by Dave Mckay
“Oh, stop blaming yourself -- it’s too bad to do that, and I won’t let you -- you couldn’t help it; you’re not to blame. Where did you hide it?”
I didn’t want to start her thinking about her troubles again; and I couldn’t seem to get my mouth to tell her what would make her see that dead body lying in the box with that bag of money on its stomach. So for a minute I didn’t say nothing; then I says: “I don’t want to tell you where I put it, Miss Mary Jane, if you can let me off on that one; but I’ll write it for you on a piece of paper, and you can read it along the road to Mr. Lothrop’s, if you want to. Do you think that’ll do?”
“Oh, yes.”
So I wrote: “I put it in the box with your uncle’s body. It was in there when you was crying there, away in the night. I was behind the door, and I was very sorry for you, Miss Mary Jane.”
It made my eyes water a little to remember her crying there all by herself in the night, and them devils sleeping there right under her own roof, tricking her and robbing her; and when I folded it up and give it to her I seen the water come into her eyes, too; and she shook me by the hand, hard, and says: “Goodbye. I’m going to do everything just as you’ve told me; and if I don’t ever see you again, I shall not ever forget you. and I’ll think of you many a time, and I’ll pray for you, too!” -- and she was gone.
Pray for me! I thought if she knowed me she’d a taken a job that was more nearer her size. But I believe she done it, just the same -- she was just that kind. She had the ability to pray for Judas if she believed it was the right thing -- there weren’t no back-down to her, I judge. You may say what you want to, but to my way of thinking she had more spiritual strength in her than any girl I ever seen; as I see it, she was just full of it. It sounds like I’m just flattering her, but I ain't. And when it comes to good looks -- and a good spirit, too -- she has ‘em over them all. I ain’t ever seen her since that time that I see her go out of that door; no, I ain’t ever seen her since, but I think I’ve thought of her a million times, and of her saying she would pray for me; and if ever I’d a thought it would do any good for me to pray for her, blamed if I wouldn’t a done it or died trying.
Well, Mary Jane she ran out the back way, I think; because nobody seen her go. When I met Susan and Joanna, I says: “What’s the name of them people over on t’other side of the river that you all goes to see sometimes?”
They says: “There’s a few; but it’s the Proctors, mostly.”
“That’s the name,” I says; “I couldn’t remember it. Well, Miss Mary Jane she told me to tell you she’s gone over there in a big hurry -- one of them’s sick.”
“Which one?”
“I don’t know; at least I can’t remember; but I thinks it’s -- “
“Lord help us, I hope it ain’t Hanner?”
“I’m sorry to say it,” I says, “but Hanner’s the very one.”
“Oh my, and she so well only last week! Is she took bad?”
“Bad is only the start of it. They sat up with her all night, Miss Mary Jane said, and they don’t think she’ll last many hours.”
“Only think of that, now! What’s wrong with her?”
I couldn’t think of anything good, right off that way, so I says: “Mumps.”
“Mumps your grandmother! They don’t sit up with people that’s got the mumps.”
“They don’t, don’t they? You better know they do with these mumps. These mumps is different. It’s a new kind, Miss Mary Jane said.”
“How’s it a new kind?”
“Because it’s mixed up with other things.”
“What other things?”
“Well, skin spots, and water in the lungs, and vomiting, and yellow eyes, and brain-heat, and I don’t know what all.”
“My land! And they call it the mumps? “
“That’s what Miss Mary Jane said.”
“Well, what in the world do they call it the mumps for?”
“Why, because it is the mumps. That’s what it starts with.”
“Well, there ain’t no good reason for it. A body might hit his toe, and take poison, and fall down the well, and break his neck, and knock his brains out, and someone come along and ask what killed him, and some stupid person would up and say, ‘Well, he hit his toe.’ Would there be any good reason for saying that? No. And there ain’t no good reason in this, either. Is it catching?”
“Is it catching? Why, how you talk. Is a rake catching -- in the dark? If you don’t catch on one tooth, you will on another, won’t you? And you can’t get away with that tooth without bringing the whole rake along, can you? Well, these kind of mumps is a kind of a rake, as you may say -- and it ain’t no little rake either.”
“Well, it’s awful, I think,” says the young one. “I’ll go to Uncle Harvey and -- “
“Oh, yes,” I says like she was stupid, “I would. For sure I would. I wouldn’t lose no time.”
“Well, why wouldn’t you?”
“Just look at it a minute, and maybe you can see. Ain’t your uncles needed in England as fast as they can? And do you think they’d be mean enough to go off and leave you to go all that way by yourselves? You know they’ll wait for you. So far, so good. Your uncle Harvey’s a preacher, ain’t he? Very well, then; is a preacher going to lie to a river boat ticket seller? -- so as to get them to let Miss Mary Jane go on the boat? Now you know he ain’t. What will he do, then? Why, he’ll say, ‘It’s too bad, but my church business has got to get along the best way it can without me; for my brother’s daughter has been near to someone with the awful this-and-that mumps, and so it’s only right for me to sit down here and wait the three months it takes to show on her if she’s got it.’ But go ahead, if you think it’s best to tell your uncle Harvey -- “
“And stay wasting time around here waiting to find out if Mary Jane’s got it or not, when we could all be having good times in England instead? Why, don’t be so foolish.”
“Well, maybe you’d better tell some of the neighbours.”
“Listen at that, now. You do come in first for being stupid. Can’t you see that they’d go and tell? There ain’t no way but just to not tell anyone at all.”
“Well,” I says, “maybe you’re right -- yes, I judge you are.”
“But I think we should tell Uncle Harvey she’s gone out a while, anyway, so he won’t be worried about her?”
“Yes, Miss Mary Jane wanted you to do that. She says, ‘Tell them to give Uncle Harvey and William my love and a kiss, and say I’ve run over the river to see Mr.’ -- Mr. -- what is the name of that rich family your uncle Peter used to think so much of? -- I mean the one that -- “
“Why, you must mean the Apthorps, ain’t it?”
“That’s it; I hate them kind of names, a body can’t ever seem to remember them, half the time. Yes, she said, say she has run over for to ask the Apthorps to be sure and come to the sale and buy this house, because she believed her uncle Peter would want them to have it more than anyone else; and she’s going to stick to them until they say they’ll come, and then, if she ain’t too tired, she’s coming home; and if she is tired, she’ll be home in the morning anyway. She said, don’t say nothing about the Proctors, but only about the Apthorps -- which’ll be perfectly true, because she is going there to speak about their buying the house; I know it, because she told me so herself.”
“All right,” they said, and left to look for their uncles, and give them love and kisses, and tell them what we had agreed on.
Everything was all right now. The girls wouldn’t say nothing because they wanted to go to England; and the king and the duke would be happier to know Mary Jane was off working for the sale than around in reach of Doctor Robinson. I felt very good; I judged I had done it pretty neat -- I think Tom Sawyer couldn’t a done it no neater himself. He would a throwed more quality into it, but I can’t do that very well, not being brought up to it.
Well, they held the sale in the centre of town, along toward the end of the afternoon
, and it went on and on, and the old man he was on hand and looking as evil as I ever seen him, up there beside the man who was doing the selling, and putting in a Bible verse now and then, or a little goody-goody saying of some kind, and the duke he was around goo-gooing, for he knowed how to get people to feel sorry for him.
But by and by the thing finished, and everything was sold -- everything but a little old piece of land for burying a body. So they’d got to work that off too -- I never did see anyone as greedy as the king for wanting to take everything. Well, while they was at it a river boat landed, and in about two minutes up comes a crowd a-shouting and laughing and carrying on, and singing out: “Here’s something to choose from! Here’s another two brothers to old Peter Wilks. Bring your money and take your choice over who you’ll give it to!”
Chapter 29
They was bringing a very nice-looking old man along, and a nice-looking younger one, with his right arm in a sling. And, my souls, how the people shouted and laughed, and kept it up.
But I didn’t see no joke about it, and I judged it would be difficult for the duke and the king to see any either. I believed they’d turn white with fear. But no, they didn’t. The duke he never let on that he knew what was up, but just went a goo-gooing around, sounding like a bottle that’s pouring out milk; and as for the king, he just looked down sadly on them new-comers like it give him a pain in his heart to think there could be such false men and robbers in the world. Oh, he done it well. Lots of the most important people crowded around the king, to let him see they was on his side. That old man that had just come looked all confused to death. Pretty soon he started to speak, and I see straight off he said his words like a real English man -- not the king’s way, even if the king’s was pretty good for a counterfeit.
I can’t use the new man’s words, and I can’t say it like him; but he turned around to the crowd, and says, about like this: “This is a surprise to me which I wasn’t looking for; and I’ll be honest with you, I ain’t well fixed to meet it; for my brother and me has had some troubles; he’s broke his arm, and our suitcases got put off at a town above here last night in the night by accident. I am Peter Wilks’ brother Harvey, and this is his brother William, which can’t hear or speak -- and can’t even make signs much, now that he’s only got one hand to work them with. We are who we say we are; and in a day or two, when I get the bags, I can prove it. But until then I won’t say nothing more, but go to the hotel and wait.”
So him and the new deaf man started off; and the king he laughs, and shouts out: “Broke his arm -- very nice, ain’t it? -- and just what you needed, too, for someone who’s got to make signs, and ain’t learned how. Lost their bags! That’s mighty good! -- and mighty smart -- the way things are!
So he laughed again; and so did everybody else, apart from three or four, or maybe five or six. One of these was that doctor; another one was a sharp-looking man, with a bag of the old kind made out of real rug material, that had just come off of the river boat and was talking to him in a low voice, and looking toward the king now and then as they were moving their heads -- it was Levi Bell, the lawyer that was gone up to Louisville; and another one was a big rough man that come along and listened to all the old man from England said, and was listening to the king now. And when the king got done this big man up and says: “Say, look here; if you are Harvey Wilks, when did you come to this town?”
“The day before the funeral, friend,” says the king.
“But what time of day?”
“In the evening -- about an hour or two before the sun went down.”
“How’d you come?”
“I come down on the Susan Powell from Cincinnati.”
“Well, then, how did you come to be up at the point in the morning -- in a canoe?”
“I weren’t up at the point in the morning.”
“It’s a lie.”
A few of them jumped for him and begged him not to talk that way to an old man and a preacher at that.
“Preacher be hanged, he’s tricking you with lies. He was up at the point that morning. I live up there, don’t I? Well, I was up there, and he was up there. I seen him there. He come in a canoe, along with Tim Collins and a boy.”
The doctor he up and says: “Would you know the boy again if you was to see him, Hines?”
“I think I would, but I don’t know. Why, there he is, now. I know him perfectly easy.”
It was me he pointed at.
The doctor says: “Neighbours, I don’t know if the new ones is counterfeits or not; but if these two ain’t counterfeits, I am crazy, that’s all. I think it’s our job to see that they don’t get away from here until we’ve looked into this thing. Come along, Hines; come along, others of you. We’ll take these men to the hotel and talk to them with t’other two, and I think we’ll find out something before we get through.”
The crowd was happy with that, but maybe not the king’s friends; so we all started. The sun was just going down. The doctor he led me along by the hand, and was kind enough, but he never let go my hand.
We all got in a big room in the hotel, and put up some candles, and brought in the other two men.
First, the doctor says: “I don’t wish to be too hard on these two men, but I think they’re not what they say they are, and they may have others helping them that we don’t know about.
"If they have, won’t their helpers get away with that bag of gold Peter Wilks left? It’s not impossible. If these men ain’t tricking us, they won’t have a problem with sending for that money and letting us keep it until they prove they’re all right.”
Everybody agreed to that. So I judged they had our gang in a pretty tight place right from the start. But the king he only looked sad, and says: “Friends, I wish the money was there, for I ain’t got no interest in throwing anything in the way of a good, open, out-and-out study of this awful business; but, sadly, the money ain’t there; you can send and see, if you want to.”
“Where is it, then?”
“Well, when my brother’s daughter give it to me to keep for her I took and put it inside the grass mattress on my bed, not wishing to bank it for the few days we’d be here, and thinking the bed a safe place, we not being used to black people, and thinking they was honest, like servants in England. The slaves robbed it the next morning, after I had went down the steps; and when I sold ‘em I hadn’t missed the money yet, so they got clean away with it. My servant here can tell you about it, friends.”
The doctor and a few others said “Foolishness!” and I could see nobody didn’t fully believe him. One man asked if I seen the servants rob it. I said no, but I seen them secretly coming out of the room and running off, and I never thought nothing, as I thought they was afraid they had waked up my master and was trying to get away before he got angry with them. That was all they asked me. Then the doctor turns on me and says: “Are you English, too?”
I says yes. Him and some others laughed, and said, “No way!”
Well, then they sailed in on the general questioning, and there we had it, up and down, hour in, hour out, and nobody never said a word about eating, or ever seemed to think about it -- and so they kept it up, and kept it up; and it was the worst mixed-up thing you ever seen. They made the king tell his story, and they made the other old man tell his; and anybody but a lot of confused empty heads would a seen that the old man from England was telling the truth and t’other one lies. And by and by they had me up to tell what I knowed. The king he give me a left-handed look out of the corner of his eye, and so I knowed enough to talk on the right side. I started to tell about Sheffield, and how we lived there, and all about the English Wilkses, and so on; but I didn’t get very far before the doctor started to laugh; and Levi Bell, the lawyer, says: “Sit down, my boy; I wouldn’t try too hard if I was you. I think you ain’t one who has done much lying, it don’t seem to come easy; what you want is to exercise it more. You do it pretty rough.”
I didn’t think he was so right, but I was glad to
be let off, anyway.
The doctor he started to say something, and turns and says: “If you’d been in town at first, Levi Bell -- “
The king broke in and reached out his hand, and says: “Why, is this my poor dead brother’s old friend that he’s wrote so often about?”
The lawyer and him shook hands, and the lawyer smiled and looked pleased, and they talked right along for a while, and then got to one side and talked low.
At last the lawyer speaks up and says: “That’ll fix it. I’ll take it and send it, along with your brother’s, and then they’ll know it’s all right.”
So they got some paper and a pen, and the king he sat down and turned his head to one side, and chewed his tongue, and wrote something; and then they give the pen to the duke -- and then for the first time the duke looked sick. But he took the pen and wrote.
So then the lawyer turns to the new old man and says: “You and your brother please write a line or two and sign your names.”
