks, and I let it go. By-and-by, when I happened tobe ransacking one of the bags, I came across half a dozen pounds or moreof old iron tied up in a white cloth. That let the cat out of the bag. Iknew why they were so heavy, then, I reckon I shan't call on Mrs. Mudgenext time I go by."

  "So you've run off," he continued, after a pause, "I like yourspunk,--just what I should have done myself. But tell me how you managedto get off without the old chap's finding it out."

  Paul related such of his adventures as he had not before told, hiscompanion listening with marked approval.

  "I wish I'd been there," he said. "I'd have given fifty cents, rightout, to see how old Mudge looked, I calc'late he's pretty well tiredwith his wild-goose chase by this time."

  It was now twelve o'clock, and both the travelers began to feel thepangs of hunger.

  "It's about time to bait, I calc'late," remarked the pedler.

  The unsophisticated reader is informed that the word "bait," in NewEngland phraseology, is applied to taking lunch or dining.

  At this point a green lane opened out of the public road, skirted oneither side by a row of trees. Carpeted with green, it made a verypleasant dining-room. A red-and-white heifer browsing at a littledistance looked up from her meal and surveyed the intruders with mildattention, but apparently satisfied that they contemplated no invasionof her rights, resumed her agreeable employment. Over an irregular stonewall our travelers looked into a thrifty apple-orchard laden with fruit.They halted beneath a spreading chestnut-tree which towered above itsneighbors, and offered them a grateful shelter from the noonday sun.

  From the box underneath the seat, the pedler took out a loaf of bread,a slice of butter, and a tin pail full of doughnuts. Paul, on his side,brought out his bread and gingerbread.

  "I most generally carry round my own provisions," remarked the pedler,between two mouthfuls. "It's a good deal cheaper and more convenient,too. Help yourself to the doughnuts. I always calc'late to have somewith me. I'd give more for 'em any day than for rich cake that ain'tfit for anybody. My mother used to beat everybody in the neighborhood onmaking doughnuts. She made 'em so good that we never knew when to stopeating. You wouldn't hardly believe it, but, when I was a little shaver,I remember eating twenty-three doughnuts at one time. Pretty nigh killedme."

  "I should think it might," said Paul, laughing.

  "Mother got so scared that she vowed she wouldn't fry another for threemonths, but I guess she kinder lost the run of the almanac, for in lessthan a week she turned out about a bushel more."

  All this time the pedler was engaged in practically refuting the saying,that a man cannot do two things at once. With a little assistance fromPaul, the stock of doughnuts on which he had been lavishing encomiums,diminished rapidly. It was evident that his attachment to this homelyarticle of diet was quite as strong as ever.

  "Don't be afraid of them," said he, seeing that Paul desisted from hisefforts, "I've got plenty more in the box."

  Paul signified that his appetite was already appeased.

  "Then we might as well be jogging on. Hey, Goliah," said he, addressingthe horse, who with an air of great content, had been browsing while hismaster was engaged in a similar manner. "Queer name for a horse, isn'tit? I wanted something out of the common way, so I asked mother for aname, and she gave me that. She's great on scripture names, motheris. She gave one to every one of her children. It didn't make muchdifference to her what they were as long as they were in the Bible. Ibelieve she used to open the Bible at random, and take the first nameshe happened to come across. There are eight of us, and nary a decentname in the lot. My oldest brother's name is Abimelech. Then there'sPharaoh, and Ishmael, and Jonadab, for the boys, and Leah and Naomi, forthe girls; but my name beats all. You couldn't guess it?"

  Paul shook his head.

  "I don't believe you could," said the pedler, shaking his head in comicindignation. "It's Jehoshaphat. Ain't that a respectable name for theson of Christian parents?"

  Paul laughed.

  "It wouldn't be so bad," continued the pedler, "if my other name waslonger; but Jehoshaphat seems rather a long handle to put before Stubbs.I can't say I feel particularly proud of the name, though for use it'lldo as well as any other. At any rate, it ain't quite so bad as the namemother pitched on for my youngest sister, who was lucky enough to diebefore she needed a name."

  "What was it?" inquired Paul, really curious to know what name could beconsidered less desirable than Jehoshaphat.

  "It was Jezebel," responded the pedler.

  "Everybody told mother 'twould never do; but she was kind ofsuperstitious about it, because that was the first name she came toin the Bible, and so she thought it was the Lord's will that that nameshould be given to the child."

  As Mr. Stubbs finished his disquisition upon names, there came in sighta small house, dark and discolored with age and neglect. He pointed thisout to Paul with his whip-handle.

  "That," said he, "is where old Keziah Onthank lives. Ever heard of him?"

  Paul had not.

  "He's the oldest man in these parts," pursued his loquacious companion."There's some folks that seem a dyin' all the time, and for all thatmanage to outlive half the young folks in the neighborhood. Old KeziahOnthank is a complete case in p'int. As long ago as when I was cuttingmy teeth he was so old that nobody know'd how old he was. He was sobowed over that he couldn't see himself in the looking-glass unless youput it on the floor, and I guess even then what he saw wouldn't payhim for his trouble. He was always ailin' some way or other. Now it wasrheumatism, now the palsy, and then again the asthma. He had THAT awful.

  "He lived in the same tumble-down old shanty we have just passed,--sopoor that nobody'd take the gift of it. People said that he'd orter goto the poorhouse, so that when he was sick--which was pretty much allthe time--he'd have somebody to take care of him. But he'd got kinderattached to the old place, seein' he was born there, and never livedanywhere else, and go he wouldn't.

  "Everybody expected he was near his end, and nobody'd have beensurprised to hear of his death at any minute. But it's strange how somefolks are determined to live on, as I said before. So Keziah, though helooked so old when I was a boy that it didn't seem as if he could lookany older, kept on livin,' and livin', and arter I got married to BetsySprague, he was livin' still.

  "One day, I remember I was passin' by the old man's shanty, when I hearda dreadful groanin', and thinks I to myself, 'I shouldn't wonder if theold man was on his last legs.' So in I bolted. There he was, to be sure,a lyin', on the bed, all curled up into a heap, breathin' dreadful hard,and lookin' as white and pale as any ghost. I didn't know exactlywhat to do, so I went and got some water, but he motioned it away, andwouldn't drink it, but kept on groanin'.

  "'He mustn't be left here to die without any assistance,' thinks I, so Iran off as fast I could to find the doctor.

  "I found him eatin' dinner----

  "Come quick," says I, "to old Keziah Onthank's. He's dyin', as sure asmy name is Jehoshaphat."

  "Well," said the doctor, "die or no die, I can't come till I've eaten mydinner."

  "But he's dyin', doctor."

  "Oh, nonsense. Talk of old Keziah Onthank's dyin'. He'll live longerthan I shall."

  "I recollect I thought the doctor very unfeelin' to talk so of a fellowcreetur, just stepping into eternity, as a body may say. However, it'sno use drivin' a horse that's made up his mind he won't go, so althoughI did think the doctor dreadful deliberate about eatin' his dinner (healways would take half an hour for it), I didn't dare to say a wordfor fear he wouldn't come at all. You see the doctor was dreadfulinde
pendent, and was bent on havin' his own way, pretty much, though forthat matter I think it's the case with most folks. However, to come backto my story, I didn't feel particularly comfortable while I was waitin'his motions.

  "After a long while the doctor got ready. I was in such a hurry that Iactilly pulled him along, he walked so slow; but he only laughed, andI couldn't help thinkin' that doctorin' had a hardinin' effect on theheart. I was determined if ever I fell sick I wouldn't send for him.

  "At last we got there. I went in all of a tremble, and crept to the bed,thinkin' I should see his dead body. But he wasn't there at all. I felta little bothered you'd better believe."

  "Well," said the doctor, turning to me with a smile, "what do you thinknow?"

  "I don't know what to think," said I.

  "Then I'll help you," said he.

  "So sayin', he took me to the winder, and what do you think I see? Assure as I'm alive, there was the old man in the back yard, a squattin'down and pickin' up chips."

  "And is he still living?"

  "Yes, or he was when I come along last. The doctor's been dead theseten years. He told me old Keziah would outlive him, but I didn't believehim. I shouldn't be surprised if he lived forever."

  Paul listened with amused interest to this and other stories with whichhis companion beguiled the way. They served to divert his mind fromthe realities of his condition, and the uncertainty which hung over hisworldly prospects.