 | XXIV.
ABNER TAKES NOTES. Lucy Arlyn |  |
24. XXIV.
ABNER TAKES NOTES.
HAVING scoured the country roads in the vain
search for a vehicle dashed to pieces, and a
young lady's mangled remains, Elphaz parted
from Aaron, and hastened to inform Mrs. Pinworth of the
mysterious occurrence.
He found the runaway horse quietly standing at the gate,
and Sophy waiting for him in the parlor. She flew to meet
him with her mouth full of lies and kisses. Where had he
been? How glad she was to see him! What a fright she
had had! And wasn't it strange that she should have got
home before him!
“Very strange!” murmured Pelt, looking puzzled with
one eye, and suspicious with the other.
“He carried me clear round by the East Street, down the
Crags Road, and home by the South Street,” chattered Sophy.
“And don't you think, before he got to the village, he was
just as manageable as could be! — and I drove him right up
here, and hitched him, without any trouble at all! Wasn't
it funny?”
“Rather funny!” said Elphaz, believing there was treachery
somewhere. He examined the horse, and found a brier
attached to his tail. Sophy was astonished when told of it,
and declared that it accounted for the animal's singular behavior.
Wisely resolved to wait for more evidence before expressing
an opinion, the lawyer preserved the brier and a
rather grim silence; bade Sophy a cool good-night; then drove
the horse half round the village in order to take him by a
back way to the tavern-stables, and avoid getting laughed at
by the boys about the bar-room.
One of the dreaded youths was Mad Biddikin, in high
spirits after his adventure; drinking, and treating his companions
with the generosity and jocularity of one who was
conscious of spending money received for a job which he had
left a ridiculously duped rival to perform. He went to bed
that night in a room which whirled round and round in a
dizzy vortex; and awoke the next morning with a headache,
penniless.
Being out of employment and out of funds, the filial youth
bethought him to pay a visit to his father.
It was in the afternoon. Doctor Biddikin was with Job in
the upper story of the house, renovating the sleeping-rooms,
when the unmistakable footsteps were heard ascending the
stairs.
“Madison! — my son Madison!” The delighted senior
hastily wiped his fingers, and ran to hug in his puny arms the
junior, who grinned like a lusty young giant over the little
old man's shoulder.
“What's the row here?” said Mad, glancing at the scene
of his operations.
Biddikin, clinging to his son with unusual emotion, could
not speak for a moment.
“I am exterminating the parasites of these bedsteads:
you know what I mean, — the Cimex lectularius,” he said,
instinctively disguising in elegant and learned phrase the vulgarity
of his occupation. “I am preparing these rooms for
company. We are going to dig for the money in earnest in
a week or two; and this house is to be the headquarters of
the mediums.”
“Bully for you, old Beeswax!” cried the admiring junior.
“Who furnishes funds?”
“Can't you address your father a little more respectfully?
And do abandon the use of that outlandish slang!” said the
doctor, returning to a bottle of liquid a feather which he had
been using about the apertures and creases of the bedsteads.
“Good times are coming; and let us see if we can't be worthy
of our name and station, my son!” — with a smirk of
the old Biddikin pride. “The funds will be forthcoming.
We have had the sight of money; haven't we, Job.
“Y-a-a-s!” simpered Job: “lots of money!”
“You have come home to stay, my son, haven't you?”
added the old man with another gush of affection. “Kiss
me! — give me a kiss, Madison!”
Mad scowled, but concluded to grant the boon, from mercenary
motives.
“Is the young woman with the devil in her going to be
here?”
“That woman is an angel! — an angel, my son!” repeated
the doctor, trembling with the fervor of his feelings. “A
beautiful spirit! — a wonderful being! She were here last
night; and she has blessed my soul! — she has blessed my
soul!” — spoken with quivering lips, while tears started in
the old man's eyes.
“If she's to be here, there'll be fun,” said Mad. “I'll
stay.”
“I am acting under her directions. She has promised to
attend to my interests: I shall trust every thing to her. Quit
your degrading occupation, and come home, Maddie. There
is no place like home, and nobody like a father!” said the
old man, carried away by his parental feelings. “Come,
Maddie, my boy! sit in my lap as you used to!” — pulling
the strapping youth down upon his lank knees, and hugging
him, greatly to the edification of Job.
“Mad's come home!” said the crow, perching in the
open window. “Laugh, Jack!” And the impish creature
fluttered, and bobbed his head, and repeated his wild “Ha!
ha!” as if he had a human sense of the ludicrous scene.
Like Gulliver in the arms of a Liliputian, Mad sat and
grinned, putting his stout arm about the other's skinny neck,
and insinuating the financial question which was uppermost
in his mind.
“After money, the first thing!” said Biddikin reproachfully.
hard, my son!”
“Give me five dollars!” laughed Mad, tightening his embrace.
“Ah! oh! Maddie, my son! let up a little! I'd forgotten
you are no longer a child! Ah!” — a groan of
pain.
“Five dollars, old boy!”
“Not a cent, you ingrate! you — oh! you crush me!”
“Affectionate son; ain't I, Job?” cried Mad.
“Y-a-a-s!” said Job.
“O Madison!” squeaked the sufferer, “you're murdering
me! I haven't a cent of money, or I'd give it you,
ungrateful as you are!”
“I'll see whether you've got money. Give me that bed-cord,
Job!”
“Don't you, Job! I'll scream! Murd” —
The senior's utterance was impeded by the junior, who
found it necessary to embrace the paternal neck and pat the
paternal head somewhat rudely, in order, as he expressed
it, to make him “dry up.” Job, in the mean time, albeit
unwillingly, handed the bed-cord; with which Mad proceeded
to bind his captive hand and foot, and lash him to the chair.
“You burglar! you assassin!” cried the struggling old
man, as his son rifled his pockets. “Not a cent of money
shall you have; not one cent!”
“Then here goes!” Mad lifted the chair, with his parent
or God have mercy on your soul!”
“Unnatural child! will you kill me? I have no money:
Job knows I haven't! Have I, Job?”
“N-o-o-o!” drawled the terrified Job.
Mad balanced the chair in the window long enough to give
the old man ample time for consideration: then, twisting the
loose end of the cord about a bed-post, he lowered his screaming
victim from the sill, and left him suspended betwixt
heaven and earth, with his face towards the street, and his
back against the clapboards.
“Hang there, you last year's bird's-nest!” he cried from
the casement above.
“Where's Biddikin?” said the crow. “Laugh, Jack!
Ha! ha!” and after flying about the gibbet, cawing exultantly,
a minute or two, he ended by alighting on the bald
crown of the doctor.
“`Ingratitude! thou marble-hearted fiend!'” said the old
man, resorting to Shakspeare for words strong enough to express
his sense of injury, — “`more hideous, when thou showest
thee in a child, than the sea-serpent!' Madison, dror me
up!”
“Tell me where your cash is!” said the inexorable youth.
Getting no response, he took Job to the window to witness
the picturesque spectacle. “Fun; ain't it, Job?”
“Y-a-a-s!” gasped the little wretch, pale with fear.
“`Sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless
show to the world what a son I have, and how he treats me!”
“You'll do wonders!” Mad retorted. “God made you
to ride toads to water. — Come, Job, le's have a game of euchre.”
And, taking a pack of greasy cards from his pocket,
he sat down on a bed-quilt, and commenced sorting them.
He was initiating Job into the mystery of the bowers, occasionally
putting his head out of the window to make a pleasant
remark, when a buggy passed the gate.
“For mercy's sake, friend, help!” called the doctor.
The vehicle stopped, and the driver stared with amazement
at the improvised gibbet, and the carrion-bird already
alighted on the head of the victim.
“What are you doing there, Doctor Biddikin?”
“I have been robbed, — murdered, — hung out of my own
window, — by my own son!”
The features of the young man in the buggy relaxed with
a grin of cunning; and, after scratching his head — a red one
— for a minute, he took a note-book from his pocket, and began
to write.
“Don't delay an instant!” cried the doctor, “if you
would save my life! The rope has cut me in two! I am
nearly dead!”
The young man coolly continued to write.
“Look here, Abner Roane!” suddenly shouted Mad,
shaking his fist from the window: “if you don't want your
cocoanut cracked, you better go about your business.”
“I'm about my business,” replied Abner. “He robbed
you, did you say?”
“He tied me hand and foot, and then picked my pockets,”
said Biddikin in his gibbet. “Didn't he, Job?”
“Y-a-a-s!” piped a feeble voice, quickly stifled by a blow
from Mad's back hand.
Abner carefully noted down the charges, laughing secretly
to think how Pelt and the colonel would prize them. Mad
seemed to suspect his intentions; for he came bounding down
the stairs, and rushed out of the house.
“Do you want to lose that flaming red top-knot o' yourn?”
showing his menacing fingers.
“Ain't particular about it,” replied Abner, grinning still,
but pale. Mad uttered a threat, which the other thought it
judicious to write down. “Did you say my neck, or my
back?” paring his pencil.
“I'll break your neck and your back too, if you don't” —
“Wait a minute: `Neck and back too,'” Abner wrote.
“Now proceed.”
But Mad's attention had been suddenly diverted in another
direction.
“Thank Heaven!” groaned Biddikin, “succor has come
at last!”
Miss Lingham and her friend the philanthropist were approaching
arm and arm on the roadside. Hearing a call for
help, they looked up at the curious object hung out of the
window.
“Brother Biddikin!” said Mr. Murk, his nose elevated,
and his mouth wide open. “That must be the work of spirits;
and a very remarkable manifestation! Don't you think
so, Sister Lingham?”
“Certingly!” said Sister Lingham.
“It's the work of spirits!” Mad mockingly repeated; “and
I was the medium!”
“Where's Biddikin?” said the crow, mournfully, from his
perch on the bald crown.
“Look at me!” cried the doctor; “then look at that
hard-hearted son! I am suffering dreadful torments. But
don't take me down: leave me here as a monument. Let
the world approach, and witness the spectacle. Let parents
take warning by this outrage.”
Slowly Mr. Murk turned his fishy eyes from the monument
to Mad, whom he contemplated with a sapient, satisfied
nod.
“The young man is influenced by mischievous spirits;
don't you think so, Sister Lingham?”
“Certingly,” said Sister Lingham; while the philanthropist's
Swedenborgian arm confirmed the opinion.
“Yes, it's spirits!” said Mad, also shaking his fist. “And
look out they don't influence me to knock off ten or a dozen
superfluous inches of your nose.”
“Brother,” — Mr. Murk addressed the red-haired young
man, — “as friends of humanity, I think we ought to make
an effort to relieve our suffering brother.”
Upon which hint, Abner tied his horse, and went grinning
to see what could be done.
“Don't try to dror me up; let me down!” cried the doctor.
“If the rope ain't long enough, there's another.”
This suggestion was followed; and Mr. Murk and Abner,
leaning out of the chamber window, let the gibbet cautiously
down.
“Where's Biddikin?” repeated the crow, balancing himself
with his wings as the chair tipped in descending. “That's
the talk!” he added, as Miss Lingham steadied it with her
hands. And, never quitting his station, there he sat solemnly
on the doctor's glistening scalp till Abner and Mr. Murk
came from the chamber.
Mr. Murk proceeded, with Miss Lingham's assistance, to
untie the knots; while Abner once more made use of his note-book.
“Haste!” said the doctor. “I am impatient to chastise
that boy! You sor him strike me; didn't you, Job?”
“Y-a-a-s!” said Job, holding a dirty jack-of-spades in his
hand.
“And choke me: didn't he choke me hard?”
“Y-a-a-s: orful!”
“You can take your oath; can't you, Job? And hasn't
he done it often, — a hundred times?”
“Wait,” said Abner, writing rapidly. “That's very important!
A — hundred” —
“Look here!” cried Mad, striding fiercely towards Job.
“Did I strike him? Dare you say I struck him?”
“N-o-o, I dasn't!” said Job.
“Job, Job!” ejaculated Biddikin, “didn't he strike me?
Tell the truth, Job!”
“Y-a-a-s, he did,” said Job: “knocked yer head!”
“My life ain't safe in his hands, you see, gentlemen! —
Oh, you ingrate! you monster!”
And the doctor, as soon as he had one hand at liberty,
clinched it, and made a dash at Mad, dragging the chair and
plenty of loose rope after him.
“Let him come!” said Mad in a pugilistic attitude, setting
his chin out tauntingly, and playing his fists at the old
man's face. “I've knocked him down many a time, fast as
he could pick himself up.”
“How many times?” said Abner, looking over his pencil.
Pencil and note-book flew into the air at a stroke from
Mad's boot; who remarked, as Abner sprang to recover his
property, that he was used to kicking foot-ball.
“Perhaps,” said the pallid Abner, “you would like to
kick me. I want you all to witness it if he does.”
“Don't you do it, Madison!” exclaimed the doctor.
“He'll take the lor of you. Don't you!”
“If I should, 'twould be the last of him!” said Mad, with
his foot drawn back. “There'd be nothing left but a grease-spot.”
“Never mind!” — Abner finished his writing with a trembling
saw it. Besides,” — he tapped his notes craftily, — “I've
enough here to fix him!”
“He's been taking evidence!” ejaculated the doctor.
“Madison, run for your life! He'll have you up for striking
me!”
“And choking you!” grinned Abner; “and robbing
you!”
“It's false!” retorted Biddikin. “It's a sheer fabrication.
Go about your business!”
“It's my business to get him arrested on your complaint,”
said Abner, retreating.
“I've made no complaint!” The doctor compressed his
lips firmly, stiffening his meagre neck. “How could he rob
me? I had no money, — not a cent; had I, Job?”
“N-o-o!” said Job. “Felt in all your pockets: couldn't
find none.”
“He's my son; I can let him abuse me if I choose:
shouldn't you say so, Mr. Murk?” cried the excited doctor.
“Isn't it a pity father and son can't have a little altercation,
but a lawyer must interfere? You contemptible” — and
the fierce little man made a sally at Abner, who jumped into
the buggy, shaking his note-book triumphantly, and drove
away.
“Let us keep calm,” said the philanthropic Murk with a
dull smile. “All these things have their use, brother. The
experience of being hung out of a window was necessary for
you think so, sister?”
“Most certingly,” said Miss Lingham with a sympathizing
smile.
“The young man” — meaning Mad — “was only an
agent. The other young man, whatever he may do, is only
an agent. We cannot help what we do. The spirits know
what is necessary. Evil is just as necessary as good is; and
evil is no more evil than good is evil. Strictly speaking,” —
the philanthropist squinted sagaciously, — “there is no evil.
Don't you say so, sister?” turning to Miss Lingham.
“That is comforting doctrine, truly!” remarked Doctor
Biddikin, recovering his equanimity and his genteel manners.
“But I — I'm not sure” — thumbs together — “but it
would encourage vice.”
“Do you know the difference between vice and virtue?”
asked the sapient Murk. “They are the two poles of the
same battery. If there was no vice, there could be no virtue.
And as for vice being encouraged, what is necessary will be.
See there! the wise Athenian indorses that!” — wagging his
Socratic arm.
“Well, well!” cried Biddikin with airy affability, “it
may be so: I'm not prepared to say. But walk in; for I
suppose you have come to converse about affairs.”
“Shall we go in?” Murk paused a moment, then wagged
both hands. “Yes, the spirits say, `Go in.'” And, giving
Socrates to Miss Lingham, he escorted her into the house,
following the doctor.
Mad rolled on the grass, playing with the crow, which
perched, now on his wrist, and now on the sole of his upraised
foot, and now picked his pockets for corn; until Job brought
the cards, and sat down by command to resume the game of
euchre, — a three-handed game, as it proved; Jack taking
the first “trick,” and flying with it to the top of the chimney.
| XXIV.
ABNER TAKES NOTES. Lucy Arlyn | |