“Tom Gardner.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, you see,” said Willerkins slowly,
as he took dignified pulls at his pipe, “Tom
Gardner was once a fambly man, who lived in these here
parts on a nice leetle farm. He uster go away
to the city orften, and one time he got a-gamblin’
in one of them there dens. He went ter the dickens
right quick then. At last he kum home one time
and tol’ his folks he had up and sold the farm
and all he had in the worl’. His leetle
wife she died then. Tom he went crazy, and soon
after—”
The narrative was interrupted by the little man, who
became possessed of devils.
“I wouldn’t give a cuss if he had left
me ’nough money to get home on the doggoned,
grey-haired red pirate,” he shrilled, in a seething
sentence. The pudgy man gazed at the little man
calmly and sneeringly.
“Oh, well,” he said, “we can tell
a great tale when we get back to the city after having
investigated this thing.”
“Go to the devil,” replied the little
man.
A TALE OF SULLIVAN COUNTY
On the brow of a pine-plumed hillock there sat a little
man with his back against a tree. A venerable
pipe hung from his mouth, and smoke-wreaths curled
slowly skyward, he was muttering to himself with his
eyes fixed on an irregular black opening in the green
wall of forest at the foot of the hill. Two vague
wagon ruts led into the shadows. The little man
took his pipe in his hands and addressed the listening
pines.
“I wonder what the devil it leads to,”
said he.
A grey, fat rabbit came lazily from a thicket and
sat in the opening. Softly stroking his stomach
with his paw, he looked at the little man in a thoughtful
manner. The little man threw a stone, and the
rabbit blinked and ran through an opening. Green,
shadowy portals seemed to close behind him.
The little man started. “He’s gone
down that roadway,” he said, with ecstatic mystery
to the pines. He sat a long time and contemplated
the door to the forest. Finally, he arose, and
awakening his limbs, started away. But he stopped
and looked back.
“I can’t imagine what it leads to,”
muttered he. He trudged over the brown mats of
pine needles, to where, in a fringe of laurel, a tent
was pitched, and merry flames caroused about some
logs. A pudgy man was fuming over a collection
of tin dishes. He came forward and waved a plate
furiously in the little man’s face.
“I’ve washed the dishes for three days.
What do you think I am—”
He ended a red oration with a roar: “Damned
if I do it any more.”
The little man gazed dim-eyed away. “I’ve
been wonderin’ what it leads to.”
“What?”
“That road out yonder. I’ve been
wonderin’ what it leads to. Maybe, some
discovery or something,” said the little man.
The pudgy man laughed. “You’re an
idiot. It leads to ol’ Jim Boyd’s
over on the Lumberland Pike.”
