Watch Yourself Go By Part 36

DEAR MUZ:

It will be my luck to have Pap come to Mt. Pleasant with the doughnuts and find us all gone. We left last night. I wrote you we was going but I didn't know it until Palmer woke me up in the middle of the night. Reverend Gideon left two days before.

Someone pulled me out of bed. I hollered, "Here, here, hold on!"

Then I knew it was Palmer. I jumped up. He ordered me to dress quickly.

I dressed and looked for Tom. I asked Palmer where he was. He said: "I've called him as often as I'm going to." I called Tom and had to wait so long for him to dress that when I got out doors there was Jake sitting up in the front seat of the wagon, and Mrs. Palmer beside him. She looked to me as if she was cryin'. Jake told us to "get in, she's going to go."

Palmer was locking the doors. I heard something splash down in the well. His wife asked for the keys. "They're down in the well; old Lane, the landlord, can look for them." Mrs. Palmer looked very much worried. They left all their things excepting a few bedclothes and the sewing machine.

Palmer spread the bedclothes on the panorama in the bottom of the wagon; Tom, me and him slept all the way here. Poor Mrs.

Palmer set up all night beside Jake on the seat. If she ain't got the newralgy she'll katch it sure. Mrs. Palmer wouldn't get out of the wagon to eat breakfast when we stopped on the road at a country house, and Palmer spoke real cross to her and she cried. It's the only time I've seen Jake's face without a smile and he looks a different man when he ain't smiling. I like Jake and he likes me. He wants to see Pap.

Reverend Gideon met us here. Palmer forgot his clothes and I heard him tell Gideon they'd have to go, he had flung the keys in the well and if Gideon went back after his clothes they was liable to fling him in jail.

I believe Palmer's run off owing everybody. This thing's bound to make money. I'm sorry I came for twenty a month. If he does well he'll have to raise me.

Your affectionate son, ALFRED GRIFFITH HATFIELD.

P. S. The hound was to be a dog, not another kind.

Palmer, the wife and Gideon, were a source of much speculation to Alfred; he could not fix their standing in his mind. The facts were that Palmer was one of those soldiers of fortune who had experimented with many things and failed in everything. He fitted Dryden's description of:

"A man so various, that he seemed to be Not one, but all mankind's epitome; Stiff in opinions, always in the wrong Was everything by starts, and nothing long; But, in the course of one revolving moon, Was chemist, fiddler, statesman, and buffoon."

The only aim Palmer seemed to have in life was to create the impression that he might have been worse. Store clerk, school teacher, politician, preacher, scene painter, amateur showman; such were the pursuits he had been engaged in, not successful in any of them. Abusive of all, save that one he was engaged in, blaming the world for his failures. He respected no man or woman. He approached no man save with a selfish motive; could he but injure those with whom he dealt he was happy, though he did not profit thereby. Yet he did not so speak, but all his actions conveyed this impression of the man to Alfred. And thus his character was impressed on the boy's intuitive mind as strongly as were the scenes on the canvas of the panorama.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Palmer]

The wife was only another of that type of woman who has blasted a life, one full of hope, by clinging to a man who was unworthy of one day of her life. It was a pathetic spectacle to see the faded wife standing helpless in the shadow of her husband's selfishness, having sacrificed youth, beauty and everything that woman holds dear. It did not matter to Palmer that she was once a school teacher, more than a fair musician, courted by numbers who could have made her useful to society and happy in her life. It did not matter to Palmer that she had burned up much of her attractiveness over the cooking stove; that she lost more of it at the washtub; in caring for and rearing the children that had unfortunately come to them. The slaving she had gone through in all their married life to help her husband to get on in the world was all lost upon the selfish man who never gave a thought to her sufferings. He actually treated her if as she had been the cause of his failures, and seemed ashamed of her when younger and more attractive women were near.

Her two children, somewhere in Missouri in the keeping of her mother, seemed her only hope in life and the only time the poor crushed soul evidenced interest in anything was when tidings came from the children or she could prevail upon their thankless father to send them a little money. The mother's wardrobe was scanty that the darlings of her heart might be better clad.

Aunt Susan wore a sun-bonnet almost continuously that she might better keep in place mustard plasters and horse radish leaves to relieve the neuralgia pains. Alfred presumed that Mrs. Palmer was similarly affected since she always wore a sun-bonnet. That was before they left Palmer's house. Afterwards he became convinced that the woman wore the sun-bonnet to conceal the lines of sorrow in her once fine face.

Rev. Gideon was the last of the trio whom Alfred figured out. He had married Palmer's sister. They went to a foreign country as missionaries; Gideon's health gave way under the tropical climate. He returned to this country and had since made his home with the Palmers. But little was learned of the wife. She still lived, and if remittances were not forthcoming, Gideon was on the rack. In fact, each one of her complaining letters made Gideon turn more yellow in color, sit up later and get up earlier than usual, no matter how poor Gideon suffered. If he was ailing and Palmer noticed it, he would sneer and jerk out: "Huh! Got a letter from Sis, did you? S'pose she wants you to go back to China.

Say Gideon, that must have been a h.e.l.l of a job to instill the gospel into heathen when you can't make an impression upon those who understand what you say. It must have been discouraging to waste your eloquence upon those copper-colored thieves. There's many a game to catch suckers in this world but that foreign mission play is the rawest ever sprung.

Say, Gideon, how much did you get? So much for each sinner saved or did you lump the job?"

Under such cynicism Gideon would turn about and walk off as though nothing had been said to him. Palmer took an especial delight in teasing Gideon as to his mission labors. Gideon never deigned to notice the ridicule of Palmer, at least in words. Yet there was one thing that impressed Alfred. Palmer always deferred to Gideon in any business proposition under consideration; he would bl.u.s.ter and rave a little but always in the end gave in to Gideon's judgment.

In addition to the receipts that came to him from the exhibition of the panorama, Palmer had a large, framed, steel plate engraving of John Bunyan which he sold while soliciting subscriptions for several religious publications. He worked diligently. He never desisted when he once went after preacher, deacon or the entire congregation, and he generally sold what he offered or secured their names to one of his numerous subscription lists.

He worked so adroitly that he made many his aides. Not infrequently a minister would get up during an intermission in the Pilgrim's Progress exhibition and announce one or more of Palmer's offerings. These announcements invariably wound up with the statement that the proceeds were for the benefit of a retired minister who had lost his health in an endeavor to carry the gospel to the heathen in foreign lands.

Alfred became curious as to what effect these announcements would have upon Gideon and he often peeped from behind the scenes to note it. But Gideon was never in sight. He would step out of the door as the speaker began. Alfred noticed that Mrs. Palmer always lowered her face over the keys of the piano or organ when the announcement of this character was being made. Palmer, behind the scenes, standing near the curtain his head bent to one side his hand up to his ear. If the speaker's efforts pleased him he would pull his tuft of beard with his free hand and e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.e: "Good! Fine! Capital! Good boy, go it old Beeswax. I didn't think it was in you. Go it boots, you'll win in a walk. They're gittin'

their pocket books out now; Gideon will do well tonight, ha, ha, ha."

Did the speaker not measure up to his ideas, he would say: "Wade in!

Wade in! Wade in! Dam you, the water's not cold. Warm up now or you'll freeze them to the pews. Oh, what you tryin' to git through you? Just listen to that crack; he'll make them think he's going to take up a collection for the foreign missions. You can't get seventeen cents. It's been worked to death. Come off, come off your perch, you poll parrot!

Come off! Well you ought to be studying your primer instead of preaching; you don't know as much as Gideon."

Palmer, through the influence of the church members, procured a half dozen young girls, at each place visited, to represent the mult.i.tude pa.s.sing through the gates in the final scene of Pilgrim's Progress.

Although these girls were before the audience but a moment or two at the very end of the panorama, amateur like, instead of remaining in front witnessing the exhibition, they would repair to the rear of the curtain, don their robes and stand around during the entire performance, to the annoyance of everybody working the panorama, and, more frequently than otherwise, be late for their cue.

One night, an old preacher was laboring with an announcement Palmer had written and rehea.r.s.ed him in, Palmer was most vicious in his comments.

The old speaker's daughter was one of the virgins, standing near she heard every word uttered and there was enough and there would have been more, had not Alfred, by a nudge and a whisper, checked him. Palmer grasped the situation at once. He stepped nearer the girls. Then with a start, he shaded his eyes, dramatically gazed at the girls and began: "Oh, woman, lovely woman, nature made thee to temper man; we had been brutes without you. Angels are painted fair to look like you. There is in you all we believe of heaven, amazing brightness, purity, truth, eternal joy and everlasting love."

He was never at a loss, his quick wit extricating him from embarra.s.sment at all times.

SOMERSET, PA.

DEAR MUZ:

We showed, or we exhibited, last night. It was the most crowded church I ever seen. I did well, better than anyone. Gideon, Mrs.

Palmer and all said so. Gideon said I saved the day, but Palmer held me back, he wouldn't let me sing or dance. I heard him tell Gideon: "I'll have h.e.l.l with that gilly kid, he thinks it a minstrel show; I got to hold him down or he'll queer the fake."

I don't know what he meant, only he meant me.

Jake made some awful blunders but Gideon said it was like Palmer to put him in to play "Christian." Tomorrow's Sunday and I'll write you the full purceeding. I know the whole thing by heart and if Pap can paint a Pilgrim's Progress I can show it, exhibit it. Palmer will make a million. Lin could go along and play the organ like Mrs. Palmer. I tell you she can put in the music right, she fills out the thing just grand. Lin would have to learn to play with both hands and she must learn music. Mrs.

Palmer won't play without the notes to lead her. I will take the whole Sunday to write you the full history of the first night.

You better read "Pilgrim's Progress." Did you borrow Uncle Tom's?

Does Uncle Ned feel hard towards me? If anything happens to me and I get ruined it's their doings because I could have been with a minstrel troupe. You have to lie more here in a day than I did all the time I was with a minstrel show.

Your very affectionate son, ALFRED GRIFFITH HATFIELD.

P. S. I looked at the dictionary. A "gilly" is a man attendant in the Scottish Highlands. A "kid" is a young goat. It don't tell what a "fake" is. Now I know Palmer will have to raise my wages. If Pap agrees to paint a panorama and take Lin along you can get Sis Minks to work for you.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Oh! My Dear Hearers!"]

Palmer began the exhibition with a lecture:

"Ladies and Gentlemen: John Bunyan, the author of that wonderful work, 'The Pilgrim's Progress,' was an English religious writer, soldier and Baptist preacher. He enlisted in the Parliamentary army very young. He was so strongly impressed with the glimpse he caught of war that all his writings, even things sacred, were strongly ill.u.s.trative of fortresses, camps, marching men, guns and trumpets. Bunyan was but seventeen years old when he entered the army, hence the lasting impressions his military life made upon his mind. He became famous as a Baptist preacher and was flung into Bedford jail under order of the Restoration. He was frequently offered his liberty on condition that he would desist from preaching. This he refused; therefore, for twelve years he suffered imprisonment for his conscience's sake.

"While in Bedford jail he began the book that has immortalized him. It is the best allegory ever written and is the only book, excepting the Bible, about which the educated majority have come over to the opinion of the common people. The peculiar glory of Bunyan is that those who hated his doctrines have acknowledged his genius by printing and using a Catholic version of his parable, The Pilgrim's Progress, with the Virgin's head in the t.i.tle page.

"Oh, my dear hearers, how similar to the sufferings of the lowly genius in producing his masterpiece were those undergone in painting the work of art about to be unfolded for your inspection. For years he who transferred the thoughts of Bunyan into almost real life, for years he who wrought these fancies upon canvas, labored and suffered in secret.

No living eye was ever permitted to gaze upon his work save his own.

Night after night, by the dim light of lamp, the artist labored. Lack of food, lack of sleep, did not deter him. He was inspired to produce that which has been p.r.o.nounced by men of highest learning as the greatest painting the world has ever known, the greatest educator of the ma.s.ses, the greatest object lesson ever presented to the people of this country.

"The Pilgrim's Progress in living figures and realistic scenes, the hills, the mountains, the sunny pastures, the soft vales, the wilderness, the Shining River, the Beautiful Gates, the Celestial City.

"Like Bunyan, the painter had no idea that he was producing a masterpiece."

Here Palmer would step to the front of the platform and, after a modest pause, in a lower tone, continue: "Ladies and Gentlemen: I was not aware the printed bills had announced to the world that I, Professor Palmer, D. D., was the author of this work of art, otherwise, I am sure I would not have mentioned it."

Alfred could never disa.s.sociate this announcement from that of the clown in the circus who, after singing his song, announcing the sale of the books, a.s.suring the audience that the proceeds of the sale of the book were for the benefit of an orphan who was a long ways from home, without money or friends. Hoping the charitably disposed would a.s.sist the orphan by buying the song books. Bowing low, he would add: "I forgot to tell you that I am the orphan."