 | CHAPTER XIV.
“A WELL-MEANIN' MAN.” Opening a chestnut burr |  |
14. CHAPTER XIV.
“A WELL-MEANIN' MAN.”
THE western horizon vied with the autumn foliage
as at last they turned their steps homeward.
Their path led out upon the main road some
distance above the house, and, laden with the spoils
that would greatly diminish the squirrels' hoard for
the coming winter, they sauntered along slowly,
both from a sense of weariness and leisure.
They soon reached the cottage of the old lame
man who had fired such a broadside of hard words
at Walter as he stood on the fence opposite. With
a crutch under one arm and leaning on his gate,
Daddy Tuggar seemed awaiting them, and secured
their attention by the laconic salutation:
“Evening'!”
“Why, Daddy,” exclaimed Annie, coming quickly
toward him. “I am real glad to see you so spry
and well. It seems to me that you are getting
young again;” and she shook the old man's hand
heartily.
“Now don't praise my old grave-yard of a body,
Miss Annie. My speret is pert enough, but it's all
buried up in this old clumsy, half-dead carcass. The
worms will close their mortgage on it pretty soon.”
“But they haven't a mortgage on your soul,”
said Annie in a low tone. “Give that to your
Saviour every day, as I told you.”
“Now bless you, Miss Annie, but it takes you to
put in a `word in season.' The Lord knows I'm a
well-meanin' man, but I can't seem to get much
furder. I've had an awful `fall from grace,' my wife
says. I did try to stop swearin,' but that chap
there—”
“Oh, excuse me,” interrupted Annie. “Mr.
Gregory, this is our friend and neighbor Mr. Tuggar.
I was under the impression that you were
acquainted,” she added, with a mischievous look at
Walter.
“We are. I have heard this gentleman before,”
he replied with a wry face. “Pardon the interruption,
Mr. Tuggar, and please go on with your explanation.”
“Mr. Gregory, I owe you a 'pology. I'm a well-meanin'
man, and if I do any one a wrong I'm willin'
to own it up and do the square thing. But I meant
right by you and I meant right by John Walton
when I thought you was stealin' his apples. I
couldn't hit yer with a stun and knock yer off the
fence, as I might a dozen years ago, so I took the
next hardest thing I could lay hands on. If I'd
known that you was kinder one of the family my
words would have been rolls of butter.”
“Well, Mr. Tuggar, it has turned out very well,
for I would rather you had fired what you did than
either stones or butter.”
“Now my wife would say that that speech
showed you was `totally depraved.' And this brings
me back to my `fall from grace.' Now, yer see, to
please my wife some and Miss Eulie more, I was
tryin' cussed hard to stop swearin'—”
“Didn't you try a little for my sake, too?” interrupted
Annie.
“Lord bless you, child. I don't have to try
when you're around, for I don't think swearin'.
Most folks rile me and I get a thinkin' swearin', and
then 'fore I know it busts right out. You could
take the wickedest cuss livin' to heaven in spite of
himself if you would stay right by him all the time.”
“I would `rile' you, too, if I were with you long,
for I get `riled' myself sometimes.”
“Do you, now?” asked Mr. Tuggar, looking at
her admiringly. “Well, now, I'm mighty glad to
hear it.”
“Oh, Daddy! glad to hear that I do wrong?”
“Can't help it, Miss Annie. I kinder like to
know you're a little bit of a sinner. 'Tain't often I
meet with a sinner, and I kind o' like 'em. My wife
says she's a `great sinner,' but she means she's a
great saint. 'Twouldn't do for me to tell her she's
a `sinner.' Then Miss Eulie says she's a `great sinner,'
and between you and me that's the only fib I
ever caught Miss Eulie in. Law sakes! there's no
more sin in Miss Eulie's heart than there is specks
of dirt on that little white ruff she wears about her
neck that looks like the snow we had last April
around the white hyacinths. She's kind of a half
that come up out of the dirt, and yet one would
think they had nothin' to do with the black stuff.
“Now your goodness, Miss Annie, is another
kind. Your cheeks are so red, and eyes so black,
and arms so round and fat—I've seen 'em when you
was over here a-beatin' up good things for the old
man—that you make me think of the red and pink
posies. I kinder think you might be a little bit of a
sinner—just enough, you know, to make you understand
how I and him there can be mighty big ones,
and not be too hard on us for it.”
“Mr. Tuggar, you are the man of all others to
plead my cause.”
“Now look here, young gentleman, you must do
yer own pleadin'. It would be a `sinful waste of
time' though, as my wife would say, eh, Miss Annie?
I never had no luck at pleadin' but once, and that
was the worst luck of all.”
Annie's face might well suggest “red posies”
during the last remarks, and its expression was divided
between a frown and a laugh.
“But I want you to understand,” continued
Daddy Tuggar, straightening himself up with dignity,
and addressing Walter, “that I'm not a mean
cuss. All who know me know I'm a well-meanin'
man. I try to do as I'd be done by. If I'm going
through a man's field and find his bars down, so
the cattle would get in the corn, I'd put e'm
up—”
“Yes, Daddy, that is what you always say,” interrupted
fields any more and put up bars. The Lord wants
you to try and do the duties that belong to your
present state.”
“But I've got the speret to put up a man's bars,
and it's all the same as if I did put 'em up,” answered
the old man with some irritation. “Miss Eulie and
the rest of yer is allers sayin' we must have the
speret of willingness to give up the hull world and suffer
martyrdom on what looks in the picture like a big
gridiron. She says we must have the speret of them
who was cold and hungry and the lions eat up and
was sawn in two pieces and had an awful time generally
for the sake of the Lord, and that's the way
the Christians manage it now-a-days. My wife gets
all the money she can and keeps it, but she says she
has the speret to give up the hull world. I wish
she'd give up enough of it to keep me in good terbacker.
Mighty few nice bits would the old man git
wasn't it for you and Miss Eulie. Then I watch the
good people goin' to church. 'Mazin' few out wet
Sundays. But no doubt they've all got the `speret'
to go. They would jist as lief be sawn in two pieces
`in speret' as not, if they can only sleep late in the
mornin' and have a good dinner and save their Sunday-go-to-meetin'
clothes from gettin' wet. It must
be so, or the Lord gets mighty little worship out of
the church on rainy Sundays. If it wasn't for you
and Miss Eulie I don't know what would become of
the old man and all the rest of the sick and feeble
folks around here. I ask my wife why she doesn't
`speret to go,' but she hasn't the time and strength.
So I have the `speret' to put up a man's bars while I
sit here and smoke, and what's more, Miss Annie, I
did it as long as I was able.”
“You did indeed, Daddy, and, though unintentionally,
you have given me a good lesson. We little
deserve to be mentioned with those Christians
who in olden times suffered the loss of all things, and
life itself.”
“Lord bless you, child, I didn't mean you.
Whether you've got the speret to do a thing or not
yer allers do it, and in a sweet, natteral way, as if
you couldn't help it. When my wife enters on a
good work it makes me think of a funeral. I'm
'mazin' glad you didn't live in old times, 'cause the
lions would have got you sure 'nuff. Though, if it
had to be, I would kinder liked to have been the
lion”—and the old man's eyes twinkled humorously,
while Gregory laughed heartily.
“Oh, Daddy Tuggar,” exclaimed Annie, “that is
the most awful compliment I ever received. If you,
with your spirit, were the only lion I had to deal
with, I would never become a martyr. You shall
have some jelly instead, and now I must go home in
order to have it made before Sunday.”
“Wait a moment,” said Gregory. “You were
about to tell us how I caused you to `fall from
grace.'”
“So I was, so I was, and I've been goin' round
Robin Hood's barn ever since. Well, I'd been
Miss Eulie I'd stop if I could. My wife said I
was in quite a `hopeful state,' while I felt all the
time as if I was sort of bottled up and the cork
might fly out any minute. Miss Eulie, she came
and rejoiced over me that mornin', and my wife she
looked so solemn (she allers does when she says she
feels glad) that somehow I got nervous, and then
my wife went to the store and didn't get the
kind of terbacker I sent for, and I knew the cork
was going to fly out. I was smokin' and in a sort of
a doze, when the first thing I knowed a big stun
rolled into the road, and there I saw a strange chap,
as I thought, a-stealin' John Walton's apples and
knockin' down the fence. If they'd a been my
apples I might have held in a little longer, but John
Walton's—it was like a dam givin' way.”
“It was, indeed,” said Walter significantly. “It
was like several.”
“I knowed my wife heard me, and if she'd come
right out and said, `You've made a cussed old fool
of yourself,' I think I would have felt better. I
knowed she was goin' to speak about it and lament
over it, and I wanted her to do it right away; but
she put it off and put it off, and kept me on pins and
needles for ever so long. At last she said with solemn
joy, `Thomas Tuggar, I told Miss Eulie I feared you
was still in a state of natur—and, alas! I am right—
but how she'll mourn, how great will be her disappointment,
when she hears'—and then I fell into a
`state of natur' agin. Now, Miss Annie, if the
well-meanin' man, and that I don't mean no disrespect
to anybody; that it's only one of my old,
rough ways that I learned from my father—and
mother too, for that matter, I'm sorry to say—and
have followed so long that it's bred in the bone, it
would save a heap of worry. One must have some
way of lettin' off steam. Now my wife she purses
up her mouth so tight you couldn't stick a pin in it
when she's riled. I often say to her, `Do explode!
Open your mouth and let it all out at once.' But
she says it is not becoming for such as her ter `explode.'
But it will come out all the same, only it's
like one of yer cold northeast, drizzlin', fizzlin' rainstorms.
And now I've made a clean breast of it, I
hope you'll kinder smooth matters over with Miss
Eulie; and I hope you, sir, will just think of what I
said as spoken to a stranger and not a friend of the
family.”
“Give me your hand, Mr. Tuggar. I hope we
shall be the best of friends. I am coming over to
have a smoke with you and see if I can't fill your
pipe with some tobacco that is like us both, `in a
state of natur.'”
A white-faced woman appeared at the door, and,
courtesying low to Miss Walton, called:
“Husband, it's too late for you to be out; I fear
your health will suffer.”
“She's bound up in me, you see,” said the old
man, with a curious grimace. “Nothing but the
die.”
“Daddy, Daddy,” said Annie, reproachfully,
“have charity. Good night; I will send you something
nice for to-morrow.”
An amused smile lingered on Gregory's face as
they pursued their way homeward, now in the early
twilight; but Annie's aspect was almost one of sadness.
After a little he said:
“Well, he is one of the oddest specimens of humanity
I ever met.”
She did not immediately reply, and he, looking
at her, caught her expression.
“Why is your face so clouded, Miss Annie?”
he asked. “You are not given to Mrs. Tuggar's style
of `solemn joy'?”
“What a perplexing mystery life is after all!”
she replied, absently. “I really think poor old
Daddy Tuggar speaks truly. He is a `well-meaning'
man, but he and many others remind me of one
not having the slightest ear for music trying to catch
a difficult harmony.”
“Why is the harmony so difficult?” asked Walter,
bitterly.
“Perhaps it were better to ask, Why has humanity
so disabled itself?”
“I do not think it matters much how you put the
case. It amounts to the same thing. Something is
required of us beyond our strength. The idea of
punishing that old man for being what he is, when
in the first place he inherited evil from his parents
think he deserves more credit than blame.”
“The trouble is, Mr. Gregory, evil carries its own
punishment along with it every day. But I admit
that we are surrounded with mystery on every side.
Humanity, left to itself, is a hopeless problem. But
one thing is certain: we are not responsible for questions
beyond our ken. Moreover, many things that
were complete mysteries to me as a child are now
plain, and I ever hope to be one of God's little children,
taught of him something new every day. You
and I at least have much to be grateful for in the
fact that we neither inherited evil nor were taught it
in any such degree as our poor neighbor.”
“And you quietly prove, Miss Walton, by your
last remark, that I am much more worthy of blame
than your `poor old neighbor.'”
“Then I said more than I meant,” she answered,
eagerly. “It is not for me to judge or condemn any
one. The thought in my mind was how favored we
had been in our parentage—our start in existence,
as it were.”
“But suppose one loses that vantage ground?”
“I do not wish to suppose anything of the
kind.”
“But one can lose it utterly.”
“I fear some can and do. But why dwell on a
subject so unutterably sad and painful? You have
not lost it, and, as I said before to-day, I will not
dwell upon the disagreeable any more than I can
help.”
“Your opinion of me is poor enough already,
Miss Walton, so I, too, will drop the subject.”
They had now reached the house and did ample
justice to the supper awaiting.
Between meals people can be very sentimental,
morbid, and tragical. They can stare at God's deep
mysteries and shudder or scoff, sigh or rejoice, according
to their moral conditions. They can even
grow cold with dread, as did Gregory, realizing that
he had “lost his vantage ground,” his good start in
the endless career. “She is steering across unknown
seas to a peaceful, happy shore. I am drifting on
those same mysterious waters I know not whither,”
he thought.
But a few moments after entering the cheerfully
lighted dining-room he was giving his whole soul to
muffins.
These homely and ever-recurring duties and
pleasures of life have no doubt saved multitudes
from madness. It would almost seem that they have
also been the innocent causes of the destruction of
many. There are times when the mind is almost
evenly balanced between good and evil. Some
powerful appeal or startling providence has aroused
the sleeping spirit, or some vivifying truth has
pierced the armor of indifference or prejudice,
and quivered like an arrow in the soul, and the man
remembers that he is a man and not a brute that
perishes. But just then the dinner-bell sounded.
After the several courses, any physician can predict
how the powers of that human organization must of
partially awakened soul is like one who starts up out
of a doze and sleeps again. If the spiritual nature
had only become sufficiently aroused to realize the
situation, life might have been secured. Thought
and feeling in some emergencies will do more than
the grandest pulpit eloquence quenched by a Sunday
dinner.
| CHAPTER XIV.
“A WELL-MEANIN' MAN.” Opening a chestnut burr | |