A Man in the Open.
by Roger Poc.o.c.k.
TO PERSONS WHO HAVE NAMESAKES IN THIS BOOK
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,
Except the Bear, who is no more, the characters appearing in this volume wish me to say that their breaches of etiquette, homicides, etc., are all original sins. Their infirmities of body, soul, and spirit are their own, not mimicry of yours, not a caricature of your friend, your acquaintance, of your second-hand acquaintance, or anybody you have heard about, or even of some mere celebrity. If we hold up a mirror, it is to human nature, not to you.
The characters wish me to tell you that they are all Imaginary Persons, and therefore very sensitive. The persons of a drama are protected by footlights, by the stage doorkeeper, not to mention grease paint and scalps by an eminent artiste; but the characters in a novel are thrust defenseless into a rude world, with many reporters about. In a page fright, worse even than stage fright, their only comfort is that absence of body which is their alternative to your great gift,--presence of mind.
So they make their bow under a.s.sumed names. There we come to the point.
The proper names were all dealt out to worldly grasping persons, and not one was left unclaimed. The name department is like a cloak-room when the guests have departed, a train from which all pa.s.sengers have alighted, an office on Christmas day. Can you blame the characters in fiction who come after you, if they a.s.sume the n.o.blest names, such as Smith, and try to be worthy of their borrowed plumes? Surely you would not have them wear a numeral such as the number of your house, or telephone.
The chances are that they give you no offense. Suppose that gentlemen named Jesse Smith number one in each million of English-speaking people, there would be one hundred in North America, half of them adults, with a moiety in wedlock, and, of these twenty-five, a hundredth part may be stockmen, of whom say one per cent. have a flaw in their claim to wedlock. To this residuum, the .0025 part of a perfect gentleman, whom he has not the honor to know personally, our Mr. Smith tenders profound apologies.
But the Persons of the book, dear friends, who have filled two years of my life with happiness, are not only Imaginary People with a.s.sumed names, but they inhabit a district at variance with the maps, at a period not shown in earthly calendars. So far aloof from the world where they might give offense to earthly readers, they are outside the bounds of s.p.a.ce and time, and belong to that realm of Art where there is but one law, whereby they stand or fall, must live or die--fidelity to Life.
Your obedient servant,
THE AUTHOR.
A MAN IN THE OPEN
PART I
CHAPTER I
ON THE LABRADOR
_Dictated by Mr. Jesse Smith_
Don"t you write anything down yet, "cause I ain"t ready.
If I wrote this yarn myself, I"d make it good and red from tip to tip, claws out, teeth bare, fur crawling with emotions. It wouldn"t be dull, no, or evidence.
But then it"s to please you, and that"s what I"m for.
So I proceeds to stroke the fur smooth, lay the paws down soft, fold up the smile, and purr. A sort of truthfulness steals over me. Goin" to be dull, too.
No, I dunno how to begin. If this yarn was a rope, I"d coil it down before I begun to pay out. You lays the end, so, and flemish down, ring by ring until the bight"s coiled, smooth, ready to flake off as it runs.
I delayed a lynching once to do just that, and relieve the patient"s mind. It all went off so well!
When we kids were good, mother she used to own we came of pedigree stock; but when we"re bad, seems we took after father. You see mother"s folk was the elect, sort of born saved. They allowed there"d be room in Heaven for one hundred and forty-four thousand just persons, mostly from Nova Scotia, but when they took to sorting the neighbors, they"d get exclusive. The McGees were all right until Aunt Jane McGee up and married a venerable archdeacon, due to burn sure as a bishop. The Todds were through to glory, with doubts on Uncle Simon, who"d been a whaler captain until he found grace and opened a dry-goods store. Seeing he died in grace, worth all of ten thousand dollars, the heirs concluded the Lord should act reasonable, until they found uncle had left his wealth to charities. Then they put a text on his tomb--"For he had great possessions."
The McAndrewses has corner lots in the New Jerusalem, and is surely the standard of morals until Cousin Abner went shiftless and wrote poems.
They"d allus been so durned respectable, too.
Anyway, mother"s folk as a tribe, is millionaires in grace and pretty well fixed in Nova Scotia. She"d talk like a book, too. You"d never suspect mother, playing the harmonium in church, with a tuning-fork to sharpen the preacher"s voice, black boots, white socks, box-plaited crinoline, touch-me-not frills, poke bonnet, served all round with scratch-the-kisser roses. Yes, I seen the daguerreotype, work of a converted photographer--nothing to pay. Thar"s mother--full suit of sail, rated a hundred A-one at Lloyd"s, the most important sheep in the Lord"s flock. Then she"s found out, secretly married among the goats.
Her name"s scratched out of the family Bible, with a strong hint to the Lord to scratch her entry from the Book of Life. She"s married a sailorman before the mast, a Liveyere from the Labrador, a man without a dollar, suspected of being Episcopalian. Why, she"d been engaged to the leading grocery in Pugwash. Oh, great is the fall thereof, and her name ain"t alluded to no more. "The ways of the Lord," says she, "is surely wonderful."
In them days the Labrador ain"t laid out exactly to suit mother. She"s used to luxury--coal in the lean-to, taties in the cellar, cows in the barn, barter store round the corner, mails, church, school, and a jail right handy, so she can enjoy the unG.o.dly getting their just deserts.
But in our time the Labrador was just G.o.d"s country, all rocks, ice, and sea, to put the fear into proud hearts--no need of teachers. It kills off the weaklings--no need of doctors. A school to raise men--no need of preachers. The law was "work or starve"--no place for lawyers. It"s police, and court, and hangman all complete, fire and hail, snow and vapors, wind and storm fulfilling His word. Nowadays I reckon there"d be a cinematograph theater down street to distract your attention from facts, and you"d order mola.s.ses by wireless, invoiced C. O. D. to Torngak, Lab. Can"t I hear mother"s voice acrost the years, and the continents, as she reads the lesson: ""He casteth forth His ice like morsels: who can stand before His cold?""
Father"s home was an overturned schooner, turfed in, and he was surely proud of having a bigger place than any other Liveyere on the coast.
There was the hold overhead for stowing winter fish, and room down-stairs for the family, the team of seven husky dogs, and even a cord or two of fire-wood. We kids used to play at Newf"nlanders up in the hold, when the winter storms were tearing the tops off the hills, and the Eskimo devil howled blue shrieks outside. The huskies makes wolf songs all about the fewness of fish, and we"d hear mother give father a piece of her mind. That"s about the first I remember, but all what mother thought about poor father took years and years to say.
I used to be kind of sorry for father. You see he worked the bones through his hide, furring all winter and fishing summers, and what he earned he"d get in truck from the company; All us Liveyeres owed to the Hudson Bay, but father worked hardest, and he owed most, hundreds and hundreds of skins. The company trusted him. There wasn"t a man on the coast more trusted than he was, with mother to feed, and six kids, besides seven huskies, and father"s aunt, Thessalonika, a widow with four children and a tumor, living down to Last Hope beyond the Rocks.
Father"s always in the wrong, and chews black plug baccy to keep his mouth from defending his errors. "B"y," he said once, when mother went out to say a few words to the huskies; "I"d a kettle once as couldn"t let out steam--went off and broke my arm. If yore mother ever gets silent, run, b"y, run!"
I whispered to him, "You don"t mind?"
He grinned. "It"s sort of comforting outside. We don"t know what the winds and the waves is saying. If they talked English, I"d--I"d turn pitman and hew coal, b"y, as they does down Nova Scotia way--where yore mother come from."
There was secrets about father, and if she ever found out! You see, he looked like a white man, curly yaller hair same as me, and he was fearful strong. But in his inside--don"t ever tell!--he was partly small boy same"s me, and the other half of him--don"t ever let on!--was mountaineer injun. I seen his three brothers, the finest fellers you ever--yes, Scotch half-breeds--and mother never knew. "Jesse," he"d whisper, "swear you"ll never tell?"
"S"elp me Bob."
"It would be h.e.l.l, b"y."
"What"s h.e.l.l like?"
"Prayers and bein" scrubbed, forever an" ever."
"But mother won"t be there?"
"Why, no. It hain"t so bad as all that. She"ll be in Heaven, making them angels respectable, and cleaning apostles. They was fishermen, too.
They"ll catch it!"
Thar"s me on father"s knee, with my nose in his buckskin shirt, and even to this day the wood smoke in camp brings back that wuff, whereas summers his boots smelt fishy. What happened first or afterwards is all mixed up, but there"s the smoke smell and sister Maggie lying in the bunk, all white and froze.
There"s fish smell, and Polly who used to wallop me with a slipper, lying white and froze. And yet I knew she couldn"t get froze in summer.
Then there"s smoke smell, and big Tommy, bigger nor father, throwing up blood. I said he"d catch it from mother for messing the floor, but father just hugged me, telling me to shut up. I axed him if Tommy was going to get froze, too. Then father told me that Tommy was going away to where the milk came out of a cow. You just shove the can opener into the cow so--and the milk pours out, whole candy pails of milk. Then there"s great big bird rocks where the hens come to breed, and they lays fresh eggs, real fresh hen"s eggs--rocks all white with eggs. And there"s vegi tables, which is green things to eat. First time you swell up and pretty nigh bust, but you soon get used to greens. Tommy is going to Civili Zation. It"s months and months off, and when you get there, the people is so awful mean they"d let a stranger starve to death without so much as "Come in." The men wear pants right down to their heels, and as to the women--
Mother comes in and looks at father, so he forgets to say about the women at Civili Zation, but other times he"d tell, oh, lots of stories.
He said it was worse for the likes of us than New Jerusalem.