 | Hoosier mosaics |  |
Was She a Boy?
No matter what business or what pleasure
took me, I once, not long ago, went to Colfax.
Whisper it not to each other that I was seeking
a foreign appointment through the influence
of my fellow Hoosier, the late Vice-President
of the United States. O no, I didn't go
to the Hon. Schuyler Colfax at all; but I went
to Colfax, simply, which is a little dingy town,
in Clinton County, that was formerly called
Midway, because it is half way between Lafayette
and Indianapolis. It was and is a place
of some three hundred inhabitants, eking out
an aguish subsistence, maintaining a swampy,
malarious aspect, keeping up a bilious, nay,
an atra-bilious color, the year round, by sucking
like an attenuated leech at the junction,
or, rather, the crossing of the I. C. & L., and
the L. C. & S. W. railroads. It lay mouldering,
like something lost and forgotten, slowly
rotting in the swamp.
I do not mean to attack the inhabitants of
a better fate than the eternal rattling the ague
took them through from year's end to year's
end. Why, they had had the ague so long
that they had no respect for it at all. I've
seen a woman in Colfax shaking with a chill,
spanking a baby that had a chill, and scolding
a husband who had a chill, all at once—and
I had a dreadful ague on me at the same time!
But, as I have said, they were good people, and
I suppose they are still. They go quietly about
the usual business of dead towns. They have
“stores” in which they offer for sale calico, of
the big-figured, orange and red sort, surprisingly
cheap. They smoke those little Cuba
sixes at a half cent apiece, and call them
cigars; they hang round the dépôt, and trade
jack-knives and lottery watches on the afternoons
of lazy Sundays; they make harmless
sport of the incoming and outgoing country
folk; and, in a word, keep pretty busy at one
thing or another, and above all—they shake.
In Colfax the chief sources of exciting
amusement are dog fights and an occasional
row at Sheehan's saloon, a doggery of the
regular old-fashioned, drink, gamble, rob and
fight sort—a low place, known to all the hard
bats in the State.
As you pass through the town you will not
fail to notice a big sign, outhanging from the
front of the largest building on the principal
street, which reads: “Union Hotel, 1865.”
From the muddy suburbs of the place, in
every direction, stretch black muck swamps,
for the most part heavily timbered with a
variety of oaks, interspersed with sycamores,
ash, and elms. In the damp, shady laby-rinths
of these boggy woods millions of
lively, wide awake, tuneful mosquitoes are
daily manufactured; and out from decaying
logs and piles of fermenting leaves, from the
green pools and sluggish ditch streams, creeps
a noxious gas, known in that region as the
“double refined, high pressure, forty hoss
power quintessential of the ager!” So, at
least, I was told by the landlord of the Union
Hotel, and his skin had the color of one who
knew.
Notwithstanding what I have said, Colfax,
in summer, is not wholly without attractions
of a certain kind. It has some yellow dogs
and some brindle ones; it has some cattle and
some swine; it has some swallows and some
spotted pigeons; it has cool, fresh smelling
winds, and, after the water has sufficiently
dried out, the woods are really glorious with
wild pinks. But to my story.
I was sitting on the long veranda of the
Union Hotel, when a rough but kindly voice
said to me:
“Mornin', stranger; gi' me a light, will ye?”
I looked up from the miserable dime novel
at which I had been tugging for the last hour,
and saw before me a corpulent man of, perhaps,
forty-five years of age, who stood quite
ready to thrust the charred end of a cigar
stump into the bowl of my meerschaum. I
gave him a match, and would fain have returned
to Angelina St. Fortescue, the heroine
of the novel, whom I had left standing on the
extreme giddy verge of a sheer Alpine precipice,
known, by actual triangulation, to be just
seven thousand feet high, swearing she would
leap off if Donald Gougerizeout, the robber,
persisted further in his rough addresses; but
my new friend, the corpulent smoker, seemed
bent on a little bit of conversation.
“Thankee, sir. Fine mornin', sir, a'n't it?”
“Beautiful,” I replied, raising my head,
elevating my arms, and, by a kind of yawn,
taking in a deep draught of the fresh spring
weather, absorbing it, assimilating it, till, like
a wave of retarded electricity, it set my nerves
my blood with the ecstasy of vigorous health
and youth. I, no doubt, just then felt the
burden of life much less than did the big yellow
dog at my feet, who snapped lazily at the
flies.
“Yes, yes, this 'ere's a fine mornin'—julicious,
sir, julicious, indeed; but le' me tell ye,
sir, this 'ere wind's mighty deceitful—for a fact
it is, sir, jist as full of ager as a acorn is of
meat. It's blowin' right off'n ponds, and is
loaded chock down with the miasm—for a fact
it is, sir.”
While delivering this speech, the fat man
sat down on the bench beside me there in the
veranda. By this time I had my thumbs in
the arm holes of my vest, and my chest expanded
to its utmost—my lungs going like a
steam bellows, which is a way I have in fine
weather.
“Monstrous set o' respiratory organs, them
o' your'n,” he said, eyeing my manœuvres.
Just then I discovered that he was a physician
of the steam doctor sort, for, glancing
down at my feet, I espied his well worn leather
medicine bags. I immediately grew polite.
Possibly I might ere long need some quinine,
or mandrake, or a hot steam bath—anything
for the ague!
“Yes, I've got lungs like a porpoise,” I replied,
“but still the ague may get me. Much
sickness about here, Doctor—a—a—
what do they call your name?”
“Benjamin Hurd—Doctor Hurd, they call
me. I'm the only thorer bred botanic that's in
these parts. I do poorty much all the practice
about here. Yes, there's considerable of
ager and phthisic and bilious fever. Keeps
me busy most of my time. These nasty
swamps, you know.”
After a time our conversation flagged, and
the doctor having lit a fresh cigar, we smoked
in silence. The wind was driving the dust
along the street in heavy waves, and I sat
watching a couple of lean, spotted calves
making their way against the tide. They held
their heads low and shut their eyes, now and
then bawling vigorously. Some one up stairs
was playing “Days of Absence” on a wretched
wheezing accordeon.
“There's a case of asthma, doctor,” I said,
intending to be witty. But my remark was
not noticed. The doctor was in a brown study,
from which my words had not startled him.
Presently he said, as if talking to himself, and
without taking the cigar from his mouth:
“'Twas just a year ago to-night, the 28th
die afore day to a dead certainty. Beats all
the derned queer things I ever seed or heerd
of.”
He was poking with the toe of his boot in
the dust on the veranda floor, as he spoke,
and stealing a glance at his face, I saw that it
wore an abstracted, dreamy, perplexed look.
“What was your remark, doctor?” I asked,
more to arouse him than from any hope of being
interested.
“Hum!—ah, yes,” he said, starting, and beginning
a vigorous puffing. “Ah, yes, I was
cogitatin' over this matter o' Berry Young's.
Never have been able to 'count for that, no
how. Think about it more an' more every
day. What's your theory of it?”
“Can't say, never having heard anything of
it,” I replied.
“Well, I do say! Thought everybody had
hearn of that, any how! It's a rale romance,
a reg'lar mystery, sir. It's been talked about,
and writ about in the papers so much 'at I
s'posed 'at it was knowed of far and wide.”
“I've been in California for several years
past,” I replied, by way of excuse for my ignorance
of even the vaguest outline of the affair,
whatever it might be.
“Well, you see, a leetle more'n a year ago
a gal an' her father come here and stopped at
this 'ere very hotel. The man must 'a' been
som'res near sixty years old; but the gal was
young, and jist the poortiest thing I ever seed
in all my life. I couldn't describe how she
looked at all; but everybody 'at saw her said
she was the beautifulest creatur they ever laid
eyes onto. Where these two folks come from
nobody ever knowed, but they seemed like
mighty nice sort of persons, and everybody
liked 'em, 'specially the gal. Somehow, from
the very start, a kind of mystery hung 'round
'em. They seemed always to have gobs o'
money, and onct in awhile some little thing 'd
turn up to make folks kinder juberous somehow
'at they wasn't jist what they ginerally
seemed to be. But that gal was fascinatin' as
a snake, and as poorty as any picter. Her
flesh looked like tinted wax mixed with moon-shine,
and her eyes was as clear as a limestone
spring — though they was dark as
night. She was that full of restless animal
life 'at she couldn't set still—she roamed round
like a leopard in a cage, and she'd romp equal
to a ten-year-old boy. Well, as mought be expected,
sich a gal as that 'ere 'd 'tract attention
in these parts, and I must say 'at the young
'Casionally two of 'em 'd git out in the swamps
and have a awful fight on her 'count; but she
'peared to pay precious little 'tention to any of
'em till finally Berry Young stepped in and
jist went for 'er like mad, and she took to 'm.
Berry was r'ally the nicest and intelligentest
young man in all this country. He writ poetry
for the papers, sir—snatchin' good poetry,
too—and had got to be talked of a right smart
for his larnin', an' 'complishments. He was
good lookin', too; powerful handsome, for a
fact, sir. So they was to be married, Berry
and the gal, an' the time it was sot, an' the
day it come, an' all was ready, an' the young
folks was on the floor, and the 'squire was jist
a commencin' to say the ceremony, when lo!
and beholden, four big, awful, rough lookin'
men rushed in with big pistols and mighty terrible
bowie knives, and big papers and big
seals, and said they was a sheriff and possum
from Kaintucky. They jist jumped right onto
the gal an' her father an' han'cuffed 'em, an'
took 'em!”
“Handcuffed them and took them!” I repeated,
suddenly growing intensely interested.
This was beating my dime novel, for sensation,
all hollow.
“Yes, sir, han'cuffed 'em an' took 'em, an'
away they went, an' they've not been hearn of
since to this day. But the mysteriousest thing
about the whole business was that when the
sheriff grabbed the gal he called her George,
and said she wasn't no gal at all, but jist a
terrible onery boy 'at had been stealin' an'
counterfeitin' an' robbin' all round everywhere.
What d'ye think of that?”
“A remarkably strange affair, certainly,” I
replied; “and do you say that the father and
the girl have not since been heard from?”
“Never a breath. The thing got into all
the newspapers and raised a awful rumpus,
and it turned out that it wasn't no sheriff 'at
come there; but some dark, mysterious kidnappin'
transaction 'at nobody could account
for. Detectives was put on their track an'
follered 'em to Injun territory an' there lost
'em. Some big robberies was connected with
the affair, but folks could never git head nor
tail of the partic'lers.”
“And it wasn't a real sheriff's arrest, then?”
said I.
“No, sir, 'twas jist a mystery. Some kind
of a dodge of a band of desperadoes to avoid
the law some way. The papers tried to explain
it, but I never could see any sense to it. 'Twas
tell ye 'at Berry Young took it awful hard
'bout the gal, an' he's been sort o' sinkin' away
ever sence, an' now he's jist ready to wink out.
Yonder's where Berry lives, in that 'ere white
cottage house with the vines round the winder.
He's desp'rit sick—a sort o' consumption. I'm
goin' to see 'im now; good mornin' to ye.”
Thus abruptly ending our interview, the
doctor took up his medicine bag and went his
way. He left me in a really excited state of
mind; the story of itself was so strange, and
the narrator had told it so solemnly and
graphically. I suppose, too, that I must have
been in just the proper state of mind for that
rough outline, that cartoon of a most startling
and mysterious affair, to become deeply impressed
in my mind, perhaps, in the most
fascinating and fantastic light possible. A
thirst to know more of the story took strong
hold on my mind, as if I had been reading a
tantalizing romance and had found the leaves
torn out just where the mystery was to be explained.
I half closed my eyes to better keep
in the lines and shades of the strange picture.
Its influence lay upon me like a spell. I enjoyed
it. It was a luxury.
The wings of the morning wind fanned the
flowing on, with murmur and flash and glimmer,
to the cool green ways of the woods, and,
like the wind, my fancy went out among golden
fleece clouds and into shady places, following
the thread of this new romance. I cannot give
a sufficient reason why the story took so fast
a hold on me. But it did grip my mind and
master it. It appeared to me the most intensely
strange affair I had ever heard of.
While I sat there, lost in reflection, with my
eyes bent on a very unpromising pig, that
wallowed in the damp earth by the town
pump, the landlord of the hotel came out and
took a seat beside me. I gave him a pipe of
my tobacco and forthwith began plying him
with questions touching the affair of which the
doctor had spoken. He confirmed the story,
and added to its mystery by going minutely
into its details. He gave the names of the
father and daughter as Charles Afton and
Ollie Afton.
Ollie Afton! Certainly no name sounds
sweeter! How is it that these gifted, mysteriously
beautiful persons always have musical
names!
“Ah,” said the landlord, “you'd ort to have
seen that boy!”
“Boy!” I echoed.
“Well, gal or boy, one or t'other, the
wonderfulest human bein' I ever see in all the
days o' my life! Lips as red as ripe cur'n's,
and for ever smilin'. Such smiles—oonkoo!
they hurt a feller all over, they was so sweet.
She was tall an' dark, an' had black hair that
curled short all 'round her head. Her skin
was wonderful clear and so was her eyes. But
it was the way she looked at you that got you.
Ah, sir, she had a power in them eyes, to be
sure!”
The pig got up from his muddy place by the
pump, grunted, as if satisfied, and slowly
strolled off; a country lad drove past, riding
astride the hounds of a wagon; a pigeon lit
on the comb of the roof of Sheehan's saloon,
which was just across the street, and began
pluming itself. Just then the landlord's little
sharp-nosed, weasel-eyed boy came out and
said, in a very subdued tone of voice:
“Pap, mam says 'at if you don't kill 'er
that 'ere chicken for dinner you kin go widout
any fing to eat all she cares.”
The landlord's spouse was a red-headed
woman, so he got up very suddenly and took
himself into the house. But before he got out
of hearing the little boy remarked:
“Pap, I speaks for the gizzard of that 'ere
chicken, d'ye hear, now?”
I sat there till the dinner hour, watching the
soft pink and white vapors that rolled round
the verge of the horizon. I was thoroughly
saturated with romance. Strange, that here,
in this dingy little out-of-the-way village, should
have transpired one of the most wonderful
mysteries history may ever hold!
At dinner the landlord talked volubly of the
Afton affair, giving it as his opinion that the
Aftons were persons tinged with negro blood,
and had been kidnapped into slavery.
“They was jist as white, an' whiter, too,
than I am,” he went on, “but them Southerners
'd jist as soon sell one person as 'nother,
anyhow.”
I noticed particularly that the little boy got
his choice bit of the fowl. He turned his head
one side and ate like a cat.
When the meal was over I was again joined
by Doctor Hurd on the verandah. He reported
Berry Young still alive, but not able to live
till midnight. I noticed that the doctor was
nervous and kept his eyes fixed on Sheehan's
saloon.
“Stranger,” said he, leaning over close to
me, and speaking in a low, guarded way,
sure's gun's iron they jist is!”
“Where—how—in what way, doctor?” I
stammered, taken aback by his behavior.
“Sumpum's up, as sure as Ned!” he replied,
wagging his head.
“Doctor,” I said, petulantly, “if you would
be a trifle more explicit I could probably guess,
with some show of certainty, at what you
mean!”
“Can't ye hear? Are ye deaf? Did ye
ever, in all yer born days, hear a voice like
that ere 'un? Listen!”
Sure enough, a voice of thrilling power, a
rich, heavy, quavering alto, accompanied by
some one thrumming on a guitar, trickled and
gurgled, and poured through the open window
of Sheehan's saloon. The song was a wild,
drinking carol, full of rough, reckless wit, but
I listened, entranced, till it was done.
“There now, say, what d'ye think o' that?
Ain't things a workin' round awful curious,
as I said?”
Delivering himself thus, the doctor got up
and walked off.
When I again had an opportunity to speak
to the landlord, I asked him if Doctor Hurd
was not thought to be slightly demented.
“What! crazy, do you mean? No, sir;
bright as a pin!”
“Well,” said I, “he's a very queer fellow
any how. By the way, who was that singing
just now over in the saloon there?”
“Don't know, didn't hear 'em. Some of the
boys, I s'pose. They have some lively swells
over there sometimes. Awful hole.”
I resumed my dime novel, and nothing further
transpired to aggravate or satisfy my curiosity
concerning the strange story I had heard, till
night came down and the bats began to wheel
through the moonless blackness above the
dingy town. At the coming on of dusk I
flung away the book and took to my pipe.
Some one touched me on the shoulder, rousing
me from a deep reverie, if not a doze.
“Ha, stranger, this you, eh? Berry Young's
a dyin'; go over there wi' me, will ye?”
It was the voice of Doctor Hurd.
“What need for me have you?” I replied,
rather stiffly, not much relishing this too obtrusive
familiarity.
“Well—I—I jist kinder wanted ye to go
over. The poor boy's 'bout passin' away, an'
things is a workin' so tarnation curious! Come
'long wi' me, friend, will ye?”
Something in the fellow's voice touched me,
him to the cottage. The night was intensely
black. I think it was clear, but a heavy fog
from the swamps had settled over everything,
and through this dismal veil the voices of
owls from far and near struck with hollow,
sepulchral effect.
“A heart is the trump!” sang out that alto
voice from within the saloon as we passed.
Doctor Hurd clutched my arm and muttered:
“That's that voice ag'in! Strange—strange!
Poor Berry Young!”
We entered the cottage and found ourselves
in a cosy little room, where, on a low bed, a
pale, intelligent looking young man lay, evidently
dying. He was very much emaciated,
his eyes, wonderfully large and luminous, were
sunken, and his breathing quick and difficult.
A haggard, watching-worn woman sat by his
bed. From her resemblance to him I took her
to be his sister. She was evidently very unwell
herself. We sat in silence by his bedside,
watching his life flow into eternity, till the
little clock on the mantel struck, sharp and
clear, the hour of ten.
The sound of the bell startled the sick man,
and after some incoherent mumbling he said,
quite distinctly:
“Sister, if you ever again see Ollie Afton,
tell him—tell her—tell, say I forgive him—
say to her—him—I loved her all my life—tell
him—ah! what was I saying? Don't cry, sis,
please. What a sweet, faithful sister! Ah!
it's almost over, dear— Ah, me!”
For some minutes the sister's sobbing echoed
strangely through the house. The dying man
drew his head far down in the soft pillow. A
breath of damp air stole through the room.
All at once, right under the window by
which the bed sat, arose a touching guitar prelude—a
tangled mesh of melody—gusty, throbbing,
wandering through the room and straying
off into the night, tossing back its trembling
echoes fainter and fainter, till, as it began to
die, that same splendid alto voice caught the
key and flooded the darkness with song. The
sick man raised himself on his elbow, and his
face flashed out the terrible smile of death.
He listened eagerly. It was the song “Come
Where my Love lies Dreaming,” but who has
heard it rendered as it was that night? Every
chord of the voice was as sweet and witching
as a wind harp's, and the low, humming undertone
of the accompaniment was perfection.
Tenderly but awfully sweet, the music at
length faded into utter silence, and Berry
Young sank limp and pallid upon his pillows.
“It is Ollie,” he hoarsely whispered. “Tell
her—tell him—O say to her for me—ah! water,
sis, it's all over!”
The woman hastened, but before she could
get the water to his lips he was dead. His
last word was Ollie.
The sister cast herself upon the dead man's
bosom and sobbed wildly, piteously. Soon
after this some neighbors came in, which gave
me an opportunity to quietly take my leave.
The night was so foggy and dark that, but
for a bright stream of light from a window of
Sheehan's saloon, it would have been hard for
me to find my way back to the hotel. I did
find it, however, and sat down upon the verandah.
I had nearly fallen asleep, thinking
over the strange occurrences of the past few
hours, when the rumble of an approaching
train of cars on the I. C. & L. from the east
aroused me, and, at the same moment, a great
noise began over in the saloon. High words,
a few bitter oaths, a struggle as of persons
fighting, a loud, sonorous crash like the crushing
of a musical instrument, and then I saw
the burly bar tender hurl some one out through
the doorway just as the express train stopped
close by.
“All aboard!” cried the conductor, waving
stood in the light of his doorway, a
brickbat, whizzing from the darkness, struck
him full in the face, knocking him precipitately
back at full length on to the floor of the saloon.
“All aboard!” repeated the conductor.
“All aboard!” jeeringly echoed a delicious
alto voice; and I saw a slender man step up
on the rear platform of the smoking car. A
flash from the conductor's lantern lit up for a
moment this fellow's face, and it was the most
beautiful visage I have ever seen. Extremely
youthful, dark, resplendent, glorious, set round
with waves and ringlets of black hair—it was
such a countenance as I have imagined a
young Chaldean might have had who was
destined to the high calling of astrology. It
was a face to charm, to electrify the beholder
with its indescribable, almost unearthly loveliness
of features and expression.
The engine whistled, the bell rang, and as
the train moved on, that slender, almost
fragile form and wonderful face disappeared
in the darkness.
As the roar and clash of the receding cars
began to grow faint in the distance, a gurgling,
grunting sound over in the saloon reminded
me that the bar-tender might need some attention,
in. He was just taking himself up from the
floor, with his nose badly smashed, spurting
blood over him pretty freely. He was in an
ecstasy of fury and swore fearfully. I rendered
him all the aid I could, getting the blood
stopped, at length, and a plaster over the
wound.
“Who struck you?” I asked.
“Who struck me? Who hit me with that
'ere brick, d'ye say? Who but that little baby-faced,
hawk-eyed cuss 'at got off here yesterday!
He's a thief and a dog!—he's chowzed
me out'n my last cent! Where is he?—I'll
kill 'im yet! where is he?”
“Gone off on the train,” I replied, “but
who is he? what's his name?”
“Blamed if I know. Gone, you say? Got
every derned red o' my money! Every derned
red!”
“Don't you know anything at all about
him?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“What?”
“I know 'at he's the derndest, alfiredest,
snatchin'est, best poker-player 'at ever dealt
a card!”
“Is that all?”
“That's enough, I'd say. If you'd been
beat out'n two hundred an' odd dollars you'd
think you know'd a right smart, wouldn't ye?”
“Perhaps,” said I. The question had a
world of philosophy and logic in it.
The shattered wreck of a magnificent guitar
lay in the middle of the floor. I picked it up,
and, engraved on a heavy silver plate set in
the ebony neck, I read the name, Georgina
Olive Afton.
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