That did it!
"Ninety-six," repeated the Cap"n, dizzily; realizing that he had bounced off the track, he rose, kicked his chair out from under him and shoved a livid and infuriated visage into the thin man"s face.
"Whang-jacket your gor-righteously imperdence!" he bellowed, "what do you mean by stickin" that fish-hawk beak of your"n into my business and make me lose count? Get to Tophet out of here!"
The stranger calmly removed his ear-pads and gazed on the furious selectman with cold, gray and critical eyes.
"Your suggestion as to destination is not well considered," he said.
"There is no h.e.l.l. There is no heaven. I practically settled that point the first time I died. The--"
Cap"n Sproul, without especial attention to this astonishing announcement, was provoked beyond control by this stranger"s contemptuous stare. He grabbed up an ash-stick that served him for a stove-poker.
"Get out of here," he repeated, "or I"ll peg you down through this floor like a spike!"
But the thin man simply gazed at him mournfully and sat down.
"Havin" been killed three times--three times--dead by violent means," he said, "I have no fear of death. Strike me--I shall not resist."
Even a bashi-bazouk must have quailed before that amazing declaration and that patient resignation to fate. Cap"n Sproul looked him up and down for many minutes and then tucked the s.m.u.tty ash-stick under the stove.
"Well, what insane horsepittle did you get out of by crawlin" through the keyhole?" he demanded.
"Oh, I am not insane," remonstrated the thin man. "It is always easy for fools in this world to blat that insult when a man announces something that they don"t understand. A man that knows enough to be selectman of Smyrna hadn"t ought to be a fool. I hope you are not.
But you mustn"t blat like a fool."
Cap"n Sproul could not seem to frame words just then.
"The first time I died," pursued his remarkable guest, "I was frozen to death." He pulled up his trousers and showed a shank as shrunken as a peg-leg. "All the meat came off. The second time I died, a hoss kicked me on the head. The third time, a tree fell on me. And there is no h.e.l.l--there is no heaven. If there had been I"d have gone to one place or the other."
"If I was runnin" either place you wouldn"t," said the Cap"n, sourly.
The thin man crossed his legs and was beginning to speak, but the first selectman broke in savagely: "Now look here, mister, this ain"t either a morgue, a receivin"-tomb, nor an undertaker"s parlor. If you want to get buried and ain"t got the price I"ll lend it to you.
If you want to start over again in life I"ll pay for havin" your birth-notice put into the newspaper. But you want to say what you do want and get out of here. I"ve got some town business to "tend to, and I ain"t got any time to spend settin" up with corpses."
Again the man tried to speak. Again the Cap"n interrupted. "I ain"t disputin" a thing you say," he cried. "I"m admittin" everything, "cause I haven"t got time to argue. You may have been dead nine times like a cat. I don"t care. All is, you go along. You"ll find accommodations at the tavern, the graveyard, or the town farm, whichever hits you best. I"m busy."
But when he pulled his paper of figures under his nose again, the thin man tapped his fleshless digit on the table.
"You"re the first selectman, aren"t you?" he demanded.
"That"s what I be," returned the Cap"n, smartly.
"Well, then, you got to pay attention to town business when it is put before you. I"ve come here on town business. I used to live in this town."
"Was you buried here or was your remains taken away?" inquired the Cap"n, genially, hoping that satire might drive out this unwelcome disturber.
"Oh, I died all three times after I left this town," said the thin man, in matter-of-fact tones. "What I"m comin" at is this: my father gave the land to this town to build the school-house on out in the Crymble district. Deed said if the building was ever abandoned for school purposes for five years running, land and buildin" came back to estate. I came past that school-house to-day and I see it hasn"t been used."
"We don"t have school deestricks any more," explained the Cap"n. "We transport scholars to the village here. That"s been done for six years and over."
"Then I claim the school-house and land," declared the thin man.
"You do, hey?"
"I do. I"ve got tired of travellin" round over this world, and I"m goin" to settle down. And that school-house is the only real estate I"ve got to settle down in. I"ll keep bach" hall there."
"Who in thunderation are you, anyway?" demanded Cap"n Sproul, propping himself on the table and leaning forward belligerently.
"My name is Dependence Crymble," replied the other, quietly. "My father was Hope-for-grace Crymble. Odd names, eh? But the Crymbles were never like other folks."
Cap"n Sproul sat down hard in his chair and goggled at the thin man.
"Say, look-here-you," he gasped at last. "There never could be more"n one name like Dependence Crymble in this world. I ain"t a native here and I don"t know you from Adam. But is your wife the Widow Delora Crymble--I mean, was she--oh, tunk-rabbit it, I reckon I"m gettin"
as crazy as you are!"
"I"m not insane," persisted the other. "I"m Dependence Crymble, and I married Delora Goff. I"ve been away from here twenty years, but I guess the old residents will recognize me, all right."
"But," declared the Cap"n, floundering for a mental footing, "it"s always been said to me that Dependence Crymble died off--away somewhere."
"I"ve already told you I died," said the thin man, still mild but firm. "That"s right, just as you"ve heard it."
"There"s a stone in the graveyard to you," went on the Cap"n, clawing his stubby fingers into his bristle of hair, "and they"ve always called her "Widder Crymble" and"--he stood up again and leaned forward over the table in the att.i.tude of Jove about to launch a thunderbolt and gasped--"she"s goin" to get married to Bat Reeves, Tuesday of next week--and he"s the most infernal scalawag in this town, and he"s took her after he"s tried about every other old maid and widder that"s got property."
The thin man did not even wince or look astonished. His querulous mouth only dropped lower at the corners.
"I don"t care who marries her. She"s a widder and can marry any one she"s got a mind to. I didn"t come back here to mix in. She"s welcome to the property I left her. There was a will. It"s hers. I"ve been administered on according to law. All I want is that school-house back from the town. That"s mine by law."
Cap"n Sproul sat down once more.
"Well," he said at last, with some indignation, "if you was dead and wanted to stay dead and leave a widder and property and let her get married again, and all that--what in the name of the yaller-bellied skate-fish have ye come ghostin" round here for to tip everything upside down and galley-west after it"s been administered on and settled? And it gets town business all mixed up!"
The thin man smiled a wistful smile.
"The poet says: "Where"er we roam, the sky beneath, the heart sighs for its native heath." That"s the sentiment side of it. But there"s a practical side. There"s the school-house. It was worth pa.s.sing this way to find out whether the town had abandoned it--and I reckoned it had, and I reckoned right. I have presentiments that come true.
I reckoned that probably the relict would put a stone in the graveyard for me. I have a presentiment that I shall die twice more, staying dead the fifth time I pa.s.s away. That will be here in this town, and the gravestone won"t be wasted."
While the first selectman was still trying to digest this, the thin man opened his valise. He took out a nickel plate that bore his name.
"This is my casket-plate," he explained, forcing the grisly object into the resisting hands of the Cap"n. "Friends ordered it for me the first time I died. I"ve carried it with me ever since."
"It must be a nice way of pa.s.sin" a rainy Sunday," said the Cap"n, sarcastically, pushing the plate back across the table; "set and look at that and hum a pennyr"yal hymn! It"s sartinly a rollickin" life you"re leadin", Mister Crymble."
Mr. Crymble did not retort. On the contrary he asked, mildly, gazing on the scattered sheets of paper containing the selectman"s efforts at town-report composition, "Do you write poetry, sir?"
"Not by a--by a--" gasped the Cap"n, seeking ineffectually for some phrase to express his ineffable disgust.
"I was in hopes you did," continued Mr. Crymble, "for I would like a little help in finishing my epitaph. I compose slowly. I have worked several years on this epitaph, but I haven"t finished it to suit me.
What I have got done reads":