How Deacon Tubman and Parson Whitney Kept New Year's Part 2

But by this time the deacon had become somewhat alarmed, for Old Jack was going nigh to a thirty clip--a frightful pace for an inexperienced driver to ride--and began to put a good strong pressure upon the bit, not doubting that Old Jack, ordinarily the easiest horse in the world to manage, would take the hint and immediately slow up. But though the huge horse took the hint, it was in exactly the opposite manner that the deacon intended he should, for he interpreted the little man's steady pull as an intimation that his driver was getting over his flurry and beginning to treat him as a horse ought to be treated in a race, and that he could now, having got settled to his work, go ahead. And go ahead he did. The more the deacon pulled the more the great animal felt himself steadied and a.s.sisted. And so, the harder the good man tugged at the reins, the more powerfully the machinery of the big animal ahead of him worked, until the deacon got alarmed and began to call upon the horse to stop, crying, "Whoa, Jack, whoa, old boy, I say! whoa, will you, now? that's a good fellow!" and many other coaxing calls, while he pulled away steadily at the reins. But the horse misunderstood the deacon's calls as he had his pressure upon the reins, for the crowds on either side were yelling and hooting and swinging their caps so that the deacon's voice came indistinctly to his ears at best and he interpreted his calls for him to stop as only so many encouragements and signals for him to go ahead. And so, with the memory of a hundred races stirring his blood, the crowds cheering him to the echo, the steadying pull, the encouraging cries of his driver in his ears and his only rival, the pacer, whirling along only a few rods ahead of him, the monstrous animal, with a desperate plunge that half lifted the old sleigh from the snow, let out another link, and, with such a burst of speed as was never seen in the village before, tore along after the pacer at such a terrific pace that, within the distance of a dozen lengths, he lay lapped upon him and the two were going it nose and nose.

What is that feeling in human hearts which makes us sympathetic with man or animal, who has unexpectedly developed courage and capacity when engaged in a struggle in which the odds are against him? And why do we enter so spiritedly into the contest and lose ourselves in the excitement of the moment? Is it pride? Is it the comradeship of courage?

Or is it the rising of the indomitable in us that loves nothing so much as victory and hates nothing so much as defeat? Be that as it may, no sooner was Old Jack fairly lapped on the pacer, whose driver was urging him along with rein and voice alike, and the contest seemed doubtful, than the spirit of old Adam himself entered into the deacon and the parson both, so that, carried away by the excitement of the race, they fairly forgot themselves and entered as wildly into the contest as two unG.o.dly jockeys.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "_Go it, old boy!_"]

"Deacon Tubman," said the parson, as he clutched more stoutly the rim of his tall hat, against which, as the horse tore along, the snow chips were pelting in showers, "Deacon Tubman, do you think the pacer will beat us?"

"Not if I can help it! not if I can help it!" yelled the deacon, in reply, as, with something like a reinsman's skill, he lifted Jack to another spurt. "Go it, old boy!" he shouted, encouragingly, "go along with you, I say!" And the parson, also, carried away by the whirl of the moment, cried, "Go along, old boy! Go along with you, I say!"

This was the very thing, and the only thing, that the huge horse, whose blood was now fairly aflame, wanted to rally him for the final effort; and, in response to the encouraging cries of the two behind him, he gathered himself together for another burst of speed and put forth his collected strength with such tremendous energy and suddenness of movement that the little deacon, who had risen and was standing erect in the sleigh, fell back into the arms of the parson, while the great horse rushed over the line amid such cheers and roars of laughter as were never heard in that village before. Nor was the horse any more the object of public interest and remark,--I may say favoring remark,--than the parson, who suddenly found himself the centre of a crowd of his own parishioners, many of whom would scarcely have been expected to partic.i.p.ate in such a scene, but who, thawed out of their iciness by the genial temper of the day and vastly excited over Jack's contest, thronged upon the good man, laughing as heartily as any jolly sinner in the crowd.

So everybody shook hands with the parson and wished him a happy New Year, and the parson shook hands with everybody and wished them all many happy returns; and everybody praised Old Jack and rallied the deacon on his driving, and then everybody went home good-natured and happy, laughing and talking about the wonderful race and the change that had come over Parson Whitney.

And as for Parson Whitney himself, the day and its fun had taken twenty years from his age. And nothing would answer but the deacon must go with him and help eat the New Year's pudding at the parsonage. And he did.

At the table they laughed and talked over the funny incidents of the day and joked each other as merrily as two boys. Then Parson Whitney told some reminiscences of his college days and the sc.r.a.pes he got into, and about a riot between town and gown when he carried the "Bully's Club"; and the deacon returned by narrating his experiences with a certain Deacon Jones's watermelon patch, when he was a boy.

And over their tales and their nuts they laughed till they cried, and roared so l.u.s.tily at the remembered frolics of their youthful days that the old parsonage rang, the books on the library shelves rattled and several of the theological volumes actually gaped with horror.

But at last the stories were all told, the jokes all cracked, the laughter all laughed, and the little deacon wished the parson good-bye and jogged happily homeward. But more than once he laughed to himself and said, "Bless my soul, I didn't know the parson had so much fun in him."

And long the parson sat by the glowing grate, after the deacon had left him, musing of other days and the happy, pleasant things that were in them, and many times he smiled, and once he laughed outright at some remembered folly, for he said: "What a wild boy I was, and yet I meant no wrong, and the dear old days were very happy."

Aye, aye, Parson Whitney, the dear old days were very happy, not only to thee, but to all of us, who, following our sun, have faced westward so long that the light of the morning shows through the dim haze of memory.

But happier than even the old days will be the young ones, I ween, when, following still westward, we suddenly come to the gates of the east and the morning once more; and there, in the dawn of a day which is endless, we find our lost youth and its loves, to lose them and it no more forever, thank G.o.d.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tail piece]

The Old Beggar's Dog

[Ill.u.s.tration: Vignette Initial H]

He was a tramp--that is all he was--at least when I knew him. What he had been before, I cannot say, as he never told me his history. Of course every tramp has a history, even as every leaf that the winds blow over the fields has its history, and my old tramp doubtless had his, and G.o.d knows it must have been sad enough, judging by his looks, for he had the saddest face I ever looked at, and I've seen a good many sad faces in my day.

No, he was nothing but a tramp, old and gray-headed, and nearly worn out with his tramping. How long he had been going the rounds I cannot say, but for nearly a dozen years, once each year, hi made his appearance in the city, tarried a month, perhaps, and then quietly disappeared, and we saw him no more for a twelvemonth. Inoffensive? Decidedly--as mild-mannered a man as ever asked grace at a poorhouse table.

Indeed, the children were his best patrons, for he had a most winning way with them, and he could scarcely be seen on the street without the accompaniment of a dozen, tagging at his heels and holding on to his hands and the skirts of his long coat. There's d.i.c.k there, six feet if he's an inch and gone twenty last month. Well, many and many a time have I seen the strapping fellow when he was a little chap sitting astride the old vagabond's neck, with his little feet crooked in under his armpits, laughing and screaming uproariously as his human horse underneath him pranced and curvetted along the pavement, and charged through the flock of childish admirers around him, as if they were a hostile soldiery and d.i.c.k was a very Henry of Navarre, whose white plume must always be found in the path to glory.

G.o.d bless the youngsters! Who of us with the burden of life's toil and care weighing us down, ever saw a frolicsome group of them, happy in their freedom from trouble and care, and did not wish he might slip his shoulders from under the load of his fifty years and be a boy again?

What a pity it is that we must age and die in our wrinkles, leaving nothing better to gaze upon than a shrunken face, colorless of bloom and written all over with the scraggy record of our griefs, our errors, and our pains! Why cannot death charm back the boyish vigor and girlish grace to our faces, when, with the invisible and fatal gesture, he sweeps his hand swiftly across them?

The dog? Oh! certainly; but don't hurry me. I'm too old to tell a story in a straight line and at express speed. I will get to the dog all in good time, and, in order to feel as I do about the terrible thing that happened to him, you must know something about his master, for in an odd sort of way they supplemented each other. Indeed, they seemed to have entered into a kind of partnership to share each other's moods as they shared each other's fortune. And it was a strange, and, I may say, a very touching sight, to see two creatures, of different species, so intimately attached to each other; and often, as I have looked at the dog when he was gazing at his master, have I said to myself, "Surely, something or some one has blundered, and a human soul was put, by mistake, into that dog's body," for never--no, sir, I will not qualify it--never have I seen a greater love look from human into human eyes than I have seen gazing devotedly up into the old man's face from the eyes of that dog. How did he look? Queer enough, I a.s.sure you, for his cross, while an admirable one to yield wit and affection both, was the worst possible one for beauty, for his father was a full-blooded shepherd and his mother a Scotch terrier, without a taint in her blood.

How well I remember the dog and his peculiar looks! I remember him now as plainly as if he were lying on the rug there this very minute. He had the size of his father and the bristly coat of his mother. His ears were like a terrier's, and naturally p.r.i.c.ked forward. His color was a dirty gray--a miserable color; his tail had been cropped and the remnant that remained--some four inches in length--stood stiffly up, with scarce a suggestion of a curve; he was homely, but not inferior looking, for his head was such an one as Landseer would have loved to have translated from time and death to the immortality of his canvas; what a matchless front, and room enough in the cranium to hold the brains of any two common dogs. But his eyes were the impressive and magnificent feature of his face--large, round and warmly hazel in color, and so liquid clear that, looking into them, you seemed to be gazing into transparent depths, not of water, but of intelligent being. What eyes they were! I remember what a young lady said once apropos to them. She was a belle herself, and nature spoke through her speech. She came into the office here one day when the dog was performing, for he was a great trick dog, and, after watching him a moment, she exclaimed, "Ah! if a woman only had those eyes, what might she not do!" More fun could look out of that dog's head than of any other I ever saw, whether of dog or man. And though you may not credit it, yet, as true as I sit here, I have seen those eyes weep as large and honest tears as ever fell in sorrow from human orbs. "Laugh, too?" You put that question incredulously, do you?

Well, you needn't, for the dog could laugh. "With his tail?" No, any dog can do that, but he could laugh with his mouth. Why, sir, I have seen him sit bolt upright on his haunches there by that post, lean his back against it, and laugh so heartily that his mouth would open and shut like a man's when guffawing, and you could see every tooth in his head, and he did it intelligently, too, and laughed because he was tickled and couldn't help it.

Alas! poor dog, he came to a sad end at last, and died in so wretched a way that the recollection of his death puts a dark eclipse upon the unhappy memory of his life.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _The old man and his dog were constant companions._]

Comfort to his master? You may well say that; and no man ever loved his child more fondly than the old beggar loved his dog. And well he might, for he was his companion by day, his guard by night, and the means by which he eked out the sometime scant living that the fickle charity of the world flung to him. How often have I seen the old man take him in his arms and hug him to his breast, that had, I fancy, so many bitter memories in it; and how often have I seen the dog lap with gentle and caressing tongue the tears as they rolled down the furrowed cheeks, when the fountain of grief within was stirred by the angel of recollection.

But it was from the sympathy of his faithful and loving companion, and not from the moving of the bitter waters, that his aching heart found consolation.

Tell you about the man? Why, certainly; but there isn't much to tell.

You see, no one knew much of him, for he seldom if ever spoke of himself. I suppose I knew him better than anyone on his beat here, for I fell in love with his dog, and with himself, too, for that matter, for, in the first place, he was old, and whoever saw a white head and didn't love it, and whoever looked upon a wrinkled face and didn't wish to kiss it, if it was peaceful, and the old man's head was as white as snow is, and the peacefulness of a sleeping child hovered over the sadness of his face, albeit the shadow of a sorrowful past lay darkly resting upon it.

But though I saw much of him as he swung around on his annual visit, and though he looked upon me as his friend--as, indeed, I was, and proved myself to be such more than once, thank G.o.d!--still he never offered to tell me his history, and I certainly never questioned him about it. For life is a secret thing, and each man holds the key to his own; and only once, if at all, may it be opened, and even then only the Father is gentle and forgiving enough to look upon the wheat and the chaff which we in our grief or joy keep closely locked from human eyes.

No, I knew little of him; but occasionally, sitting by the fire here when a storm was heavy outside, for the coming of storms was always the prelude of these moods in him, he would begin to mutter to himself, and to talk to his dog of days long gone; of men and women he had once hated or loved, or who loved or hated him--G.o.d knows which--and of deeds he had once done, but which were now deeply buried under the years.

Perhaps he did not know that he was talking. Perhaps his soul, busy with the past, forgot the motion of the lips and ceased to keep its watch over the movements of that member which, unless ceaselessly guarded, betrays us all so often. What did he mutter about? Well, the man is dead and gone, and what little there is to tell cannot pain him now. Death makes us indifferent to disclosure, and little do we care what the world says about us when we lie sleeping in the grave, I ween. Yes, the man is dead and gone this many a year; G.o.d rest his soul, and I heartily hope he has found riches and rest and his dog ere now, as I feel certain he has, and what little I know can do no harm, if told, to any.

Well, as I was saying, when storms were brewing in the air and the sea, the uneasiness of the elements themselves seemed to take possession of his soul and agitate it,--for his very body would rock to and fro and sway in the chair when the fit was on him, and he would talk to his dog, and to men and women, too, whom no one could see save himself, and if what he said might be taken as the words of a sane man, he certainly had been rich and powerful one day--and loved and hated, too, for that matter. For from his speech one could but learn that all that makes life worth the living was once his, and that he had lost it all--but whatever may have been his other losses, one there must have been in truth, for as to it his words were always the same: "_Gone, gone_," he would say, "_gone_--and the winds I hear coming blow over her grave--but winds cannot reach her, for she lies warm and well covered, deep down in her grave." And so he would sit muttering and swaying his body in the chair, as the winds blew stormily out of the east, and the boom of the waves rolled up from the bluff, as they pounded heavily against the rocks and the sh.o.r.e.

Why did I not make him settle down? Because he wouldn't. I tried time and again to persuade him to it, but he never would consent. Perhaps he was right in his impulse to roam, and loved the careless freedom of it, and the solitude it gave him. For if a man would hide himself from man he must keep on the move. If he stops he becomes known. But in travel he loses his ident.i.ty, and pa.s.ses from place to place unknown and unnoted.

But it seemed pitiful to me that one so old and feeble should have no home, and so I persuaded him to settle down for one winter, at least, and hired him a little house in a pleasant street and started him in his housekeeping experiment. But alas! evil came of it, and I never did a deed I more profoundly regretted, for it led to the calamity I am about to tell you of, and brought upon the poor man the greatest grief that might befall him, even the death of his dog, and in a most cruel and painful fashion at that. Ah, me! could we but see the end of things from their beginning, how little of our doing would be done at times; for the benevolent blundering of our lives is as often fruitful of harm as the evil we do in our malice and pa.s.sion.

It all happened in this way, and I will tell you as it was told me, partly by the old man himself, and partly by those who had knowledge of the dreadful event at the time, for I was out of the city the morning the occurrence took place, or it never would have happened. I don't think anything of the kind ever before made so much talk, or excited so much indignation.

The legislature at its last session, not having wit or honesty enough to exercise itself over one of a dozen crying evils that were then vexing the people, got greatly excited over--_dogs_!

Some miserable curs--many affirmed they were wolves, and no dogs at all--in a remote corner of the state, had killed a few sheep, and the farmers of that region got up a great scare, and raised a hue and cry against the whole canine family. It is incredible how much noise was made over the killing of a few half-starved sheep that were browsing on those northern mountains! You would have thought, judging by the clamor, that the fundamental interests of the commonwealth were attacked, and that the stately structure of government itself was on the point of falling to the ground.

Well, when the legislature met the excitement was at its height and the gust of popular foolishness converged all its forces at the capitol. In due time a bill was reported, and an outrageous bill it was, too, for it not only put a heavy tax upon dogs in every section of the state, city as well as country, but provided that certain officers should be appointed to enforce the law, whose duty it should be to kill every dog not duly registered on a certain date. Even this was not all; for it stimulated the enforcement of the law by enlisting the cupidity of men and boys alike, especially of the lower and hardened cla.s.ses, by providing that whoever killed an unregistered dog should be paid three dollars from the state treasury.

It was a bad law, in truth, for it was the outgrowth of senseless excitement, and an attempt to tax the affections. Property, of course, can be taxed, but we all know that a dog is not property, any more than is a boy's pet rabbit, or a child, for that matter. A dog is a member of his master's family. He has connection with his heart, not with his pocket. He is a creature to love and be loved by, and not to be bought and sold like a bit of land or a yoke of oxen, and any law aimed at the affections is an offence to the holiest impulses of the bosom, and as such should be resented.

Yes, the law was a bad one. I did what I could to defeat it in its pa.s.sage, and I broke it all I could after its pa.s.sage, and that was some satisfaction to my feelings, which were in fact outraged by it; for I saw not only the injustice of it, as viewed in the light of correct principle, but that it would bear heavily upon the poor, and bring sorrow like the sorrow of death itself into families. I saw, moreover, that it was a cruel law in its relation to children, whose pretty and harmless pets and playmates could be murdered before their very eyes.

Many a sad case did I hear of, the winter after the law was pa.s.sed, but the saddest of all was that of my old friend, who was living peacefully and happily with his dog in the little house I had hired for him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _He was teaching the dog a new trick._]

He was sitting one evening in the comfortable quarters I had provided for him, playing with his companion and teaching him some new tricks to practise against my return, happy as he might be, when a loud rap was delivered upon his door, and at the same instant it was pushed rudely open, and a man walked into the room and, without pausing to give or receive a greeting, pointed to the dog, and said:

"Is that your property, sir?"

"I never think of him in that way," answered the old man, mildly. "He has been my companion--I may say my only companion--these many years, and I love him as property is not loved. No, sir, _Trusty_ is not property--he is my companion and my friend."

"I didn't come here to listen to any of your crazy nonsense, but as an officer of the law, to see if you have registered your dog, and paid your tax as it commands, and, if you hadn't, to see that the penalty was put upon you as you deserve, you old begging loafer, you."

"I've broken no law that I know of," replied the beggar, "I love my dog, that is all. I hope it breaks no law for a man to love his dog in this city, does it, friend?"

"If you don't know what the law is, you'd better find out," answered the fellow, roughly. "What right have you to own a dog, anyway? It strikes me that it is about enough for you to sponge your own living out of the community, without sponging another for a miserable whelp of a dog like that."