by Van Reid
Mister Walton was a little lost in the day, as it progressed, and Sundry was not sure if he needed to be pulled from reflection or allowed to bask in it. The bespectacled fellow joined in the conversation and food happily enough, but he grew thoughtful, and it did seem too bad that Phileda McCannon was not there to share the day.
Sundry felt a pang of concern for his friend, though he suspected that seeing Miss McCannon again would set the man aright quickly enough. After their picnic, Mister Walton was content to sit in the sun with his back against a wheel of the wagon and listen to the chatter of the family and the ripe notes of Mr. Fern’s flute.
The wind that riffled the grass and chopped the surface of the river, paused, like a strange and dreamy portion of tide between ebb and return. Mr. Fern put down his flute, and the company grew silent without the awkwardness that often attends a lull in conversation. After some moments, Mrs. Fern said, “It’s either twenty past the hour or twenty before.”
“Is it?” said Mister Walton. It seemed an odd assertion.
“When everyone goes silent, and conversation dies, it is usually twenty past the hour or twenty before.”
“I never knew,” said Mister Walton.
“Do you mean,” said one of the Fern daughters, “that it might be either twenty past or twenty before, or that you can’t remember which it’s supposed to be.”
Mrs. Fern looked doubtful. “I’m not sure,” she admitted. “I only know that’s what my mother used to say.” She considered the question some more. “I’m not sure which she meant, now that you ask.”
“It’s twenty minutes past, I think,” said Sundry. He had been interested in the contentment around the picnic spread. The Ferns were not simple people, but they had been made happy by simple means. Hercules was more like his old self, and they were pleased to celebrate. It seemed obvious to Sundry that some agency had been behind the pig’s recent gloom; the Ferns did not seem to consider it, or to consider it worth fretting about. Sundry imagined that someone nearby had wished poor Hercules ill or wished him out of the way and that the symptom had been dealt with but not the cure. The young man looked placid, however, and offered his own theory about the recent silence. “It was when Lincoln died, wasn’t it?” he said. “Twenty minutes past the hour?”
“I have heard of something like it, now that you tell me,” said Mister Walton, who had seen the shadow of something pass over his friend’s face.
Mr. Fern then spoke.
“‘And people all across the land,
Have grown, of late, to understand,
That silences will sometimes last,
Whene’er the clock meets twenty past;
Since Lincoln lingered till that time—
The mind so keen, the heart sublime—
Was stilled, and by God’s leave,
Half-knowingly the people grieve,
Or maybe simply sense the essence,
Of Uncle Abe’s consoling presence.’”
He finished this bit of verse with a small chuckle.
“I’ve never heard that,” said Mrs. Fern.
“It’s in the children’s primer.”
“It is a dear thought,” said Mister Walton.
“And who belongs to it?” wondered Sundry.
“The poem?” replied Mr. Fern. “I can’t recall who wrote it. Not a distinguished bard, and not a great piece, though the sentiment is worthy. One of the boys at school suggested that it was well we hadn’t many great men like Lincoln, else we’d be silent all the time.”
“Vergilius!” admonished his wife, as if this were a bit of sacrilege.
“It is now seventeen past twelve, by the way,” said Mr. Fern. “Though my watch may be slow.”
Mister Walton coughed once, and quietly; he had resisted looking at his own timepiece.
“And I believe,” continued Mr. Fern, “that Lincoln died at twenty-two minutes past the hour, but the clock at that house might have been fast.”
35. A Bully for Jasper Packet
"Here we are, now!” came a low growl, and the Moosepathians jumped and shouted as one. They had been taking their guide quite at his word and were attempting to admire the shopwindows on the other side of the street. Sparky squinted at them. “What’d I tell you?” he said, and held out a piece of paper without further comment.
The members of the club were then quickly immersed in studying a telegram form that had been filled with a close, pragmatic script.
BANGOR TELEGRAPH COMPANY
James Street Office
MAY 29, AM 11:36
DRESDEN MILLS, MAINE
MRS. JUDD PILICAN
FOUR MEN VISITED THIS MORNING, ASKING AFTER YOUR NINE PEOPLE-IN-PEN COLLECTIVELY. REFUSED THEM INFORMATION AS TO ANY WHEREABOUTS, BUT THOUGHT IT STRANGE AND THAT YOU SHOULD KNOW. LETTER TO FOLLOW.
WILLIAM SIEGFRIED
“Whatever that is,” Sparky added, pointing a blunt forefinger at the hyphenated phrase.
“Good heavens!” said Eagleton.
“People-in-pen?” said Ephram. Sparky squinted at him as if he’d cursed.
“Nine of them?” said Thump, counting on his fingers.
“Dresden Mills?” said Eagleton. He was attempting to read a map in his mind that did not, as it turned out, include a Dresden Mills.
“Nine of them,” said Thump. He looked up from his hands.
“Good heavens, Mr. Spark!” said Eagleton. “How did you come by this?”
“Good heavens!” declared Ephram.
They gaped at the husky Mr. Spark, who flashed his gap-toothed smile; then they looked at one another, hardly able to articulate the fear that this communication was got to them by less than honorable means.
“It hardly seems right to make use of it,” said an astonished Eagleton.
Leander Spark’s smile began to fade.
“You are right, of course, Eagleton,” said Ephram, who was amazed that Sparky could have done such a thing. “And yet, if Mrs. Roberto is—”
“If she is in peril,” finished Eagleton.
They looked to Thump, whose dark expression found its way through the beard before it. “Dire circumstances oblige us to dire means,” he said in a dark and dire voice. A moment’s silence followed this pronouncement. “We must return someday and make this right with Mr. Siegfried,” said Thump.
“What?” said Sparky.
Eagleton put a hand upon Thump’s shoulder. “Of course, my friend.”
“And we will make it right with Mrs. Pilican, whoever she may be,” said the bearded Moosepathian.
Ephram seemed to grow larger with the thought. He, too, gripped one of Thump’s shoulders but said nothing and only nodded and blinked.
“To Dresden Mills!” declared Eagleton.
“Hold it there!” declared Leander Sparky in a threatening tone. The members of the club turned back to him, but he was spying something or someone else down the street. “What’s the trouble?” wondered Eagleton, craning his neck.
“I just spotted a liability,” growled the burly fellow. He did not wait for the passing crowd to part for him but reached with both hands, as if he were opening a double-hung gate, and shoved several men aside.
“A liability?” said the three friends, hurrying after, weaving among the oncoming traffic, and even begging pardon as they helped one fellow back to his feet and dusted off another gentleman’s coat. When they caught up with Sparky on the busy corner of Union and James Streets, he was looming over a man who regarded the thickset collector with an uncertain frown.
“I was told you were out of town,” Sparky growled, as he caught himself a handful of the man’s back collar.
“Well, I was, Sparky, I was,” said the man, and though he appeared sensitive to the immediate situation he did not seem at all like a man near panic. “I just got back in, thank you,” he said. He had an old brown cap that he tipped gallantly while Sparky lifted him onto his toes. His lanky, brown hair needed cutting, and his clothes begged repair or retirement
. He was a singularly unprepossessing fellow, with sleepy eyes and large teeth. He wore spectacles, the lenses of which were as spotted as his clothes; they sat a little crooked on the bridge of his nose as Leander hoisted him by the collar. “I came back to settle up,” the ragged man was saying.
Sparky gave the man a little more lift with a sudden jerk and growled, “Which is why you sprung like a cat, the moment you caught sight of me.”
“No, no!” declared the fellow. “You only startled me, is all!”
Sparky grinned unpleasantly. “What? Little Leander Spark?” The grin went out as suddenly as a candle. “Look at you! I don’t know how you gulled even a penny out of the boss.”
“I thought it very liberal of him, to be sure,” said the man, and Sparky shook him again.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump watched in astonishment. A few other people stopped to see what was amiss, but on the whole, men and women alike hurried past with their eyes averted.
“You come with me,” said Sparky, and, dropping his catch, he urged the man back down James Street with a shove and a shoe.
“Good heavens, Ephram!” said Eagleton.
“Yes, my friend!” agreed Ephram.
“Thump!”
But Thump had walked around Sparky’s broad form to insinuate himself between prey and predator. “I beg your pardon, Mr. Spark,” he said, “but what is the meaning of this?”
“What are you doing here?” declared Sparky. “You got what you wanted!”
“But what do you intend to do with this man?” demanded Thump. Ephram and Eagleton each strode up to one of Thump’s shoulders and appended serious expressions to this question.
Sparky was not tall, but he could stare right over Thump’s head at Ephram and Eagleton, and as broad as Thump was he looked like a calf to Leander Spark’s bull. “Thaddeus asked me to see after you fellows,” explained Sparky evenly. He nabbed the ragged man’s collar once again. “I’ve done my part, but now you’re interfering with business.”
“Business, sir!” said an affronted Eagleton. “What sort of business we might ask!”
“Very good, Eagleton,” said Ephram.
“Thank you, Ephram.”
“It’s my business, if you must know,” stated Sparky flatly, “to wring five dollars from Jasper Packet here, or take him with me so he can explain to my boss why not.”
“Yes, please!” said the man in Sparky’s grip with sudden and surprising passion. “Take me to the boss! Anywhere but here! Please!”
Sparky’s brow furrowed.
Without really thinking about it, Ephram reached up and laid a hand on Sparky’s arm; Eagleton stepped closer to the scene, but it was Thump who spoke. “Mr. Spark,” he said. “You will put that man down, or I will be forced to strike you!”
“What?” said the astonished Sparky.
“Please, take me with you!” Jasper Packet was saying to Sparky in a low but fervent manner.
Something else occurred to Ephram, and he said, “Five dollars, Mr. Spark?” He was going through the contents of his wallet and producing the requisite bills. “It seems little enough reason for rough behavior. There. That’s the amount you quoted, sir?”
“Yes,” drawled Sparky. He considered the funds held out before him, but suspiciously.
“You must take me with you!” hissed Jasper Packet. He was tugging at Sparky now, and looking more desperate than ever, which seemed very odd. Passersby could not hear what he was saying, perhaps, but they noticed his agitated expression as he clutched at the burly fellow.
“What?” said Sparky. He cast another frown at the ragged man, then snatched the money from Ephram’s hand and began to count it. “You’re daft as a mole, Jasper. You’d better thank this fellow before he changes his mind, and I’ve a mind to give him the opportunity! And you!” he said to the others.
“What is it, sir?” said Eagleton.
“You’d do well to stay out of business that doesn’t concern you.”
“Business?” said Ephram, sounding much as Eagleton had. “Does your mother know what sort of business you’re in?” His chin was up, his chest out, and his mustaches were terrifically agitated.
“Mother?” growled Sparky. He registered the most extraordinary surprise. With a great huff he swung his head away and proceeded to follow it with the rest of his brawny physique. His former captive, however, was not be let go so easily.
“Sparky!” declared Jasper Packet, clutching at the man’s arm. “Don’t leave me here! Please. Whatever you do, don’t leave me!”
“What?” snarled Sparky. He glared down at the man and shook him off.
“Take me to the boss, Sparky! I’m in awful peril!”
“Peril?”
“That man!” said Jasper Packet in such a tiny, fearful voice that the members of the club could barely hear him. “That man! He’s after me!”
“What man!” Sparky craned his neck and gazed about them. Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were almost dancing with splintered nerves as they looked for the man who was after Jasper Packet.
“That man!” said Jasper again. He pointed with a shivering finger down the street, but as there were any number of men at several distances from the present scene, it was impossible to say which one he meant.
“Which?” demanded Sparky.
“Him!” said Jasper, and for a moment he seemed a little unsure. Then a particular fellow crossed the street corner to walk in their general direction and Jasper shouted, “Him! With the brown bowler and the gloves!”
“Him?” said Sparky. The man looked like nothing more than an average citizen, and a singularly unthreatening one. “He doesn’t look like he’s after you.” Sparky eyed the oncoming fellow with his trademark squint.
“That’s just it,” said Jasper, grasping onto Spark’s sleeve. “He wouldn’t! He’s a dead man, Sparky!”
“Dead man?” said the burly collector. His face blanched with the notion and he pulled from his pocket the bit of fur that he had been rubbing earlier in the day.
“I killed him last night!” declared Jasper.
Ephram and Eagleton let out odd, birdlike sounds, and Thump said, “Hmmm?”
“You’re crazy!” said Sparky, vigorously rubbing his piece of fur.
“I did!” asserted the ragged man. “I didn’t mean to but I did! It was an accident, I promise you, but before he died he said he’d get me! It was horrible, Sparky! Horrible! Look at him!”
With this outrageous proclamation ringing in their ears, Sparky and the Moosepathians could indeed see something sinister about the approaching fellow; the man had little or no expression on his face, and his progress hardly seemed to deviate for traffic, or alter in its pace. Sparky glanced up at the sky, which he thought grew darker even as they spoke.
“Take me with you!” pleaded Jasper. He pawed at Sparky’s sleeves and coat. The big man inched away. “He’ll kill me!” the ragged man was shouting. “He said he would! It’ll be terrible, horrible! His cold breath! His hate-filled eyes! I buried him with my own hands, but he rose from his grave to kill me and anyone in his way!”
Sparky was swatting at Jasper’s hands the way one would swat at a swarm of bees. The big fellow backed away a step or two, then, leaping a third step, he turned, charged down the street, and ducked into an alley. Jasper did not pursue him, but he shouted after Sparky, “Don’t leave me!” Strangely the fear had left his face.
Ephram, Eagleton, and Thump were backing away from the mysterious figure. The crowd that had gathered watched the scene with interest, and a little apprehension, but the man, whom Jasper Packet claimed was pursuing him for postmortem revenge stopped briefly to glance in their direction, then carried on down the street—whereupon Jasper Packet looked remarkably complacent and said, “That’s that.”
“That’s what?” said Eagleton.
Jasper let out a short laugh. “Oh, your faces!” he declared.
“I beg your pardon,” said Eagleton. He and Thump put their hands to their ch
eeks.
“I don’t think that man was after you at all,” said Ephram.
“He didn’t appear,” agreed Eagleton.
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Jasper Packet. “How very kind of you to take my part against that great ape! And you, sir!” he said. “My hearty thanks.” He held out several dollar bills to Ephram, who peered at them as if they were some previously unreported specimen of life. “I think it’s all there,” said the ragged man.
“All there?” said Ephram.
“Your money.”
“But that man,” said Eagleton. “You said you’d killed him.”
“Never seen him before in my life. He gave me a turn, though.”
“Did he?”
“I was afraid he was going to turn at the corner, and he did look my best applicant.”
Eagleton was the first to understand that the recent clamor had been something of a ruse. “But why did you carry on so, when Mr. Spark had been recompensed?” he asked.
“At first, I only meant to get away,” said Jasper, “but then, once he’d been paid, I had to detain him long enough to get these back.” He shook the bills at Ephram. “I do cherish the loan, Mr.—”
“Ephram,” said that puzzled worthy. “Matthew Ephram.”
“Jasper Packet,” said the ragged man as he shook Ephram’s hand and accepted introductions from Thump and Eagleton.
“What’s going on here?” inquired a new voice, and a police officer loomed where Sparky had moments before.
“Only a bully, officer, getting a bit of his own,” said Jasper. He took hold of Ephram’s hand and pressed the bills into it.
