University of Virginia Library

McGlasson, Eva Wilder. "Minnehaha."
Scribner's Magazine 16.6 (Dec. 1894): 763-768.

SHE came out on the porch of the small, trim-looking house, and stood restlessly fumbling with the broad gold band on her fore-finger. Her middle-aged face exhibited a sort of stolid distress. The lips were purple and puckered. The wide, pale cheeks were streaked with dull red. In her cold blue eyes, as they took acrimonious stock of the medium's poor, weather-beaten house over the way, a perturbed spark flickered.

"I guess they won't hev much of a crowd to-night," she muttered; "it looks like rain was blowing up." Then she turned about and, lifting her voice, said, "Jane! aw Jane! you ain't thinking of going across the way to-night, are you? I wouldn't feel safe about you if a storm came."

There was a step in the small, neat hallway. Another woman, tall and lean, with a sallow, nervous face, appeared in the doorway. She wore a black alpaca gown with a deep fall of crocheted lace about the neck. Her hair was screwed back in a grayish knob. It was amazingly sleek, but the crop of tiny curls, which displayed their lace foundation over the woman's shining, yellowish forehead, was strangely crinkled, like gray moss.

"The paper never spoke of rain," she demurred, glancing critically out.

It was almost dark, and from every street-corner long strands of natural gas were already flaming high. Sometimes the sweeping redness flaunted low, turbanning the iron standard heads in silky vermilion. Again the fiery masses were spun out in long threads which twisted about the heavy rod like gay ribbons about a May-pole. Mill-stacks and the skeleton outworks of several gas-wells lifted blackly upon the horizon. Everywhere were little dwellings, new, insufficient of build, mere shells hastily put together for the occupancy of those whom the gas had so suddenly drawn to the old Indiana town.

The house of the Werner girls was the only house on the square which had a look of respectable age and use. Lilac bushes made rich flecks of verdancy in the front yard. An apple-tree bent a gnarled hand of blessing over the porch end. Through the open door a precise, small parlor revealed itself, with fading Brussels carpeting, hair-cloth chairs of an antique fashion of frame, marble centre-table, and a corner what-not.

"You can't always go by them weather reports," declared the elder Miss Werner, surveying her sister. "I say there's a storm coming. You best stay right home, Jane." She gave the younger woman an anxious glance. Jane's lips drew together.

"I'm thinking of looking in at Mrs. Furber's," she said, simply.

Her sister drew a gasping breath.

"You're killing me," she broke forth; "that's what you're doing, Jane Werner! Only us two and our family always as much looked up to as any in town! I'm glad that mother ain't alive to witness your doin's—you that was sent to Sunday-school before you could talk plain! Oh, my goodness me!"

Jane wheeled round, with an air of impatience.

"Liza," she said, "you better be reasonable. I'm old enough to know what I'm doing. There's no harm in my going to Mrs. Furber's of Tuesday nights. I ain't a believer; I'm only investigatin'."

"They all say that!" moaned Liza; "they're all investigatin'!" Her voice rang out with a hysterical note. Some people passing looked over the fence. Little throngs of twos and threes were coming up the badly paved street, under the lurid pulsing of the numerous gas-jets. They slackened pace at the

gate of the rickety cottage of the medium. As they mounted the single door-step the inner light disclosed them generally as elderly persons in common attire.

A slight, childish figure in a frock of some light color stood in the embrasure of the door. The folk who entered seemed to touch lightly the slim-wristed hand this little figure held motionlessly toward them. In the variance of the streaming gas a silver coin, slipping into the palm of the girl on the threshold, caught a transient flash of white. She seemed to be taking an admission fee. The Werners could see her small, pale face, her spare ankles, her serious expression, the fluff of light hair on her forehead.

Then the door was shut rather suddenly. A man's arm, reaching from the window, drew the shutters close. Presently a quavering voice lifted up the rhythm of a familiar hymn. A stranger passing might have thought that the slant roof of the medium's house sheltered a meeting of devout souls at prayer and praise.

With a checked shawl about her shoulders, the younger Miss Werner reappeared in the doorway. Her sister, huddling on the step, lifted a face of interdiction.

"All I hope is that lightnin' won't strike that house yonder," she said. "Though I ain't sure but I as lief see you laid out in your grave fixin's as sitting alive onder Mrs. Furber's hoo-dooin'. Don't tell me! She hain't no more power to summon dead folks to talk through a trumpet than I hev, so she ain't. Pore Mr. Furber! I d'know but I pity him more than anyone. He's the worst deceived of the hull lot—thinks his wife's got a gift from heaven—pore old soul! Well, he'll soon find out what a evil creature he's been trusting, for he's not long for this world. He's pointedly dying day by day—got the rale old style consumption, if ever I see it. Oh, law me! and the only sister I got in the world a-payin' out money to mix in with folks that lets theirselves be befooled and bewheedled!"

Jane's face wore a look of resigned exasperation. Across the street they had begun the second stanza of the hymn. She lifted her skirts and went resolutely down the steps.

The knob of the medium's door turned easily in her hand, disclosing a poor room, spectrally lighted by a lamp with a green shade. Numbers of men and women, with knees rigidly squared, sat in a circle, in the centre of which a woman stood arranging on a small table a bowl of red geraniums and a tall tin trumpet.

She was thin and worn, with lightish hair twisting back from her high cheekbones. Her lips were set close, but her gray eyes had a furtive sort of uneasiness as she glanced round the room. Her eyes lingered an instant on a well-dressed young man hard by.

"You are a stranger?" she asked, with a certain suspicious accent. The man nodded.

"Yes'm. I paid same as the rest," he remarked, with a sharp note in his voice. The medium regarded him with cold dignity. Then her gaze ranged again about the gathering, resting for an instant on that part of the circle where her daughter sat, holding the hand of an old man whose face, even in the dim light, wore a look of eager expectancy. He was tall, with a bent frame, the joints of which were sadly evident in the threadbare clothes he had on. His long silvery beard shelved alertly over his narrow breast. Locks of gray hair bestrung his ears and fringed over a wide, benevolent brow, in which, from deep hollows, shone a pair of great, credulous, enthusiastic eyes.

"I kind of look for good success to-night," he broke out, catching his wife's eye. "Somehow I feel like the conditions were about right. It's just a mite cool this evening. Minnehaha always does best on cool evenings. Haven't you noticed it, Emma?"

The medium bent over the bowl of flowers.

"Yes," she murmured, a little heavily. "Yes, Henry, I believe so."

She sat down beside the table, closing her eyes. A sharp rap sounded somewhere near her. She started and twitched.

"She's going under control," whis-

pered Miss Werner, in an explanatory tone, to the strange man by whom she sat. Someone rose and blew out the light. A stifling sort of darkness fell upon the place. The lack of air, the absolute gloom, perhaps some physical force transmitted through the clasped hands of those who sat about—these conditions always gave Miss Jane a strangeness of feeling which made her credulous of occult forces, and more than at other times inclined to put confidence in the wan woman sitting so silently in the centre of the room.

Miss Jane was not sure as to the veracity of the manifestations which Mrs. Furber evoked. The queerness, however, fascinated the younger Miss Werner, and she assured herself that, even if she were being deceived, she was acting a worthy part in contributing to the support of the Furber family. For though Mrs. Furber might be a woman of iniquitous devices, there was no doubt that she was a good wife and mother. Everyone knew how hard she had worked to support the feeble old husband and delicate little daughter. Everyone knew, also, that her health had failed under the stress of doing tailor's work on a heavy machine. It was along in winter that she herself realized definitely her inability to go on. It was winter and bleak. Things went hard in the Furber house. One morning a neighbor woman observed an odd feature in the landscape opposite her window. From the chimney of the Werner house a half-scared-looking thread of smoke rose, veining the sky with tremulous blue. Not another chimney in sight but was breathless in indication of gas used for fuel.

"They're burning wood," said the woman. "I reckon the town's cut off their gas. Things must be at a low ebb with the Furbers."

This judgment had scarcely been detailed in the neighborhood when it was ousted by a more thrilling bit of intelligence. It was whispered that Mrs. Furber had a gift for "foreseein'." The wives of the workmen in the various factories about began to go to her for what they called "settings." These trysts with the esoteric took place in a dark corner of Mrs. Furber's front room. The awed searcher for fate-withheld knowledge, sitting in the shadows of the improvised cabinet, would observe the face of the medium convulsed in the initiatory stages of "going off." The trance condition following these alarming spasms was presided over by an entity speaking from Mrs. Furber's lips in a dialect that was of German suggestiveness, interlarded with such idioms as a half-breed Indian might be supposed to use.

"The pale-faced squaw" would be greeted to the wigwam of Minnehaha, the Indian maiden who was Mrs. Furber's control. Any questions the pale-faced squaw might ask would be cheerfully, if not definitely, answered, for Minnehaha was as obliging as she was incoherent. Her replies were absolutely Delphic in their ambiguity, and however the questioner's affairs turned out, it could never be said that Minnehaha had prophesied falsely.

In addition to private "settings," Minnehaha engagingly exhibited her powers in what Mrs. Furber's clientele called dark circles. These were held once a week and excited deep interest from "believers," amiable curiosity from "investigators," and scoffing ridicule from those who were neither. The frequenters of the mysterious rites which Mrs. Furber celebrated were not given to criticism. They had not even an elementary belief in the biological law that no human being can possibly possess any quality different in nature from those which belong to the race in general. They went blind in a mist of credulity, grasping at the dark skirts of any vision which seemed to float above the common, wholesome facts of life.

By these simple folk Mrs. Furber came to be regarded with veneration. She held converse with their lost Willy and Maria, could see these blessed children amusing themselves with celestial toys on the steps of the temple, and even bring badly constructed messages of good-will from their angelic lips.

But of all those who believed Mrs. Furber miraculously endowed, none regarded her with a confidence so implicit as her husband felt. All the simple faith of his nature concentrated itself

upon this late revelation of her sublime endowment. She had always been the one woman of his heart. But now she had become, as it were, the reed through which the spiritual world breathed its inspired utterances to the dull ear of mortality, and old Furber felt for her that superstitious veneration one feels for river water which a priest has blest in the font.

As darkness settled in the low room, he gave a sigh of ecstasy. Everything was intensely still. Suddenly a succession of sharp raps sounded, stirring the heavy gloom with echoes to make the most prosaic blood leap.

"It's Minnehaha!" said someone. Then a guttural voice came in an odd gurgle of laughter from the midst of the room.

"Me here again," it said; "me bring word from little angel— yellow scalp—blue eyes, name Bobby." A thin cry rang out.

"Oh, it's from my baby! my Bobby! Ah, thank you, Minnehaha! Is he here in the room?"

Minnehaha freely scattered messages around the circle.

Sometimes other spirits seemed anxious for the relaxation of brief talk with their mortal acquaintances. These spoke through the trumpet in husky whispers. Then the voices ceased. There was a deep breath from the medium. Someone lighted the lamp, thus revealing her pale, dazed face.

"Was—Minnehaha here?" she asked.

"Yes, Emma! yes, dear!" cried her husband. "Such a bounteous evening! The air was full of moving wings. I am sure, quite sure, that I felt a hand on my forehead—a cold, soft hand." His tone was tremulous with emotion. A sort of easy sympathy mirrored itself in the faces about. Suddenly a sharp laugh rang out. The strange man sitting by Miss Jane was shaking with mirth.

"Say!" he exclaimed, "you folks ain't all taken in by this business, are you? I've been around considerable—I'm a travelling man—and I've seen these things before. I've seen pretty poor outfits, but I never see anything quite so bad as this seance to-night. That Choctaw girl must have learned to talk in Prussia! And by the hot breath that came in my face out of the trumpet, I should say some of these spirits have pretty good lungs. I'm not complaining. I've had my money's worth of fun watching you folks taken in so easy! If I'd wanted to make a row—which I didn't—I could have showed you the angel that's been walking round this circle whispering messages through a tin horn!"

He paused, laughing. There was a moment's silence. Mrs. Furber crouched in her chair, white, gasping for breath, with a piteously wandering look in her eyes as if she sought some escape from the glances bent upon her. Furber himself sat staring at the stranger with an air of dull bewilderment, as of one who has been smitten mortally. Suddenly a flash leaped to his face. He sprang to his feet and dashed forward. Someone laid restraining fingers upon him, and thus held he lifted a shaking hand toward the man who had spoken.

"Go," he cried, hoarsely, "go from this house. Dog!—you have slandered—you have slandered—" he faltered and sank back upon the shoulder of the stalwart fellow who had laid hold of him. They carried him upstairs to the small bed-chamber under the eaves. The stranger departed, and the rest remained to assure Mrs. Furber of their unbroken belief in her.

The story travelled round such parts of the town as had any interest in the spiritual pretensions of Mrs. Furber. It was generally conceded that his outburst of indignation had not done Furber himself any good. He had never risen, though several weeks passed on, from the bed where they laid him on the night of the strange man's half-jocular denunciation. The circles went on as usual, but though Mrs. Furber's adherents had declared their belief in her, it was noticeable that the Tuesday night gatherings were pervaded with a new spirit. People were constantly asking Minnehaha for "tests." They seemed less sure of the Indian girl's veracity, and even went so far as to ask her to explain her somewhat nebulous statements. In these trying times Minnehaha displayed great sweetness

of disposition. She deplored the fact of her inability to speak, as her earth friends spoke, the beautiful language of the pale-faces. She could only stammer out the tidings given her by spirits in every way superior to her, except that, unlike her, they possessed no medium of communication with the visible universe.

Minnehaha was amiable, but unhappily she seemed more and more liable to merely mortal errors. She made many mistakes. She spoke of a house as a house instead of a wigwam. She confused the dates of the deaths of Mrs. James Gray's two children, and committed various other sins which her friends found hard to pardon.

As to the medium herself, it was noted that Minnehaha's lapses or her husband's illness seemed to be wearing upon her. She looked white and broken-spirited, and there was in her eyes a look of apprehension and pain. After a peculiarly unsuccessful circle Miss Jane Werner lingered for a word with her hostess.

"You're looking poorly," she said. "Can I do anything for you?" Mrs. Furber looked quickly into the kind, old-maidish face. Some subtle understanding seemed to pass between them as they stood in the festival brilliancy of the over-lighted street.

Mrs. Furber moaned. Then she buried her face in her hands.

"No one can help me," she said. Miss Jane's nervous, shining brows knotted themselves and her lips shook.

"No matter what anyone says, I'm your friend!" she cried.

The other lifted a scared face.

"What—do they say?" she panted.

"Well, there's been some dissatisfaction lately—in the circle," admitted Miss Jane, guiltily.

On the following Tuesday night, however, there was a good gathering in the medium's carpetless front room. The medium came downstairs looking herself more like a disquiet shade than a woman. She took her place, made the usual contortions, and went "under control." Minnehaha's voice gurgled forth; but those who listened were aware of a change in it. Now the Indian jargon rang out briskly; again it was Mrs. Furber herself stumbling through some incoherency of statement. Presently the voice faltered and broke.

"Will someone light the lamp?" said Mrs. Furber, in her usual tone. And when this was done the people saw her sitting before them with a look of deathly illness upon her.

"There will be no manifestations to-night," she said. "I find I am too tired. I—haven't the strength." She rose precipitately and stumbled up the staircase.

It was almost dark in the upper room where old Furber lay in bed, looking out at the pale sprinkling of stars in the purple sky. Street gas-lamps loomed along the cross-street like a range of low red moons. The old man's face was wasted to a pure aspect of modelling. The slightest vesture of flesh covered his long hands. He turned at his wife's step.

"You haven't left our good friends, Emma?" he asked, in a thin, rattling voice.

She fell on her knees beside him.

"I want to be with you!" she sobbed. "I want to be with you!"

He touched her hair tenderly.

"I am not lonely," he said. "I can spare you, dear. Remember how many hearts wait to be comforted by you. You belong to two worlds. Your gift is divine. Oh, my wife! I must not keep you from using it divinely!" He paused, disturbed by a tumult of voices in the room below.

"I guess that travelling man was about right," someone was saying loudly. "We've all let ourselves be fooled. Minnehaha! I guess her and Mrs. Furber are one and the same! None of us has ever seen Minnehaha, hev we?—good reason why. Well, I let it pass. I want my money back; that's all."

A clamor of approval rose upon this outbreak. "Tell her to give us back our money! we've been deceived just as long as we mean to. Our money!"

There was a hasty step on the stairs. Miss Jane Werner's head rose above the rail. She looked excitedly about the upper room, at the kneeling figure by the bed, and at the wasted face on the pillow.

"Mrs. Furber," she said, "may I speak to you just a second? I—" she paused, startled by the strangeness of the two faces on which she looked.

The old man had lifted himself on one elbow and was gazing into the appalled eyes of the woman beside him.

"Emma," he said, "do not heed them. Do not heed them." There was a peculiar light stealing over his countenance, a light so strange that his wife, regarding it, gave a cry.

"Henry!" she gasped. "Oh, he is dying! Henry, listen to me! listen! I can't let you die, believing—Henry, do you hear me? I--I am all that man said. Those spirits—they were false. There is no Minnehaha! I did it—I did it all myself—because we were starving!" She dropped her shaken face on his breast, as if not daring to meet the anger in his dying vision.

On the stair Miss Jane stood rooted with amazement and awe. The old man's eyes took her in in their strangely rolling glance. He laid one arm across his wife's prostrate form, still gazing fixedly at the scared figure on the staircase.

"My wife is not well," he said, with difficult utterance. "She does not know what she is saying. Her husband is dying. Miss Jane, Miss Jane, will you tell those people below that they're wrong, all wrong?"

He shot out a sudden, pointing finger. "Tell them," he cried, in a voice which flagged low on the last word; "tell them that I saw her!—that just as I passed over, I saw—Minnehaha."