The Wit and Humor of America Volume II Part 19

SEFFY AND SALLY

BY JOHN LUTHER LONG

The place was the porch of the store, the time was about ten o'clock in the morning of a summer day, the people were the amiable loafers--and Old Baumgartner. The person he was discoursing about was his son Sephenijah. I am not sure that the name was not the ripe fruit of his father's fancy--with, perhaps, the Scriptural suggestion which is likely to be present in the affairs of a Pennsylvania-German--whether a communicant or not--even if he live in Maryland.

"Yas--always last; expecial at funerals and weddings. Except his own--he's sure to be on time at his own funeral. Right out in front!

Hah? But sometimes he misses his wedding. Why, I knowed a feller--yous all knowed him, begoshens!--that didn't git there tell another feller'd married her--'bout more'n a year afterward. Wasn't it more'n a year, boys? Yas--Bill Eisenkrout. Or, now, was it his brother--Baltzer Iron-Cabbage? Seems to me now like it was Baltz. Somesing wiss a B at the front end, anyhow."

Henry Wa.s.serman diffidently intimated that there was a curious but satisfactory element of safety in being last--a "fastnacht" in their language, in fact. Those in front were the ones usually hurt in railroad accidents, Alexander Althoff remembered.

"Safe?" cried the speaker. "Of course! But for why--say, for why?" Old Baumgartner challenged defiantly.

No one answered and he let several impressive minutes intervene.

"You don't know! Hang you, none of yous knows! Well--because he ain't there when anysing occurs--always a little late!"

They agreed with him by a series of sage nods.

"But, fellers, the worst is about courting. It's no way to be always late. Everybody else gits there first, and it's nossing for the fastnacht but weeping and wailing and gnashing of the teeth. And mebby the other feller gits considerable happiness--and a good farm."

There was complaint in the old man's voice, and they knew that he meant his own son Seffy. To add to their embarra.s.sment, this same son was now appearing over the l.u.s.tich Hill--an opportune moment for a pleasing digression. For you must be told early concerning Old Baumgartner's longing for certain lands, tenements and hereditaments--using his own phrase--which were not his own, but which adjoined his. It had pa.s.sed into a proverb of the vicinage; indeed, though the property in question belonged to one Sarah Pressel, it was known colloquially as "Baumgartner's Yearn."

And the reason of it was this: Between his own farm and the public road (and the railroad station when it came) lay the fairest meadow-land farmer's eye had ever rested upon. (I am speaking again for the father of Seffy and with his hyperbole.) Save in one particular, it was like an enemy's beautiful territory lying between one's less beautiful own and the open sea--keeping one a poor inlander who is mad for the seas--whose crops must either pa.s.s across the land of his adversary and pay t.i.thes to him, or go by long distances around him at the cost of greater t.i.thes to the soulless owners of the turnpikes--who aggravatingly fix a gate each way to make their t.i.thes more sure. So, I say, it was like having the territory of his enemy lying between him and the deep water--save, as I have also said, in one particular, to wit: that the owner--the Sarah Pressel I have mentioned--was not Old Baumgartner's enemy.

In fact, they were tremendous friends. And it was by this friendship--and one other thing which I mean to mention later--that Old Baumgartner hoped, before he died, to attain the wish of his life, and see, not only the Elysian pasture-field, but the whole of the adjoining farm, with the line fences down, a part of his. The other thing I promised to mention as an aid to this ambition--was Seffy. And, since the said Sarah was of nearly the same age as Seffy, perhaps I need not explain further, except to say that the only obstruction the old man could see now to acquiring the t.i.tle by marriage was--Seffy himself. He was, and always had been, afraid of girls--especially such aggressive, flirtatious, pretty and tempestuous girls as this Sarah.

These things, however, were hereditary with the girl. It was historical, in fact, that, during the life of Sarah's good-looking father, so importunate had been Old Baumgartner for the purchase of at least the meadow--he could not have ventured more at that time--and so obstinate had been the father of the present owner--(he had red hair precisely as his daughter had)--that they had come to blows about it, to the discomfiture of Old Baumgartner; and, afterward, they did not speak.

Yet, when the loafers at the store laughed, Baumgartner swore that he would, nevertheless, have that pasture before he died.

But then, as if fate, too, were against him, the railroad was built, and its station was placed so that the Pressel farm lay directly between it and him, and of course the "life" went more and more in the direction of the station--left him more and more "out of it"--and made him poorer and poorer, and Pressel richer and richer. And, when the store laughed at _that_, Baumgartner swore that he would possess half of the farm before he died; and as Pressel and his wife died, and Seffy grew up, and as he noticed the fondness of the little red-headed girl for his little tow-headed boy, he added to his adjuration that he would be harrowing that whole farm before _he_ died,--_without paying a cent for it_!

But both Seffy and Sally had grown to a marriageable age without anything happening. Seffy had become inordinately shy, while the coquettish Sally had accepted the attentions of Sam Pritz, the clerk at the store, as an antagonist more worthy of her, and in a fashion which sometimes made the father of Seffy swear and lose his temper--with Seffy. Though, of course, in the final disposition of the matter, he was sure that no girl so nice as Sally would marry such a person as Sam Pritz, with no extremely visible means of support--a salary of four dollars a week, and an odious reputation for liquor. And it was for these things, all of which were known (for Baumgartner had not a single secret) that the company at the store detected the personal equation in Old Baumgartner's communications.

Seffy had almost arrived by this time, and Sally was in the store! With Sam! The situation was highly dramatic. But the old man consummately ignored this complication and directed attention to his son. For him, the mola.s.ses-tapper did not exist. The fact is he was overjoyed. Seffy, for once in his life, would be on time! He would do the rest.

"Now, boys, chust look at 'em! Dogged if they ain't bose like one another! How's the proferb? Birds of a feather flock wiss one another?

I dunno. Anyhow, Sef flocks wiss Betz constant. And they understand one another good. Trotting like a sidewise dog of a hot summer's day!" And he showed the company, up and down the store-porch, just how a sidewise dog would be likely to trot on a hot summer day--and then laughed joyously.

If there had been an artist eye to see they would have been well worth its while--Seffy and the mare so affectionately disparaged. And, after all, I am not sure that the speaker himself had not an artist's eye. For a spring pasture, or a fallow upland, or a drove of goodly cows deep in his clover, I know he had. (Perhaps you, too, have?) And this was his best mare and his only son.

The big bay, clad in broad-banded harness, soft with oil and glittering with bra.s.ses, was shambling indolently down the hill, resisting her own momentum by the diagonal motion the old man had likened to a dog's sidewise trot. The looped trace-chains were jingling a merry dithyramb, her head was nodding, her tail swaying, and Seffy, propped by his elbow on her broad back, one leg swung between the hames, the other keeping time on her ribs, was singing:

"'I want to be an angel And with the angels stand, A crown upon my forehead A harp within my hand--'"

His adoring father chuckled. "I wonder what for kind of anchel he'd make, anyhow? And Betz--they'll have to go together. Say, I wonder if it _is_ horse-anchels?"

No one knew; no one offered a suggestion.

"Well, it ought to be. Say--he ken perform circus wiss ol' Betz!"

They expressed their polite surprise at this for perhaps the hundredth time.

"Yas--they have a kind of circus-ring in the barnyard. He stands on one foot, then on another, and on his hands wiss his feet kicking, and then he says words--like hokey-pokey--and Betz she kicks up behind and throws him off in the dung and we all laugh--happy efer after--Betz most of all!"

After the applause he said:

"I guess I'd better wake 'em up! What you sink?"

They one and all thought he had. They knew he would do it, no matter what they thought. His method, as usual, was his own. He stepped to the adjoining field, and, selecting a clod with the steely polish of the plowshare upon it, threw it at the mare. It struck her on the flank. She gathered her feet under her in sudden alarm, then slowly relaxed, looked slyly for the old man, found him, and understanding, suddenly wheeled and ambled off home, leaving Seffy p.r.o.ne on the ground as her part of the joke.

The old man brought Seffy in triumph to the store-porch.

"Chust stopped you afore you got to be a anchel!" he was saying. "We couldn't bear to sink about you being a anchel--an' wiss the anchels stand--a harp upon your forehead, a crown within your hand, I expect--when it's corn-planting time."

Seffy grinned cheerfully, brushed off the dust and contemplated his father's watch--held accusingly against him. Old Baumgartner went on gaily.

"About an inch and a half apast ten! Seffy, I'm glad you ain't breaking your reputation for being fastnachtich. Chust about a quarter of an inch too late for the prize wiss flour on its hair and arms and its frock pinned up to show its new petticoat! Uhu! If I had such a nice petticoat--" he imitated the lady in question, to the tremendous delight of the gentle loafers.

Seffy stared a little and rubbed some dust out of his eyes. He was pleasant but dull.

"Ya.s.sir, Sef, if you'd a-got yere at a inch and a quarter apast! Now Sam's got her. Down in the cellar a-licking mola.s.ses together! Doggone if Sam don't git eferysing--except his due bills. He don't want to be no anchel tell he dies. He's got fun enough yere--but Seffy--you're like the flow of mola.s.ses in January--at courting."

This oblique suasion made no impression on Seffy. It is doubtful if he understood it at all. The loafers began to smile. One laughed. The old man checked him with a threat of personal harm.

"Hold on there, Jefferson Dafis Busby," he chid. "I don't allow no one to laugh at my Seffy--except chust me--account I'm his daddy. It's a fight-word the next time you do it."

Mr. Busby straightened his countenance.

"He don't seem to notice--nor keer--'bout gals--do he?"

No one spoke.

"No, durn him, he ain't no good. Say--what'll you give for him, hah?

Yere he goes to the highest bidder--for richer, for poorer, for better, for worser, up and down, in and out, swing your partners--what's bid? He ken plow as crooked as a mule's hind leg, sleep hard as a 'possum in wintertime, eat like a snake, git left efery time--but he ken ketch fish. They wait on him. What's bid?"

No one would hazard a bid.

"Yit a minute," shouted the old fellow, pulling out his bull's-eye watch again, "what's bid? Going--going--all done--going--"

"A dollar!"

The bid came from behind him, and the voice was beautiful to hear. A gleam came into the old man's eyes as he heard it. He deliberately put the watch back in its pocket, put on his spectacles, and turned, as if she were a stranger.

"Gone!" he announced then. "Who's the purchaser? Come forwards and take away you' property. What's the name, please?" Then he pretended to recognize her. "Oach! Sally! Well, that's lucky! He goes in good hands.

He's sound and kind, but needs the whip." He held out his hand for the dollar.

It was the girl of whom he had spoken accurately as a prize. Her sleeves were turned up as far as they would go, revealing some soft lace-trimmed whiteness, and there _was_ flour on her arms. Some patches of it on her face gave a petal-like effect to her otherwise aggressive color. The pretty dress was pinned far enough back to reveal the prettier petticoat--plus a pair of trimly-clad ankles.