At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern

by Myrtle Reed

  II

  The Day Afterward

  By the pitiless light of early morning, the house was even uglier than atnight. With an irreverence essentially modern, Dorothy decided, while shewas dressing, to have all the furniture taken out into the back yard,where she could look it over at her leisure. She would make a bonfire ofmost of it, or, better yet, have it cut into wood for the fireplace. ThusUncle Ebeneezer's cumbrous bequest might be quickly transformed intocomfort.

  "And," thought Dorothy, "I'll take down that hideous portrait over themantel before I'm a day older."

  But when she broached the subject to Harlan, she found him unresponsiveand somewhat disinclined to interfere with the existing order of things."We'll be here only for the Summer," he said, "so what's the use ofmonkeying with the furniture and burning up fifty or sixty beds? There'splenty of wood in the cellar."

  "I don't like the furniture," she pouted.

  "My dear," said Harlan, with patronising kindness, "as you grow older,you'll find lots of things on the planet which you don't like. Moreover,it'll be quite out of your power to cremate 'em, and it's just as well tobegin adjusting yourself now."

  This bit of philosophy irritated Mrs. Carr unbearably. "Do you mean tosay," she demanded, with rising temper, "that you won't do as I ask youto?"

  "Do you mean to say," inquired Harlan, wickedly, in exact imitation of hermanner, "that you won't do as I ask you to? Four weeks ago yesterday, if Iremember rightly, you promised to obey me!"

  "Don't remind me of what I'm ashamed of!" flashed Dorothy. "If I'd knownwhat a brute you were, I'd never have married you! You may be sure ofthat!"

  Claudius Tiberius insinuated himself between Harlan's feet and rubbedagainst his trousers, leaving a thin film of black fur in his wake. Beingfastidious about his personal appearance, Harlan kicked Claudius Tiberiusvigorously, grabbed his hat and went out, slamming the door, and whistlingwith an exaggerated cheerfulness.

  "Brute!" The word rankled deeply as he went downhill with his hands in hispockets, whistling determinedly. So Dorothy was sorry she had married him!After all he'd done for her, too. Giving up a good position in New York,taking her half-way around the world on a honeymoon, and bringing her to amagnificent country residence in a fashionable locality for the Summer!

  Safely screened by the hill, he turned back to look at the "magnificentcountry residence," then swore softly under his breath, as, for the firsttime, he took in the full meaning of the eccentric architecture.

  Perched high upon the hill, with intervening shrubbery carefully cut down,the Judson mansion was not one to inspire confidence in its possessor.Outwardly, it was grey and weather-worn, with the shingles dropping off inplaces. At the sides, the rambling wings and outside stairways, branchingoff into space, conveyed the impression that the house had been recentlysubjected to a powerful influence of the centrifugal sort. But worst ofall was the front elevation, with its two round windows, its narrow, longwindow in the centre, and the low windows on either side of the frontdoor--the grinning, distorted semblance of a human face.

  The bare, uncurtained windows loomed up boldly in the searching sunlight,which spared nothing. The blue smoke rising from the kitchen chimneyappeared strangely like a plume streaming out from the rear. Harlan noted,too, that the railing of the narrow porch extended almost entirely acrossthe front of the house, and remembered, dimly, that they had found thesteps at one side of the porch the night before. Not a single unpleasantdetail was in any way hidden, and he clutched instinctively at a tree ashe realised that the supports of the railing were cunningly arranged tolook like huge teeth.

  "No wonder," he said to himself "that the stage driver called it theJack-o'-Lantern! That's exactly what it is! Why didn't he paint it yellowand be done with it? The old devil!" The last disrespectful allusion, ofcourse, being meant for Uncle Ebeneezer.

  "Poor Dorothy," he thought again. "I'll burn the whole thing, and sheshall put every blamed crib into the purifying flames. It's mine, and Ican do what I please with it. We'll go away to-morrow, we'll go----"

  Where could they go, with less than four hundred dollars? Especially whenone hundred of it was promised for a typewriter? Harlan had parted withhis managing editor on terms of great dignity, announcing that he hadforsworn journalism and would hereafter devote himself to literature. Theeditor had remarked, somewhat cynically, that it was a better day forjournalism than for literature, the fine, inner meaning of the retort nothaving been fully evident to Harlan until he was some three squares awayfrom the office.

  Much chastened in spirit, and fully ready to accept his wife's estimate ofhim, he went on downhill into Judson Centre.

  It was the usual small town, the post-office, grocery, meat market, andgeneral loafing-place being combined under one roof. Near by was theblacksmith shop, and across from it was the inevitable saloon. Far up inthe hills was the Judson Centre Sanitarium, a worthy institution of someyears standing, where every human ailment from tuberculosis to fits wasmore or less successfully treated.

  Upon the inmates of the sanitarium the inhabitants of Judson Centre lived,both materially and mentally. Few of them had ever been nearer to it thanthe back door, but tales of dark doings were widely prevalent throughoutthe community, and mothers were wont to frighten their young offspringinto obedience with threats of the "san-tor-i-yum."

  "Now what do you reckon ails _him_?" asked the blacksmith of thestage-driver, as Harlan went into the village store.

  "Wouldn't reckon nothin' ailed him to look at him, would you?" queried thedriver, in reply.

  Indeed, no one looking at Mr. Carr would have suspected him of an"ailment." He was tall and broad-shouldered and well set up, with cleargrey eyes and a rosy, smooth-shaven, boyish face which had given him thenickname of "The Cherub" all along Newspaper Row. In his bearing there wasa suggestion of boundless energy, which needed only proper direction toaccomplish wonders.

  "You can't never tell," continued the driver, shifting his quid. "Now,I've took folks up there goin' on ten year now, an' some I've took uplooked considerable more healthy than I be when I took 'em up. Comin'back, howsumever, it was different. One young feller rode up with me inthe rain one night, a-singin' an' a-whistlin' to beat the band, an' when Itook him back, a month or so arterward, he had a striped nurse on one sideof him an' a doctor on t' other, an' was wearin' a shawl. Couldn't hardlyset up, but he was a-tryin' to joke just the same. 'Hank,' says he, whenwe got a little way off from the place, 'my book of life has been editedby the librarians an' the entire appendix removed.' Them's his very words.'An',' says he, 'the time to have the appendix took out is before it doesmuch of anythin' to your table of contents.'

  "The doctor shut him up then, an' I didn't hear no more, but I rememberedthe language, an' arterwards, when I got a chanst, I looked in theschool-teacher's dictionary. It said as how the appendix was sunthin'appended or added to, but I couldn't get no more about it. I've hearn tellof a 'devil child' with a tail to it what was travellin' with the circusone year, an' I've surmised as how mebbe a tail had begun to grow on thisyoung feller an' it was took off."

  "You don't say!" ejaculated the blacksmith.

  By reason of his professional connection with the sanitarium, Mr. HenryBlake was, in a sense, the oracle of Judson Centre, and he enjoyed hisproud distinction to the full. Ordinarily, he was taciturn, but thepresent hour found him in a conversational mood.

  "He's married," he went on, returning to the original subject. "I took himan' his wife up to the Jack-o'-Lantern last night. Come in on the nineforty-seven from the Junction. Reckon they're goin' to stay a spell,'cause they've got trunks--one of a reasonable size, an' 'nother thatlooks like a dog-house. Box, too, that's got lead in it."

  "Books, maybe," suggested the blacksmith, with unexpected discernment."Schoolteacher boarded to our house wunst an' she had most a car-load of'em. Educated folks has to have books to keep from losin' theireducation."

  "Don't take much stock in it myself," remarked the driver. "It spiles m
ostfolks. As soon as they get some, they begin to pine an' hanker for more. Iknowed a feller wunst that begun with one book dropped on the road nearthe sanitarium, an' he never stopped till he was plum through college. An'a woman up there sent my darter a book wunst, an' I took it right back toher. 'My darter's got a book,' says I, 'an' she ain't a-needin' of noduplicates. Keep it,' says I, 'fer somebody that ain't got no book."

  "Do you reckon," asked the blacksmith, after a long silence, "that they'regoin' to live in the Jack-o'-Lantern?"

  "I ain't a-sayin'," answered Mr. Blake, cautiously. "They're educated, an'there's no tellin' what educated folks is goin' to do. This young lady,now, that come up with him last night, she said it was 'a dear old placean' she loved it a'ready.' Them's her very words!"

  "Do tell!"

  "That's c'rrect, an' as I said before, when you're dealin' with educatedfolks, you're swimmin' in deep water with the shore clean out o' sight.Education was what ailed him." By a careless nod Mr. Blake indicated theJack-o'-Lantern, which could be seen from the main thoroughfare of JudsonCentre.

  "I've hearn," he went on, taking a fresh bite from his morning purchase of"plug," "that he had one hull room mighty nigh plum full o' nothin' butbooks, an' there was always more comin' by freight an' express an' throughthe post-office. It's all on account o' them books that he's made thefront o' his house into what it is. My wife had a paper book wunst,a-tellin' 'How to Transfer a Hopeless Exterior,' with pictures of housesin it like they be here an' more arter they'd been transferred. You bet Iburnt it while she was gone to sewin' circle, an' there ain't no book comeinto my house since."

  Mr. Blake spoke with the virtuous air of one who has protected his homefrom contamination. Indeed, as he had often said before, "you can't nevertell what folks'll do when books gets a holt of 'em."

  "Do you reckon," asked the blacksmith, "that there'll be company?"

  "Company," snickered Mr. Blake, "oh, my Lord, yes! A little thing likedeath ain't never going to keep company away. Ain't you never hearn as howmisery loves company? The more miserable you are the more company you'llhave, an' vice versey, etcetery an' the same."

  "Hush!" warned the blacksmith, in a harsh whisper. "He's a-comin'!"

  "City feller," grumbled Mr. Blake, affecting not to see.

  "Good-morning," said Harlan, pleasantly, though not without an air ofcondescension. "Can you tell me where I can find the stage-driver?"

  "That's me," grunted Mr. Blake. "Be you wantin' anythin'?"

  "Only to pay you for taking us up to the house last night, and to arrangeabout our trunks. Can you deliver them this afternoon?"

  "I ain't a-runnin' of no livery, but I can take 'em up, if that's whatyou're wantin'."

  "Exactly," said Harlan, "and the box, too, if you will. And the thingsI've just ordered at the grocery--can you bring them, too?"

  Mr. Blake nodded helplessly, and the blacksmith gazed at Harlan,open-mouthed, as he started uphill. "Must sure have a ailment," hecommented, "but I hear tell, Hank, that in the city they never carrynothin' round with 'em but perhaps an umbrell. Everythin' else they have'sent.'"

  "Reckon it's true enough. I took a ham wunst up to the sanitarium for ayoung sprig of a doctor that was too proud to carry it himself. He wasgoin' that way, too--walkin' up to save money--so I charged him forcarryin' up the ham just what I'd have took both for. 'Pigs is high,' Itold him, 'same price for one as for 'nother,' but he didn't pay noattention to it an' never raised no kick about the price. Thinkin' 'boutsunthin' else, most likely--most of 'em are."

  Harlan, most assuredly, was "thinkin' 'bout sunthin' else." In fact, hewas possessed by portentous uneasiness. There was well-defined doubt inhis mind regarding his reception at the Jack-o'-Lantern. Dorothy's partingwords had been plain--almost to the point of rudeness, he reflected,unhappily, and he was not sure that "a brute" would be allowed in herpresence again.

  The bare, uncurtained windows gave no sign of human occupancy. Perhaps shehad left him! Then his reason came to the rescue--there was no way for herto go but downhill, and he would certainly have seen her had she takenthat path.

  When he entered the yard, he smelled smoke, and ran wildly into the house.A hasty search through all the rooms revealed nothing--even Dorothy haddisappeared. From the kitchen window, he saw her in the back yard, pokingidly through a heap of smouldering rubbish with an old broomstick.

  "What are you doing?" he demanded, breathlessly, before she knew he wasnear her.

  Dorothy turned, disguising her sudden start by a toss of her head. "Oh,"she said, coolly, "it's you, is it?"

  Harlan bit his lips and his eyes laughed. "I say, Dorothy," he began,awkwardly; "I was rather a beast, wasn't I?"

  "Of course," she returned, in a small, unnatural voice, still pokingthrough the ruins. "I told you so, didn't I?"

  "I didn't believe you at the time," Harlan went on, eager to make amends,"but I do now."

  "That's good." Mrs. Carr's tone was not at all reassuring.

  There was an awkward pause, then Harlan, putting aside his obstinatepride, said the simple sentence which men of all ages have found ithardest to say--perhaps because it is the sign of utter masculineabasement. "I'm sorry, dear, will you forgive me?"

  In a moment, she was in his arms. "It was partly my fault," she admitted,generously, from the depths of his coat collar. "I think there must besomething in the atmosphere of the house. We never quarrelled before."

  "And we never will again," answered Harlan, confidently. "What have youbeen burning?"

  "It was a mattress," whispered Dorothy, much ashamed. "I tried to get abed out, but it was too heavy."

  "You funny, funny girl! How did you ever get a mattress out, all alone?"

  "Dragged it to an upper window and dumped it," she explained, blushing,"then came down and dragged it some more. Claudius Tiberius didn't like tohave me do it."

  "I don't wonder," laughed Harlan. "That is," he added hastily, "hecouldn't have been pleased to see you doing it all by yourself. Anybodywould love to see a mattress burn."

  "Shall we get some more? There are plenty."

  "Let's not take all our pleasure at once," he suggested, with rare tact."One mattress a day--how'll that do?"

  "We'll have it at night," cried Dorothy, clapping her hands, "and when themattresses are all gone, we'll do the beds and bureaus and the hairclothfurniture in the parlour. Oh, I do so love a bonfire!"

  Harlan's heart grew strangely tender, for it had been this underlyingchildishness in her that he had loved the most. She was stirring the ashesnow, with as much real pleasure as though she were five instead oftwenty-five.

  As it happened, Harlan would have been saved a great deal of trouble if hehad followed out her suggestion and burned all of the beds in the houseexcept two or three, but the balance between foresight and retrospectionhas seldom been exact.

  "Beast of a smudge you're making," he commented, choking.

  "Get around to the other side, then. Why, Harlan, what's that?"

  "What's what?"

  She pointed to a small metal box in the midst of the ashes.

  "Poem on Spring, probably, put into the corner-stone by the builder of themattress."

  "Don't be foolish," she said, with assumed severity. "Get me a pail ofwater."

  With two sticks they lifted it into the water and waited, impatientlyenough, until they were sure it was cool. Then Dorothy, asserting herright of discovery, opened it with trembling fingers.

  "Why-ee!" she gasped.

  Upon a bed of wet cotton lay a large brooch, made wholly of clustereddiamonds, and a coral necklace, somewhat injured by the fire.

  "Whose is it?" demanded Dorothy, when she recovered the faculty ofspeech.

  "I should say," returned Harlan, after due deliberation, "that it belongedto you."

  "After this," she said, slowly, her eyes wide with wonder, "we'll takeeverything apart before we burn it."

  Harlan was turning the brooch over in his hand and roughly estimating itsvalue a
t two thousand dollars. "Here's something on the back," he said."'R. from E., March 12, 1865.'"

  "Rebecca from Ebeneezer," cried Dorothy. "Oh, Harlan, it's ours! Don't youremember the letter said: 'my house and all its contents to my belovednephew, James Harlan Carr'?"

  "I remember," said Harlan. But his conscience was uneasy, none the less.