A Guest at the Ludlow, and Other Stories

by Bill Nye

  SUMMER BOARDERS AND OTHERS

  XIII

  "We kep' summer boarders the past season," said Orlando McCusick, ofEast Kortright, to me as we sat in the springhouse and drank cold milkfrom a large yellow bowl with white stripes around it; "we kep' boardersfrom town all summer in the Catskills, and that is why I don't figger ondoing of it this year. You fellers that writes the pieces and makes thepictures of us folks what keeps the boarders has got the laugh on us asa general thing, but I would like to be interviewed a little for thepress, so's that I can be set right before the American people."

  "Well, if you will state the case fairly and honestly, I will try togive you a chance."

  "In the first place," said Orlando, taking off his boot and removing hisjack-knife which had worked its way through his pocket and down hisleg, then squinting along the new "tap" with one eye to see how it waswearing before he put it on, "I did not know how healthy it was hereuntil I read in a railroad pamphlet, I guess you call it, where it saysthat the relation of temperature to oxygen in a certain quantity of airis of the highest importance. 'In a cubic foot,' it says, 'of air at3,000 feet elevation, with a temperature of 32 degrees, there is as muchoxygen as in a like amount of air at sea level with a temperature of 65degrees. Another important fact that should not be lost sight of,' thisable feller says, 'by those affected by pulmonary diseases, is thatthree or four times as much oxygen is consumed in activity as inrepose.' (Hence the hornet's nests introduced by me last season.) 'Thenin climates made stimulating by increased electric tension and cold,activity must be followed by an increased endosmose of oxygen."

  "So you decided to select and furnish endosmose of oxygen to sufferers?"

  ... _'Three or four times as much oxygen is consumed inactivity as in repose.' (Hence the hornet's nests introduced by me lastseason.)_ (Page 124)]

  "Yes. I went into it with no notions of making a pile of money, but Iargued that these folks would give anything for health. We folks areapt to argy that people from town are all well off and liberal, and thatif they can come out and get all the buttermilk and straw rides theywant, and a little flush of color and a wood-tick on the back of theirnecks, they don't reck a pesky reck what it costs. This is onlyoccasionly so. Ask any doctor you know of if the average man won't giveanything to save his life, and then when it's saved put his propity intohis womern's name. That's human. You know the good book says a pure manfrom New York is the noblest work of God."

  "Well, when did this desire to endosmose your fellow-man first break outon you?"

  "About a year and a half ago it began to rankle in my mind. I read upeverything I could get hold of regarding the longevity and such thingsto be had here. In the winter I sent in a fair, honest, advertisementregarding my place, and, Judas H. Priest! before I could say 'scat' inthe spring, here came letters by the dozen, mostly from school-teachersat first, that had a good command of language, but did not come. Iafterwards learned that these letters was frequently wrote by folks thatwas not able to go into the country, so wrote these letters for mentalimprovement, hoping also that some one in the country might want themfor the refinement they would engender in the family.

  "I took one young woman from town once, and allowed her 25 per cent. offfor her refining influence. Her name was Etiquette McCracken. She knewvery little in the first place, and had added to it a good deal bystoring up in her mind a lot of membranous theories and damaged factsthat ought to ben looked over and disinfected. She was the most hopelesscase I ever saw, Mr. Nye. She was a metropolitan ass. You know that atown greenhorn is the greenest greenhorn in the world, because he can'tbe showed anything. He knows it all. Well, Etiquette McCracken very nighparalyzed what few manners my children had. She pointed at things attable, and said she wanted some o' that, and she had a sort of a starvedway of eating, and short breath, and seemed all the time apprehensive.She probably et off the top of a flour barrel at home. She came andstayed all summer at our house, with a wardrobe which was in ashawl-strap wrapped up in a programme of one of them big theaters onBowery street. I guess she led a gay life in the city. She said she did.She said if her set was at our house they would make it ring withlaughter. I said if they did I'd wring their cussed necks with laughter.'Why,' she says, 'don't you like merriment?' 'Yes,' I says, 'I likemerriment well enough, but the cackle of a vacant mind rattling aroundin a big farmhouse makes me a fiend, and unmans me, and I gnaw up two orthree people a day till I get over it,' I says."

  "Well, what became of Miss McCracken?"

  "Oh, she went up to her room in September, dressed herself in a longlinen duster, did some laundry work, and the next day, with her littleshawl-strap, she lit out for the city, where she was engaged to marry avery wealthy old man whose mind had been crowded out by an intellectualtumor, but who had a kind heart and had pestered her to death for yearsto marry him and inherit his wealth. I afterwards learned that in thismatter she had lied."

  "Did you meet any other pleasant people last season?"

  "Yes. I met some blooded children from Several Hundred and Fifth street.They come here so's they could get a breath of country air and wear outtheir old cloze. Their mother said the poor things wanted to get out ofthe mawlstrum of meetropolitan life. She said it was awful where theylived. Just one round of gayety all the while. They come down and saltedmy hens, and then took and turned in and chased a new milch cow eightmiles, with two of 'em holdin' of her by the tail, and another on top ofher with a pair of Buffalo Bill spurs and a false face, yelling like avolunteer fire company. Then the old lady kicked because we run short ofmilk. Said it was great if she couldn't have milk when she come to thewilderness to live and paid her little old $3 a week just as regular asSaturday night come round.

  "These boys picked on mine all summer because my boys was plain littlefellers with no underwear, but good impulses and a general desire to laylow and eventually git there, understand. My boys is considerablebleached as regards hair, and freckled as to features, and they are notready in conversation like a town boy, but they would no more drive adumb animal through the woods till it was all het up, or take a newmilch cow and scare the daylights out of her, and yell at her and pullout her tail, and send her home with her pores all open, than they'd besent to the legislature without a crime.

  "A neighbor of mine that see these boys when they was scarin' my cow todeath said if they'd of been his'n he'd rather foller 'em to their gravethan seen 'em do that. That's putting of it rather strong, but I believeI would myself.

  "We had a nice old man that come out here to attend church, he said. Hebelonged to a big church in town, where it cost him so much that hecould hardly look his Maker in the face, he said. Last winter, he toldus, they sold the pews at auction, and he had an affection for one,'specially 'cause he and his wife had set in it all their lives, and nowthat she was dead he wanted it, as he wanted the roof that had been overthem all their married lives. So he went down when they auctioned 'emoff, as it seems they do in those big churches, and the bidding startedmoderate, but run up till they put a premium on his'n that froze himout, and he had to take a cheap one where he couldn't hear very well,and it made him sort of bitter. Then in May, he says, the Palestine rashbroke out among the preachers in New York, and most of 'em had to go tothe Holy Land to get over it, because that is the only thing you can dowith the Palestine rash when it gets a hold on a pastor. So he says tome, 'I come out here mostly to see if I could get any information fromthe Throne of Grace.'

  "He was a rattlin' fine old feller, and told me a good deal about onething and another. He said he'd seen it stated in the paper thatsalvation was free, but in New York he said it was pretty wellprotected for an old-established industry.

  "He knew Deacon Decker pretty well. Deacon Decker was an old playmate ofRussell Sage, but didn't do so well as Russ did. He went once to NewYork after he got along in years, and Sage knew him, but he couldn'tseem to place Sage. 'Why, Decker,' says Sage, 'don't you know me?'Decker says, 'That's all right. You bet I know ye. You're one of thes
efellows that knows everybody. There's another feller around the cornerthat helps you to remember folks. I know ye. I read the papers. Git out.Scat. Torment ye, I ain't in here to-day buyin' green goods, nor yet tolift a freight bill for ye. So avaunt before I sick the police on ye.'

  "Finally Russ identified himself, and shook dice with the deacon to seewhich should buy the lunch at the dairy kitchen. This is a true story,told me by an old neighbor of Deacon Decker's.

  "Deacon Decker once discovered a loose knot in his pew seat in church,and while considering the plan of redemption, thoughtlessly pushed withconsiderable force on this knot with his thumb. At first it resisted thepressure, but finally it slipped out and was succeeded by the deacon'sthumb. No one saw it, so the deacon, slightly flushed, gave it astealthy wrench, but the knot-hole had a sharp conical bottom, and theedge soon caught and secured the rapidly swelling thumb of DeaconDecker.

  "During the closing prayer he worked at it with great diligence and allthe saliva he could spare, but it resisted. It was a sad sight. Finallyhe gave it up, and said to himself the struggle was useless. He tried tobe resigned and wait till all had gone. He shook his head when the platewas passed to him, and only bowed when the brethren passed him on theway out. Some thought that maybe he was cursed with doubts, but reckonedthat they would pass away.

  "Finally he was missed outside. He was generally so chipper and socheery. So his wife was asked about him. 'Why, father's inside. I'll goand get him. I never knew him to miss shaking hands with all thefolks.'

  "So she went in and found Deacon Decker trying to interest himself witha lesson leaf in one hand, while his other was concealed under his hat.He could fool the neighbors, but he could not fool his wife, and so shehustled around and told one or two, who told their wives, and they allcame back to see the deacon and make suggestions to him.

  "This little incident is true, and while it does not contain any specialmoral, it goes to show that an honest man gathers no moss, and alsoexplains a large circular hole, and the tin patch over it, which maystill be seen in the pew where Deacon Decker used to sit."