XIV.
One morning toward the end of August, Whitwell, who was starting homeward, after leaving his ladies, burdened with their wishes and charges for the morrow, met Westover coming up the hill with his painting-gear in his hand. "Say!" he hailed him. "Why don"t you come down to the house to-night? Jackson"s goin" to come, and, if you ha"n"t seen him work the plantchette for a spell, you"ll be surprised. There a"n"t hardly anybody he can"t have up. You"ll come? Good enough!"
What affected Westover first of all at the seance, and perhaps most of all, was the quality of the air in the little house; it was close and stuffy, mixed with an odor of mould and an ancient smell of rats. The kerosene-lamp set in the centre of the table, where Jackson afterward placed his planchette, devoured the little life that was left in it.
At the gasps which Westover gave, with some despairing glances at the closed windows, Whitwell said: "Hot? Well, I guess it is a little. But, you see, Jackson has got to be careful about the night air; but I guess I can fix it for you." He went out into the ell, and Westover heard him raising a window. He came back and asked, "That do? It "ll get around in here directly," and Westover had to profess relief.
Jackson came in presently with the little Canuck, whom Whitwell presented to Westover: "Know Jombateeste?"
The two were talking about a landslide which had taken place on the other side of the mountain; the news had just come that they had found among the ruins the body of the farm-hand who had been missing since the morning of the slide; his funeral was to be the next day.
Jackson put his planchette on the table, and sat down before it with a sigh; the Canuck remained standing, and on foot he was scarcely a head higher than the seated Yankees. "Well," Jackson said, "I suppose he knows all about it now," meaning the dead farm-hand.
"Yes," Westover suggested, "if he knows anything."
"Know anything!" Whitwell shouted. "Why, man, don"t you believe he"s as much alive as ever he was?"
"I hope so," said Westover, submissively.
"Don"t you know it?"
"Not as I know other things. In fact, I don"t know it," said Westover, and he was painfully aware of having shocked his hearers by the agnosticism so common among men in towns that he had confessed it quite simply and unconsciously. He perceived that faith in the soul and life everlasting was as quick as ever in the hills, whatever grotesque or unwonted form it wore. Jackson sat with closed eyes and his head fallen back; Whitwell stared at the painter, with open mouth; the little Canuck began to walk up and down impatiently; Westover felt a reproach, almost an abhorrence, in all of them.
Whitwell asked: "Why, don"t you think there"s any proof of it?"
"Proof? Oh Yes. There"s testimony enough to carry conviction to the stubbornest mind on any other point. But it"s very strange about all that. It doesn"t convince anybody but the witnesses. If a man tells me he"s seen a disembodied spirit, I can"t believe him. I must see the disembodied spirit myself."
"That"s something so," said Whitwell, with a relenting laugh.
"If one came back from the dead, to tell us of a life beyond the grave, we should want the a.s.surance that he"d really been dead, and not merely dreaming."
Whitwell laughed again, in the delight the philosophic mind finds even in the reasoning that hates it.
The Canuck felt perhaps the simpler joy that the average man has in any strange notion that he is able to grasp. He stopped in his walk and said: "Yes, and if you was dead and went to heaven, and stayed so long you smelt, like Lazarus, and you come back and tol" "em what you saw, n.o.body goin" believe you."
"Well, I guess you"re right there, Jombateeste," said Whitwell, with pleasure in the Canuck"s point. After a moment he suggested to Westover: "Then I s"pose, if you feel the way you do, you don"t care much about plantchette?"
"Oh yes, I do," said the painter. "We never know when we may be upon the point of revelation. I wouldn"t miss any chance."
Whether Whitwell felt an ironic slant in the words or not, he paused a moment before he said: "Want to start her up, Jackson?"
Jackson brought to the floor the forefeet of his chair, which he had tilted from it in leaning back, and without other answer put his hand on the planchette. It began to fly over the large sheet of paper spread upon the table, in curves and angles and eccentrics.
"Feels pootty lively to-night," said Whitwell, with a glance at Westover.
The little Canuck, as if he had now no further concern in the matter, sat down in a corner and smoked silently. Whitwell asked, after a moment"s impatience:
"Can"t you git her down to business, Jackson?"
Jackson gasped: "She"ll come down when she wants to."
The little instrument seemed, in fact, trying to control itself.
Its movements became less wild and large; the zigzags began to shape themselves into something like characters. Jackson"s wasted face gave no token of interest; Whitwell laid half his gaunt length across the table in the endeavor to make out some meaning in them; the Canuck, with his hands crossed on his stomach, smoked on, with the same gleam in his pipe and eye.
The planchette suddenly stood motionless.
"She done?" murmured Whitwell.
"I guess she is, for a spell, anyway," said Jackson, wearily.
"Let"s try to make out what she says." Whitwell drew the sheets toward himself and Westover, who sat next him. "You"ve got to look for the letters everywhere. Sometimes she"ll give you fair and square writin", and then again she"ll slat the letters down every which way, and you"ve got to hunt "em out for yourself. Here"s a B I"ve got. That begins along pretty early in the alphabet. Let"s see what we can find next."
Westover fancied he could make out an F and a T.
Whitwell exulted in an unmistakable K and N; and he made sure of an I, and an E. The painter was not so sure of an S. "Well, call it an S,"
said Whitwell. "And I guess I"ve got an O here, and an H. h.e.l.lo! Here"s an A as large as life. Pootty much of a mixture."
"Yes; I don"t see that we"re much better off than we were before," said Westover.
"Well, I don"t know about that," said Whitwell.
"Write "em down in a row and see if we can"t pick out some sense.
I"ve had worse finds than this; no vowels at all sometimes; but here"s three."
He wrote the letters down, while Jackson leaned back against the wall, in patient quiet.
"Well, sir," said Whitwell, pushing the paper, where he had written the letters in a line, to Westover, "make anything out of "em?"
Westover struggled with them a moment. "I can make out one word-shaft."
"Anything else?" demanded Whitwell, with a glance of triumph at Jackson.
Westover studied the remaining letters. "Yes, I get one other word-broken."
"Just what I done! But I wanted you to speak first. It"s Broken Shaft.
Jackson, she caught right onto what we was talkin" about. This life,"
he turned to Westover, in solemn exegesis, "is a broken shaft when death comes. It rests upon the earth, but you got to look for the top of it in the skies. That"s the way I look at it. What do you think, Jackson?
Jombateeste?"
"I think anybody can"t see that. Better go and get some heye-gla.s.s."
Westover remained in a shameful minority. He said, meekly: "It suggests a beautiful hope."
Jackson brought his chair-legs down again, and put his hand on the planchette.
"Feel that tinglin"?" asked. Whitwell, and Jackson made yes with silent lips. "After he"s been workin" the plantchette for a spell, and then leaves off, and she wants to say something more," Whitwell explained to Westover, "he seems to feel a kind of tinglin" in his arm, as if it was asleep, and then he"s got to tackle her again. Writin" steady enough now, Jackson!" he cried, joyously. "Let"s see." He leaned over and read, "Thomas Jefferson--" The planchette stopped, "My, I didn"t go to do that," said Whitwell, apologetically. "You much acquainted with Jefferson"s writin"s?" he asked of Westover.
The painter had to own his ignorance of all except the diction that the government is best which governs least; but he was not in a position to deny that Jefferson had ever said anything about a broken shaft.