Part 9

“Wall, I don't s'pose she hed any idea o' Dixie's bein' at a circus over Wareham jest then; an' ten to one she didn't care if the whole town seen her. She wanted to get rid of him, 'n' she didn't mind how she did it. Dixie ain't one of the shootin' kinds, an' anyhow, Fiddy Maddox wa'n't one to look ahead; whatever she wanted to do, that she done, from the time she was knee high to a grasshopper. I've seen her set down by a peck basket of apples, 'n' take a couple o' bites out o' one, 'n' then heave it fur 's she could heave it 'n' start in on another, 'n' then another; 'n' 't wa'n't a good apple year, neither. She'd everlastin'ly spile 'bout a dozen of 'em 'n' smaller 'bout two mouthfuls. Doxy Morton, now, would eat an apple clean down to the core, 'n' then count the seeds 'n' put 'em on the window-sill to dry, 'n' get up 'n' put the core in the stove, 'n' wipe her hands on the roller towel, 'n' take up her sewin' agin; 'n' if you 've got to be cuttin' 'nitials in tree bark an' writin' of 'em in the grass with a stick like you 've ben doin' for the last half-hour, you 're blamed lucky to be doin' D's not F's, like Dixie there!”

*****

It was three o'clock in the afternoon. The men had dropped work and gone to the circus. The hay was pronounced to be in a condition where it could be left without much danger; but, for that matter, no man would have stayed in the field to attend to another man's hay when there was a circus in the neighborhood.

Dixie was mowing on alone, listening as in a dream to that subtle something in the swish of the scythe that makes one seek to know the song it is singing to the grasses.

“Hush, ah, hush, the scythes are saying, Hush, and heed not, and fall asleep; Hush, they say to the grasses swaying, Hush, they sing to the clover deep; Hush,--'t is the lullaby Time is singing,-- Hush, and heed not, for all things pass. Hush, ah, hush! and the scythes are swinging Over the clover, over the grass.”

And now, spent with fatigue and watching and care and grief,--heart sick, mind sick, body sick, sick with past suspense and present certainty and future dread,--he sat under the cool shade of the nooning tree, and buried his face in his hands. He was glad to be left alone with his miseries,--glad that the other men, friendly as he felt them to be, had gone to the circus, where he would not see or hear them for hours to come.

How clearly he could conjure up the scene that they were enjoying with such keen relish! Only two days before, he had walked among the same tents, staring at horses and gay trappings and painted Amazons as one who noted nothing; yet the agony of the thing he now saw at last lit up all the rest as with a lightning flash, and burned the scene forever on his brain and heart. It was at Wareham, too,--Wareham, where she had promised to be his wife, where she had married him only a year before. How well he remembered the night! They left the parsonage; they had ten miles to drive in the moonlight before reaching their stopping-place,--ten miles of such joy as only a man could know, he thought, who had had the warm fruit of life hanging within full vision, but just out of reach,--just above his longing lips; and then, in an unlooked-for, gracious moment, his! He could swear she had loved him that night, if never again.

But this picture passed away, and he saw that maddening circle with the caracoling steeds. He head the discordant music, the monotonous creak of the machinery, the strident laughter of the excited riders. As first the thing was a blur, a kaleidoscope of whirling colors, into which there presently crept form and order. ... A boy who had cried to get on, and was now crying to get off. ... Old Rube Hobson and his young wife; Rube looking white and scared, partly by the whizzing motion, and partly by the prospect of paying out ten cents for the doubtful pleasure. ... Pretty Hetty Dunnell with that young fellow from Portland; she too timid to mount one of the mettle-some chargers, and snuggling close to him in one of the circling seats. The, good Got!--Dell! sitting on a prancing white horse, with the man he knew, the man he feared, riding beside her; a man who kept holding on her hat with fingers that trembled,--the very hat she “'peared bride in” a man who brushed a grasshopper from her shoulder with an air of ownership, and, when she slapped his hand coquettishly, even dared to pinch her pink cheek,--his wife's cheek,--before that crowd of on-lookers! Merry-go-round, indeed! The horrible thing was well named; and life was just like it,--a whirl of happiness and misery, in which the music cannot play loud enough to drown the creak of the machinery, in which one soul cries out in pain, another in terror, and the rest laugh; but the prancing steeds gallop on, gallop on, and once mounted, there is no getting off, unless...

There were some things it was not possible for a mean to bear! The river! The river! He could hear it rippling over the sunny sands, swirling among the logs, dashing and roaring under the bridge, rushing to the sea's embrace. Could it tell whither it was hurrying? NO; but it was escaping from its present bonds; it would never have to pass over these same jagged rocks again. “On, on to the unknown!” called the river. “I come! I come!” he roused himself to respond, when a faint, faint, helpless voice broke in upon the mad clatter in his brain, cleaving his torn heart in twain; not a real voice,--the half-forgotten memory of one; a tender wail that had added fresh misery to his night's vigil,--the baby!

But the feeble pipe was borne down by the swirl of the water as it dashed between the rocky banks, still calling to him. If he could only close his ears to it! But it still called--called still--the river! And still the child's voice pierced the rush of sound with its pitiful flute note, until the two resolved themselves into contesting strains, answering each other antiphonally. The river--the baby--the river--the baby; and in and through, and betwixt and between, there spun the whirling merry-go-round, with its curveting wooden horses, its discordant organ, and its creaking machinery.

But gradually the child's voice gained in strength, and as he heard it more plainly the other sounds grew fainter, till at last, thank God! they were hushed. The din, the whirlwind, and the tempest in his brain were lulled into silence, as under a “Peace, be still!” and, worn out with the contest, the man from Tennessee fell asleep under the grateful shade of the nooning tree. So deep was the slumber that settled over exhausted body and troubled spirit that the gathering clouds, the sudden darkness, the distant muttering of thunder, the frightened twitter of the birds, passed unnoticed. A heavy drop of rain pierced the thick foliage and fell on his face, but the storm within had been too fierce for him to heed the storm without. He slept on.

*****

Almost every man, woman, and child in the vicinity of Pleasant River was on the way to the circus,--Boomer's Grand Six-in-One Universal Consolidated Show; Brilliant Constellations of Fixed Stars shining in the same Vast Firmament; Glittering Galaxies of World-Famous Equestrian Artists; the biggest elephants, the funniest clowns, the pluckiest riders, the stubbornest mules, the most amazing acrobats, the tallest man and the shortest man, the thinnest woman and the thickest woman, on the habitable globe; and no connection with any other show on earth, especially Sypher's Two-in-One Show now devastating the same State.

If the advertisements setting forth these attractions were couched in language somewhat rosier than the facts would warrant, there were few persons calm enough to perceive it, when once the glamour of the village parade and the smell of the menagerie had intoxicated the senses.

The circus had been the sole topic of conversation for a fortnight. Jot Bascom could always be relied on for the latest and most authentic news of its triumphant progress from one town to another. Jot was a sort of town crier; and whenever the approach of a caravan was announced, he would go over on the Liberty road to find out just where it was and what were its immediate plans, for the thrilling pleasure of calling at every one of the neighbors' on his way home, and delivering his budget of news. He was an attendant at every funeral, and as far as possible at every wedding, in the village; at every flag-raising and husking, and town and county fair. When more pressing duties did not hinder, he endeavored to meet the two daily trains that passed through Milliken's Mills, a mile or two from Pleasant River. He accompanied the sheriff on all journeys entailing serving of papers and other embarrassing duties common to the law. On one occasion, when the two lawyers of the village held an investigation before Trial Justice Simeon Porter, they waited an hour because Jot Bascom did not come. They knew that something was amiss, but it was only on reflection that they remembered that Jot was not indispensable. He went with all paupers to the Poor Farm, and never missed a town meeting. He knew all the conditions attending any swapping of horses that occurred within a radius of twenty miles,--the terms of the trade and the amount paid to boot. He knew who owed the fish-man and who owed the meat-man, and who could not get trusted by either of them. In fact, so far as the divine attributes of omniscience and omnipresence could be vested in a faulty human creature, they were present in Jot Bascom. That he was quite unable to attend conscientiously to home duties, when overborne by press of public service, was true. When Diadema Bascom wanted kindling split, wood brought in, the cows milked, or the pigs fed, she commonly found her spouse serving humanity in bulk.

All the details of the approach of the Grand Six-in-One Show had, therefore, been heralded to those work-sodden and unambitious persons who tied themselves to their own wood-piles or haying-fields.

These were the bulletins issues:--

The men were making a circle in the Widow Buzzell's field, in the same place where the old one had been,--the old one, viewed with awe for five years by all the village small boys.

The forerunners, outriders, proprietors, whatever they might be, had arrived and gone to the tavern.

An elephant was quartered in the tavern shed!

The elephant had stepped through the floor!!

The advance guard of performers and part of the show itself had come!

And the “Cheriot”!!

This far-famed vehicle had paused on top of Deacon Chute's hill, to prepare for the street parade. Little Jim Chute had been gloating over the fact that it must pass by his house, and when it stopped short under the elms in the dooryard his heart almost broke for joy. He pinched the twenty-five-cent piece in his pocket to assure himself that he was alive and in his right mind. The precious coin had been the result of careful saving, and his hot, excited hands had almost worn it thin. But alas for the vanity of human hopes! When the magnificent red-and-gold “Cheriot” was uncovered, that its glories might shine upon the waiting world, the door opened, and a huddle of painted Indians tumbled out, ready to lead the procession, or, if so disposed, to scalp the neighborhood. Little Jim gave one panic-stricken look as they leaped over the chariot steps, and then fled to the barn chamber, whence he had to be dragged by his mother, and cuffed into willingness to attend the spectacle that had once so dazzled his imagination.

On the eventful afternoon of the performance the road was gay with teams. David and Samantha Milliken drove by in Miss Cummin's neat carryall, two children on the back seat, a will-o'-the-wisp baby girl held down by a serious boy. Steve Webster was driving Doxy Morton in his mother's buggy. Jabe Slocum, Pitt Packard, Brad Gibson, Cyse Higgins, and scores of others were riding “shank's mare,” as they would have said.

It had been a close, warm day, and as the afternoon wore away it grew hotter and closer. There was a dead calm in the air, a threatening blackness in the west that made the farmers think anxiously of their hay. Presently the thunderheads ran together into big black clouds, which melted in turn into molten masses of smoky orange, so that the heavens were like burnished brass. Drivers whipped up their horses, and pedestrians hastened their steps. Steve Webster decided not to run even the smallest risk of injuring so precious a commodity as Doxy Morton by a shower of rain, so he drove into a friend's yard, put up his horse, and waited till the storm should pass by. Brad Gibson stooped to drink at a wayside brook, and as he bent over the water he heard a low, murmuring, muttering sound that seemed to make the earth tremble.

Then from hill to hill “leapt the live thunder.” Even the distant mountains seemed to have “found a tongue.” A zigzag chain of lightning flashed in the lurid sky, and after an appreciable interval another peal, louder than the first, and nearer.

The rain began to fall, the forked flashes of flame darted hither and thither in the clouds, and the boom of heaven's artillery grew heavier and heavier. The blinding sheets of light and the tumultuous roar of sound now followed each other so quickly that they seemed almost simultaneous. Flash--crash--flash--crash--flash--crash; blinding and deafening eye and ear at once. Everybody who could find a shelter of any sort hastened to it. The women at home set their children in the midst of feather beds, and some of them even huddled there themselves, their babies clinging to them in sympathetic fear, as the livid shafts of light illuminated the dark rooms with more than noonday glare.