It had
been a favorite rôle.
been a favorite rôle.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v01 - A to Apu
Allen's stories, is no
less based on local history and no less full of local color than his
other tales, notwithstanding its general unlikeness.
This book sounds a deeper note than the earlier tales, although
the truth which Mr. Allen sees is not mere fidelity to local types, but
the essential truth of human nature. His realism has always a poetic
aspect. Quiet, reserved, out of the common, his books deal with
moods rather than with actions; their problems are spiritual rather
than physical; their thought tends toward the higher and more diffi-
cult way of life.
A COURTSHIP
From (Summer in Arcady)
TH
He sunlight grew pale the following morning; a shadow crept
rapidly over the blue; bolts darted about the skies like
maddened redbirds; the thunder, ploughing its way down
the dome as along zigzag cracks in the stony street, filled the
caverns of the horizon with reverberations that shook the earth;
and the rain was whirled across the landscape in long, white,
wavering sheets. Then all day quiet and silence throughout
Nature except for the drops, tapping high and low the twinkling
leaves; except for the new melody of woodland and meadow
brooks, late silvery and with a voice only for their pebbles and
moss and mint, but now yellow and brawling and leaping back
into the grassy channels that were their old-time beds; except
for the indoor music of dripping eaves and rushing gutters and
overflowing rain-barrels. And when at last in the gold of the
cool west the sun broke from the edge of the gray, over what a
green, soaked, fragrant world he reared the arch of Nature's
peace!
Not a little blade of corn in the fields but holds in an eme-
rald vase its treasures of white gems. The hemp-stalks bend so
low under the weight of their plumes, that were a vesper spar-
row to alight on one for his evening hymn, it would go with
him to the ground. The leaning barley and rye and wheat flash
in the last rays their jeweled beards. Under the old apple-
trees, golden-brown mushrooms are already pushing upward
through the leaf-loam, rank with many an autumn's dropping.
About the yards the peonies fall with faces earthward. In
the stable-lots the larded porkers, with bristles as clean as frost,
## p. 411 (#445) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
411
and flesh of pinky whiteness, are hunting with nervous nostrils
for the lush purslain. The fowls are driving their bills up and
down their wet breasts. And the farmers who have been shell-
ing corn for the mill come out of their barns, with their coats
over their shoulders, on the way to supper, look about for the
plough-horses, and glance at the western sky, from which the
last drops are falling.
But soon only a more passionate heat shoots from the sun
into the planet. The plumes of the hemp are so dry again, that
by the pollen shaken from their tops you can trace the young
rabbits making their way out to the dusty paths. The shadows
of white clouds sail over purple stretches of blue-grass, hiding
the sun from the steady eye of the turkey, whose brood is
spread out before her like a fan on the earth. At early. morn-
ing the neighing of the stallions is heard around the horizon; at
noon the bull makes the deep, hot pastures echo with his majes-
tic summons; out in the blazing meadows the butterflies strike
the afternoon air with more impatient wings; under the moon
all night the play of ducks and drakes goes on along the mar-
gins of the ponds. Young people are running away and marry-
ing; middle-aged farmers surprise their wives by looking in on
them at their butter-making in the sweet dairies; and Nature
is lashing everything - grass, fruit, insects, cattle, human creat-
ures — more fiercely onward to the fulfillment of her ends. She
is the great heartless haymaker, wasting not a ray of sunshine
on a clod, but caring naught for the light that beats upon a
throne, and holding man and woman, with their longing for im-
mortality, and their capacities for joy and pain, as of no more
account than a couple of fertilizing nasturtiums.
The storm kept Daphne at home. On the next day the earth
was yellow with sunlight, but there were puddles along the path,
and a branch rushing swollen across the green valley in the
fields. On the third, her mother took the children to town to be
fitted with hats and shoes, and Daphne also, to be freshened up
with various moderate adornments, in view of a protracted meet-
ing soon to begin. On the fourth, some ladies dropped in to
spend the day, bearing in mind the episode at the dinner, and
having grown curious to watch events accordingly. On the fifth,
her father carried out the idea of cutting down some cedar-trees
in the front yard for fence posts; and whenever he was working
about the house, he kept her near to wait on him in unnecessary
## p. 412 (#446) ############################################
412
JAMES LANE ALLEN
ways. On the sixth, he rode away with two hands and an empty
wagon-bed for some work on the farm; her mother drove off to
another dinner - dinners never cease in Kentucky, and the wife
of an elder is not free to decline invitations; and at last she was
left alone in the front porch, her face turned with burning eager-
ness toward the fields. In a little while she had slipped away.
All these days Hilary had been eager to see her.
He was
carrying a good many girls in his mind that summer; none in
his heart; but his plans concerning these latter were for the time
forgotten. He hung about that part of his farm from which he
could have descried her in the distance. Each forenoon and
afternoon, at the usual hour of her going to her uncle's, he rode
over and watched for her. Other people passed to and fro, -
children and servants, but not Daphne; and repeated disappoint-
ments fanned his desire to see her.
When she came into sight at last, he was soon walking beside
her, leading his horse by the reins.
“I have been waiting to see you, Daphne,” he said, with a
smile, but general air of seriousness. “I have been waiting a
long time for a chance to talk to you. ”
"And I have wanted to see you,” said Daphne, her face
”
turned away and her voice hardly to be heard. “I have been
waiting for a chance to talk to you. "
The change in her was so great, so unexpected, it contained
an appeal to him so touching, that he glanced quickly at her.
Then he stopped short and looked searchingly around the
meadow.
The thorn-tree is often the only one that can survive on these
pasture lands. Its spikes, even when it is no higher than the
grass, keep off the mouths of grazing stock. As it grows higher,
birds see it standing solitary in the distance and fly to it, as a
resting-place in passing. Some autumn day a seed of the wild
grape is thus dropped near its root; and in time the thorn-tree
and the grape-vine come to thrive together.
As Hilary now looked for some shade to which they could
retreat from the blinding, burning sunlight, he saw one of these
standing off at a distance of a few hundred yards. He slipped
the bridle-reins through the head-stall, and giving his mare
soft slap on the shoulder, turned her loose to graze.
“Come over here and sit down out of the sun,” he said, start-
ing off in his authoritative way. "I want to talk to you. "
a
## p. 413 (#447) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
413
Daphne followed in his wake, through the deep grass.
When they reached the tree, they sat down under the rayless
boughs. Some sheep lying there ran round to the other side and
stood watching them, with a frightened look in their clear, peace-
ful eyes.
«What's the matter ? ” he said, fanning his face, and tugging
with his forefinger to loosen his shirt collar from his moist neck.
He had the manner of a powerful comrade who means to succor
a weaker one.
Nothing,” said Daphne, like a true woman.
“Yes, but there is,” he insisted. "I got you into trouble. I
didn't think of that when I asked you to dance. ”
“You had nothing to do with it,” retorted Daphne, with a flash.
«I danced for spite. ”
He threw back his head with a peal of laughter. All at once
this was broken off. He sat up, with his eyes fixed on the lower
edge of the meadow.
«Here comes your father,” he said gravely.
Daphne turned. Her father was riding slowly through the
A wagon-bed loaded with rails crept slowly after him.
In an instant the things that had cost her so much toil and
so many tears to arrange, - her explanations, her justifications,
and her parting, -all the reserve and the coldness that she had
laid up in her heart, as one fills high a little ice-house with fear
of far-off summer heat, —all were quite gone, melted away.
And everything that he had planned to tell her was forgotten
also at the sight of that stern figure on horseback bearing un-
consciously down upon them.
"If I had only kept my mouth shut about his old fences,”
he said to himself. “Confound my bull! ” and he looked anx-
iously at Daphne, who sat with her eyes riveted on her father.
The next moment she had turned, and they were laughing in
each other's faces.
“What shall I do? ” she cried, leaning over and burying her
face in her hands, and lifting it again, scarlet with excitement.
« Don't do anything," he said calmly.
“But Hilary, if he sees us, we are lost. ”
“If he sees us, we are found. ”
« But he mustn't see me here! ” she cried, with something
like real terror. “I believe I'll lie down in the grass. Maybe
he'll think I am a friend of yours. ”
## p. 414 (#448) ############################################
414
JAMES LANE ALLEN
"My friends all sit up in the grass,” said Hilary.
But Daphne had already hidden.
Many a time, when a little girl, she had amused herself by
screaming like a hawk at the young guineas, and seeing them
cuddle invisible under small tufts and weeds. Out in the stable
lot, where the grass was grazed so close that the geese could
barely nip it, she would sometimes get one of the negro men
to scare the little pigs, for the delight of seeing them squat as
though hidden, when they were no more hidden than if they
had spread themselves out upon so many dinner dishes. All of
us reveal traces of this primitive instinct upon occasion. Daphne
was doing her best to hide now.
When Hilary realized it he moved in front of her, screening
her as well as possible.
(Hadn't you better lie down, too ? ” she asked.
«No,” he replied quickly.
“But if he sees you, he might take a notion to ride over this
way! ”
« Then he'll have to ride. "
"But, Hilary, suppose he were to find me lying down here
behind you, hiding ? ”
«Then he'll have to find you. "
“You get me into trouble, and then you won't help me out! »
exclaimed Daphne with considerable heat.
“It might not make matters any better for me to hide,” he
answered quietly. “But if he comes over here and tries to get
us into trouble, I'll see then what I can do. ”
Daphne lay silent for a moment, thinking. Then she nestled
more closely down, and said with gay, unconscious archness:
" “I'm not hiding because I'm afraid of him. I'm doing it just
because I want to. ”
She did not know that the fresh happiness flushing her at
that moment came from the fact of having Hilary between her-
self and her father as a protector; that she was drinking in the
delight a woman feels in getting playfully behind the man she
loves in the face of danger: but her action bound her to him
and brought her more under his influence.
His words showed that he also felt his position, the position
of the male who stalks forth from the herd and stands the silent
challenger. He was young, and vain of his manhood in the
usual innocent way that led him to carry the chip on his
## p. 415 (#449) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
415
shoulder for the world to knock off; and he placed himself
before Daphne with the understanding that if they were discov-
ered, there would be trouble. Her father was a violent man,
and the circumstances were not such that any Kentucky father
would overlook them. But with his inward seriousness, his face
wore its usual look of reckless unconcern.
Is he coming this way? ” asked Daphne, after an interval of
impatient waiting.
“Straight ahead. Are you hid ? »
"I can't see whether I'm hid or not. Where is he now ? »
Right on us. ”
« Does he see you ? ”
« Yes. ”
“Do you think he sees me ? »
“I'm sure of it. ”
«Then I might as well get up,” said Daphne, with the cour-
age of despair, and up she got. Her father was riding along
the path in front of them, but not looking. She was down
again like a partridge.
«How could you fool me, Hilary ? Suppose he had been
looking! ”
“I wonder what he thinks I'm doing, sitting over here in the
grass like a stump,” said Hilary. If he takes me for one, he
must think I've got an awful lot of roots. ”
« Tell me when it's time to get up. ”
«I will. "
He turned softly toward her. She was lying on her side, with
her burning cheek in one hand. The other hand rested high on
the curve of her hip. Her braids had fallen forward, and lay in
a heavy loop about her lovely shoulders. Her eyes were closed,
her scarlet lips parted in a smile. The edges of her snow-white
petticoats showed beneath her blue dress, and beyond these one
of her feet and ankles. Nothing more fragrant with innocence
ever lay on the grass.
"Is it time to get up now ? ”
«Not yet,” and he sat bending over her.
Now ? »
“Not yet,” he repeated more softly.
“Now, then ? ”
“Not for a long time. ”
His voice thrilled her, and she glanced up at him. His laugh-
ing eyes were glowing down upon her under his heavy mat of
C
## p. 416 (#450) ############################################
416
JAMES LANE ALLEN
hair. She sat up and looked toward the wagon crawling away in
the distance; her father was no longer in sight.
One of the ewes, dissatisfied with a back view, stamped her
forefoot impatiently, and ran round in front, and out into the
sun. Her lambs followed, and the three, ranging themselves
abreast, stared at Daphne, with a look of helpless inquiry.
« Sh-pp-pp! ” she cried, throwing up her hands at them, irri-
tated. “Go away! ”
They turned and ran; the others followed; and the whole
number, falling into line, took a path meekly homeward. They
left a greater sense of privacy under the tree. Several yards off
was a small stock-pond. Around the edge of this the water
stood hot and green in the tracks of the cattle and the sheep,
and about these pools the yellow butterflies were thick, alighting
daintily on the promontories of the mud, or rising two by two
through the dazzling atmosphere in columns of enamored flight.
Daphne leaned over to the blue grass where it swayed un-
broken in the breeze, and drew out of their sockets several stalks
of it, bearing on their tops the purplish seed-vessels. With them
she began to braid a ring about one of her fingers in the old
simple fashion of the country.
As they talked, he lay propped on his elbow, watching her
fingers, the soft slow movements of which little by little wove a
spell over his eyes. And once again the power of her beauty
began to draw him beyond control. He felt a desire to seize her
hands, to crush them in his. His eyes passed upward along her
tapering wrists, the skin of which was like mother-of-pearl; up-
ward along the arm to the shoulder — to her neck to her deeply
crimsoned cheeks — to the purity of her brow — to the purity of
her eyes, the downcast lashes of which hid them like conscious
fringes.
An awkward silence began to fall between them. Daphne
felt that the time had come for her to speak. But, powerless
to begin, she feigned to busy herself all the more devotedly
with braiding the deep-green circlet. Suddenly he drew himself
through the grass to her side.
“Let me ! »
"No! ” she cried, lifting her arm above his reach and looking
at him with a gay threat. « You don't know how. ”
«I do know how,” he said, with his white teeth on his red
underlip, and his eyes sparkling; and reaching upward, he laid
his hand in the hollow of her elbow and pulled her arm down.
## p. 417 (#451) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
417
»
»
«No! No! ” she cried again, putting her hands behind her
back. « You will spoil it ! »
“I will not spoil it,” he said, moving so close to her that his
breath was on her face, and reaching round to unclasp her hands.
“No! No! No! ” she cried, bending away from him. I don't
want any ring! ” and she tore it from her finger and threw it out
on the grass. Then she got up, and, brushing the grass-seed off
her lap, put on her hat.
He sat cross-legged on the grass before her. He had put on
his hat, and the brim hid his eyes.
And you are not going to stay and talk to me ? ” he said in
a tone of reproachfulness, without looking up.
She was excited and weak and trembling, and so she put out
her hand and took hold of a strong loop of the grape-vine hang-
ing from a branch of the thorn, and laid her cheek against her
hand and looked away from him.
“I thought you were better than the others,” he continued,
with the bitter wisdom of twenty years. “But you women are
all alike. When a man gets into trouble, you desert him. You
hurry him on to the devil. I have been turned out of the
church, and now you are down on Oh, well! But you
know how much I have always liked you, Daphne. ”
It was not the first time he had acted this character.
It had
been a favorite rôle. But Daphne had never seen the like. She
was overwhelmed with happiness that he cared so much for her;
and to have him reproach her for indifference, and see him suf-
fering with the idea that she had turned against him—that
instantly changed the whole situation. He had not heard then
what had taken place at the dinner. Under the circumstances,
feeling certain that the secret of her love had not been dis-
covered, she grew emboldened to risk a little more.
So she turned toward him smiling, and swayed gently as she
clung to the vine.
« Yes; I have my orders not even to speak to you! Never
again! ” she said, with the air of tantalizing.
« Then stay with me a while now," he said, and lifted slowly
to her his appealing face. She sat down, and screened herself
with a little feminine transparency.
"I can't stay long: it's going to rain! ”
He cast a wicked glance at the sky from under his hat; there
were a few clouds on the horizon.
me.
»
1-27
## p. 418 (#452) ############################################
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JAMES LANE ALLEN
“And so you are never going to speak to me again ? ” he
said mournfully.
“Never! » How delicious her laughter was.
“I'll put a ring on your finger to remember me by. ”
He lay over in the grass and pulled several stalks. Then he
lifted his eyes beseechingly to hers.
“Will you let me ? ”
Daphne hid her hands. He drew himself to her side and
took one of them forcibly from her lap.
With a slow, caressing movement he began to braid the
grass ring around her finger- in and out, around and around,
his fingers laced with her fingers, his palm lying close upon her
palm, his blood tingling through the skin upon her blood. He
made the braiding go wrong, and took it off and began , over
again. Two or three times she drew a deep breath, and stole a
bewildered look at his face, which was so close to hers that his
hair brushed it—so close that she heard the quiver of his own
breath. Then all at once he folded his hands about hers with a
quick, fierce tenderness, and looked up at her. She turned her
face aside and tried to draw her hand away. His clasp tight-
ened. She snatched it away, and got up with a nervous laugh.
« Look at the butterflies! Aren't they pretty ? ”
He sprang up and tried to seize her hand again.
“You shan't go home yet! ” he said, in an undertone.
«Shan't I? ” she said, backing away from him. “Who's
going to keep me ? »
"I am,” he said, laughing excitedly and following her closely.
“My father's coming! " she cried out as a warning.
He turned and looked: there was no one in sight.
“He is coming sooner or later! she called.
She had retreated several yards off into the sunlight of the.
meadow.
The remembrance of the risk that he was causing her to run
checked him. He went over to her.
“When can I see you again — soon? ”
He had never spoken so seriously to her before. He had
never before been so serious. But within the last hour Nature
had been doing her work, and its effect was immediate. His
sincerity instantly conquered her. Her eyes fell.
“No one has any right to keep us from seeing each other! "
he insisted. “We must settle that for ourselves. »
>>
## p. 419 (#453) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
419
(
Daphne made no reply.
“But we can't meet here any more - with people passing
backward and forward! ” he continued rapidly and decisively.
“What has happened to-day mustn't happen again. ”
“No! ” she replied, in a voice barely to be heard. “It must
never happen again. We can't meet here. "
They were walking side by side now toward the meadow-
path. As they reached it he paused.
“Come to the back of the pasture — to-morrow! - at four
o'clock! ” he said, tentatively, recklessly.
Daphne did not answer as she moved away from him along
the path homeward.
“Will you come ? ” he called out to her.
She turned and shook her head. Whatever her own new
plans may have become, she was once more happy and laugh-
ing.
“Come, Daphne!
She walked several paces further and turned and shook her
head again.
“Come! ” he pleaded.
She laughed at him.
He wheeled round to his mare grazing near. As he put his
foot into the stirrup, he looked again: she was standing in the
same place, laughing still.
“You go," she cried, waving him good-by. « There'll not be
a soul to disturb you! To-morrow - at four o'clock ! »
“Will you be there? ” he said,
“Will you ? ” she answered.
« I'll be there to-morrow,” he said, “and every other day till
»
C
you come. »
By permission of the Macmillan Company, Publishers.
OLD KING SOLOMON'S CORONATION
From (Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales and Romances)
Copyright 1891, by Harper and Brothers
E
H
STOOD on the topmost of the court-house steps, and for a
moment looked down on the crowd with the usual air of
official severity.
"Gentlemen," he then cried out sharply, "by an ordah of the
cou't I now offah this man at public sale the highes' biddah.
## p. 420 (#454) ############################################
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JAMES LANE ALLEN
He is able-bodied but lazy, without visible property or means of
suppoht, an' of dissolute habits. He is therefoh adjudged guilty
of high misdemeanahs, an' is to be sole into labah foh a twelve.
month. How much, then, am I offahed foh the vagrant? How
much am I offahed foh ole King Sol'mon ? »
Nothing was offered for old King Solomon. The spectators
formed themselves into a ring around the big vagrant, and settled
down to enjoy the performance.
Staht 'im, somebody. "
Somebody started a laugh, which rippled around the circle.
The sheriff looked on with an expression of unrelaxed severity,
but catching the eye of an acquaintance on the outskirts, he ex-
changed a lightning wink of secret appreciation. Then he lifted
off his tight beaver hat, wiped out of his eyes a little shower of
perspiration which rolled suddenly down from above, and warmed
a degree to his theme.
«Come, gentlemen,” he said more suasively, “it's too hot to
stan' heah all day. Make me an offah! You all know ole King
Sol'mon; don't wait to be interduced. How much, then, to staht
'im?
Say fifty dollahs! Twenty-five! Fifteen!
Ten! Why,
gentlemen! Not ten dollahs ? Remembah, this is the Blue-Grass
Region of Kentucky - the land of Boone an' Kenton, the home
of Henry Clay! ” he added, in an oratorical crescendo.
«He ain't wuth his victuals,” said an oily little tavern-keeper,
folding his arms restfully over his own stomach and cocking up
one piggish eye into his neighbor's face. “He ain't wuth his
'taters. ”
“Buy 'im foh 'is rags! ” cried a young law student, with a
Blackstone under his arm, to the town rag picker opposite, who
was unconsciously ogling the vagrant's apparel.
«I might buy 'im foh 'is scalp,” drawled a farmer, who had
taken part in all kinds of scalp contests, and was now known to
be busily engaged in collecting crow scalps for a match soon to
come off between two rival counties.
“I think I'll buy 'im foh a hat sign,” said a manufacturer of
ten-dollar Castor and Rhorum hats. This sally drew merry atten-
tion to the vagrant's hat, and the merchant felt rewarded.
“You'd bettah say the town ought to buy 'im an' put 'im up
on top of the cou't-house as a scarecrow foh the cholera,” said
some one else.
“What news of the cholera did the stage coach bring this
mohning ? » quickly inquired his neighbor in his ear; and the two
## p. 421 (#455) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
421
immediately fell into low, grave talk, forgot the auction, and
turned away
“Stop, gentlemen, stop! ” cried the sheriff, who had watched
the rising tide of good humor, and now saw his chance to float
in on it with spreading sails. "You're runnin' the price in the
wrong direction - down, not up. The law requires that he be
sole to the highes' biddah, not the lowes'. As loyal citizens,
uphole the constitution of the commonwealth of Kentucky an'
make me an offah; the man is really a great bargain. In the
first place, he would cos' his ownah little or nothin', because, as
you see, he keeps himself in cigahs an' clo'es; then, his main
article of diet is whisky-a supply of which he always has on
han'. He don't even need a bed, foh you know he sleeps jus'
as well on any doohstep; noh a chair, foh he prefers to sit roun'
on the curbstones. Remembah, too, gentlemen, that ole King
Sol'mon is a Virginian - from the same neighbohhood as Mr.
Clay. Remembah that he is well educated, that he is an awful
Whig, an' that he has smoked mo' of the stumps of Mr. Clay's
cigahs than any other man in existence. If you don't b'lieve me,
gentlemen, yondah goes Mr. Clay now; call him ovah an' ask
'im foh yo'se'ves. "
He paused, and pointed with his right forefinger towards
Main Street, along which the spectators, with a sudden craning
of necks, beheld the familiar figure of the passing statesman.
“But you don't need anybody to tell these fac's, gentlemen,"
he continued. “You merely need to be reminded that ole King
Sol'mon is no ohdinary man. Mo'ovah he has a kine heaht; he
nevah spoke a rough wohd to anybody in this worl', an' he is as
proud as Tecumseh of his good name an' charactah. An', gentle.
men,” he added, bridling with an air of mock gallantry and lay-
ing a hand on his heart, “if anythin' fu'thah is required in the
way of a puffect encomium, we all know that there isn't anothah
man among us who cuts as wide a swath among the ladies.
The'foh, if you have any appreciation of virtue, any magnanimity
of heaht; if you set a propah valuation upon the descendants of
Virginia, that mothah of Presidents; if you believe in the pure
laws of Kentucky as the pioneer bride of the Union; if you love
America an' love the worl'— make me a gen'rous, high-toned
offah foh ole King Sol'mon! ”
He ended his peroration amid a shout of laughter and ap-
plause, and feeling satisfied that it was a good time for returning
## p. 422 (#456) ############################################
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JAMES LANE ALLEN
to a more practical treatment of his subject, proceeded in a sin-
cere tone:
“He can easily earn from one to two dollahs a day, an' from
three to six hundred a yeah. There's not anothah white man in
town capable of doin' as much work. There's not a niggah han'
in the hemp factories with such muscles an' such a chest. Look
at 'em! An', if you don't b'lieve me, step fo'ward and feel 'em.
How much, then, is bid foh 'im ? »
“One dollah! ” said the owner of a hemp factory, who had
walked forward and felt the vagrant's arm, laughing, but coloring
up also as the eyes of all were quickly turned upon him. In
those days it was not an unheard-of thing for the muscles of a
human being to be thus examined when being sold into servitude
to a new master,
« Thank you! » cried the sheriff, cheerily. «One precinc
heard from! One dollah! I am offahed one dollah foh ole King
Sol'mon. One dollah foh the king! Make it a half. One dollah
an' a half. Make it a half. One dol-dol-dol-dollah ! »
Two medical students, returning from lectures at the old Med.
ical Hall, now joined the group, and the sheriff explained:
“One dollah is bid foh the vagrant ole King Sol'mon, who is
to be sole into labah foh a twelvemonth. Is there any othah
bid ? Are you all done ? One dollah, once — "
“Dollah and a half,” said one of the students, and remarked
half jestingly under his breath to his companion, “I'll buy him
on the chance of his dying. We'll dissect him. ”
« Would you own his body if he should die ? »
“If he dies while bound to me, I'll arrange that. ”
«One dollah an' a half,” resumed the sheriff, and falling into
the tone of a facile auctioneer he rattled on:-
«One dollah an' a half foh ole Sol'mon - sol, sol, sol,- do, re,
mi, fa, sol,- do, re, mi, fa, sol! Why, gentlemen, you can set
the king to music!
All this time the vagrant had stood in the centre of that close
ring of jeering and humorous bystanders-a baffling text from
which to have preached a sermon on the infirmities of our imper-
fect humanity. Some years before, perhaps as a master-stroke of
derision, there had been given to him that title which could but
heighten the contrast of his personality and estate with every
suggestion of the ancient sacred magnificence; and never had the
mockery seemed so fine as at this moment, when he was led
## p. 423 (#457) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
423
forth into the streets to receive the lowest sentence of the law
upon his poverty and dissolute idleness. He was apparently in
the very prime of life - a striking figure, for nature at least had
truly done some royal work on him. Over six feet in height,
erect, with limbs well shaped and sinewy, with chest and neck full
of the lines of great power, a large head thickly covered with long,
reddish hair, eyes blue, face beardless, complexion fair but dis-
colored by low passions and excesses - such was old King Solo-
mon. He wore a stiff, high, black Castor hat of the period, with
the crown smashed in and the torn rim hanging down over one
ear; a black cloth coat in the old style, ragged and buttonless; a
white cotton shirt, with the broad collar crumpled wide open at
the neck and down his sunburnt bosom; blue jean pantaloons,
patched at the seat and the knees; and ragged cotton socks that
fell down over the tops of his dusty shoes, which were open at
the heels.
In one corner of his sensual mouth rested the stump of a
cigar. Once during the proceedings he had produced another,
lighted it, and continued quietly smoking. If he took to himself
any shame as the central figure of this ignoble performance, no
one knew it. There was something almost royal in his uncon-
cern. The humor, the badinage, the open contempt, of which he
was the public target, fell thick and fast upon him, but as harm-
lessly as would balls of pith upon a coat of mail. In truth, there
was that in his great, lazy, gentle, good-humored bulk and bear-
ing which made the gibes seem all but despicable. He shuffled
from one foot to the other as though he found it a trial to stand
up so long, but all the while looking the spectators full in the
eyes without the least impatience. He suffered the man of the
factory to walk round him and push and pinch his muscles as
calmly as though he had been the show bull at a country fair.
Once only, when the sheriff had pointed across the street at the
figure of Mr. Clay, he had looked quickly in that direction with
a kindling light in his eye and a passing flush on his face. For
the rest, he seemed like a man who has drained his cup of human
life and has nothing left him but to fill again and drink without
the least surprise or eagerness.
The bidding between the man of the factory and the student
had gone slowly on. The price had reached ten dollars. The
heat was intense, the sheriff tired. Then something occurred to
revivify the scene. Across the market place and toward the steps
## p. 424 (#458) ############################################
424
JAMES LANE ALLEN
of the court-house there suddenly came trundling along in breath-
less haste a huge old negress, carrying on one arm a large shal-
low basket containing apple-crab lanterns and fresh gingerbread.
less based on local history and no less full of local color than his
other tales, notwithstanding its general unlikeness.
This book sounds a deeper note than the earlier tales, although
the truth which Mr. Allen sees is not mere fidelity to local types, but
the essential truth of human nature. His realism has always a poetic
aspect. Quiet, reserved, out of the common, his books deal with
moods rather than with actions; their problems are spiritual rather
than physical; their thought tends toward the higher and more diffi-
cult way of life.
A COURTSHIP
From (Summer in Arcady)
TH
He sunlight grew pale the following morning; a shadow crept
rapidly over the blue; bolts darted about the skies like
maddened redbirds; the thunder, ploughing its way down
the dome as along zigzag cracks in the stony street, filled the
caverns of the horizon with reverberations that shook the earth;
and the rain was whirled across the landscape in long, white,
wavering sheets. Then all day quiet and silence throughout
Nature except for the drops, tapping high and low the twinkling
leaves; except for the new melody of woodland and meadow
brooks, late silvery and with a voice only for their pebbles and
moss and mint, but now yellow and brawling and leaping back
into the grassy channels that were their old-time beds; except
for the indoor music of dripping eaves and rushing gutters and
overflowing rain-barrels. And when at last in the gold of the
cool west the sun broke from the edge of the gray, over what a
green, soaked, fragrant world he reared the arch of Nature's
peace!
Not a little blade of corn in the fields but holds in an eme-
rald vase its treasures of white gems. The hemp-stalks bend so
low under the weight of their plumes, that were a vesper spar-
row to alight on one for his evening hymn, it would go with
him to the ground. The leaning barley and rye and wheat flash
in the last rays their jeweled beards. Under the old apple-
trees, golden-brown mushrooms are already pushing upward
through the leaf-loam, rank with many an autumn's dropping.
About the yards the peonies fall with faces earthward. In
the stable-lots the larded porkers, with bristles as clean as frost,
## p. 411 (#445) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
411
and flesh of pinky whiteness, are hunting with nervous nostrils
for the lush purslain. The fowls are driving their bills up and
down their wet breasts. And the farmers who have been shell-
ing corn for the mill come out of their barns, with their coats
over their shoulders, on the way to supper, look about for the
plough-horses, and glance at the western sky, from which the
last drops are falling.
But soon only a more passionate heat shoots from the sun
into the planet. The plumes of the hemp are so dry again, that
by the pollen shaken from their tops you can trace the young
rabbits making their way out to the dusty paths. The shadows
of white clouds sail over purple stretches of blue-grass, hiding
the sun from the steady eye of the turkey, whose brood is
spread out before her like a fan on the earth. At early. morn-
ing the neighing of the stallions is heard around the horizon; at
noon the bull makes the deep, hot pastures echo with his majes-
tic summons; out in the blazing meadows the butterflies strike
the afternoon air with more impatient wings; under the moon
all night the play of ducks and drakes goes on along the mar-
gins of the ponds. Young people are running away and marry-
ing; middle-aged farmers surprise their wives by looking in on
them at their butter-making in the sweet dairies; and Nature
is lashing everything - grass, fruit, insects, cattle, human creat-
ures — more fiercely onward to the fulfillment of her ends. She
is the great heartless haymaker, wasting not a ray of sunshine
on a clod, but caring naught for the light that beats upon a
throne, and holding man and woman, with their longing for im-
mortality, and their capacities for joy and pain, as of no more
account than a couple of fertilizing nasturtiums.
The storm kept Daphne at home. On the next day the earth
was yellow with sunlight, but there were puddles along the path,
and a branch rushing swollen across the green valley in the
fields. On the third, her mother took the children to town to be
fitted with hats and shoes, and Daphne also, to be freshened up
with various moderate adornments, in view of a protracted meet-
ing soon to begin. On the fourth, some ladies dropped in to
spend the day, bearing in mind the episode at the dinner, and
having grown curious to watch events accordingly. On the fifth,
her father carried out the idea of cutting down some cedar-trees
in the front yard for fence posts; and whenever he was working
about the house, he kept her near to wait on him in unnecessary
## p. 412 (#446) ############################################
412
JAMES LANE ALLEN
ways. On the sixth, he rode away with two hands and an empty
wagon-bed for some work on the farm; her mother drove off to
another dinner - dinners never cease in Kentucky, and the wife
of an elder is not free to decline invitations; and at last she was
left alone in the front porch, her face turned with burning eager-
ness toward the fields. In a little while she had slipped away.
All these days Hilary had been eager to see her.
He was
carrying a good many girls in his mind that summer; none in
his heart; but his plans concerning these latter were for the time
forgotten. He hung about that part of his farm from which he
could have descried her in the distance. Each forenoon and
afternoon, at the usual hour of her going to her uncle's, he rode
over and watched for her. Other people passed to and fro, -
children and servants, but not Daphne; and repeated disappoint-
ments fanned his desire to see her.
When she came into sight at last, he was soon walking beside
her, leading his horse by the reins.
“I have been waiting to see you, Daphne,” he said, with a
smile, but general air of seriousness. “I have been waiting a
long time for a chance to talk to you. ”
"And I have wanted to see you,” said Daphne, her face
”
turned away and her voice hardly to be heard. “I have been
waiting for a chance to talk to you. "
The change in her was so great, so unexpected, it contained
an appeal to him so touching, that he glanced quickly at her.
Then he stopped short and looked searchingly around the
meadow.
The thorn-tree is often the only one that can survive on these
pasture lands. Its spikes, even when it is no higher than the
grass, keep off the mouths of grazing stock. As it grows higher,
birds see it standing solitary in the distance and fly to it, as a
resting-place in passing. Some autumn day a seed of the wild
grape is thus dropped near its root; and in time the thorn-tree
and the grape-vine come to thrive together.
As Hilary now looked for some shade to which they could
retreat from the blinding, burning sunlight, he saw one of these
standing off at a distance of a few hundred yards. He slipped
the bridle-reins through the head-stall, and giving his mare
soft slap on the shoulder, turned her loose to graze.
“Come over here and sit down out of the sun,” he said, start-
ing off in his authoritative way. "I want to talk to you. "
a
## p. 413 (#447) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
413
Daphne followed in his wake, through the deep grass.
When they reached the tree, they sat down under the rayless
boughs. Some sheep lying there ran round to the other side and
stood watching them, with a frightened look in their clear, peace-
ful eyes.
«What's the matter ? ” he said, fanning his face, and tugging
with his forefinger to loosen his shirt collar from his moist neck.
He had the manner of a powerful comrade who means to succor
a weaker one.
Nothing,” said Daphne, like a true woman.
“Yes, but there is,” he insisted. "I got you into trouble. I
didn't think of that when I asked you to dance. ”
“You had nothing to do with it,” retorted Daphne, with a flash.
«I danced for spite. ”
He threw back his head with a peal of laughter. All at once
this was broken off. He sat up, with his eyes fixed on the lower
edge of the meadow.
«Here comes your father,” he said gravely.
Daphne turned. Her father was riding slowly through the
A wagon-bed loaded with rails crept slowly after him.
In an instant the things that had cost her so much toil and
so many tears to arrange, - her explanations, her justifications,
and her parting, -all the reserve and the coldness that she had
laid up in her heart, as one fills high a little ice-house with fear
of far-off summer heat, —all were quite gone, melted away.
And everything that he had planned to tell her was forgotten
also at the sight of that stern figure on horseback bearing un-
consciously down upon them.
"If I had only kept my mouth shut about his old fences,”
he said to himself. “Confound my bull! ” and he looked anx-
iously at Daphne, who sat with her eyes riveted on her father.
The next moment she had turned, and they were laughing in
each other's faces.
“What shall I do? ” she cried, leaning over and burying her
face in her hands, and lifting it again, scarlet with excitement.
« Don't do anything," he said calmly.
“But Hilary, if he sees us, we are lost. ”
“If he sees us, we are found. ”
« But he mustn't see me here! ” she cried, with something
like real terror. “I believe I'll lie down in the grass. Maybe
he'll think I am a friend of yours. ”
## p. 414 (#448) ############################################
414
JAMES LANE ALLEN
"My friends all sit up in the grass,” said Hilary.
But Daphne had already hidden.
Many a time, when a little girl, she had amused herself by
screaming like a hawk at the young guineas, and seeing them
cuddle invisible under small tufts and weeds. Out in the stable
lot, where the grass was grazed so close that the geese could
barely nip it, she would sometimes get one of the negro men
to scare the little pigs, for the delight of seeing them squat as
though hidden, when they were no more hidden than if they
had spread themselves out upon so many dinner dishes. All of
us reveal traces of this primitive instinct upon occasion. Daphne
was doing her best to hide now.
When Hilary realized it he moved in front of her, screening
her as well as possible.
(Hadn't you better lie down, too ? ” she asked.
«No,” he replied quickly.
“But if he sees you, he might take a notion to ride over this
way! ”
« Then he'll have to ride. "
"But, Hilary, suppose he were to find me lying down here
behind you, hiding ? ”
«Then he'll have to find you. "
“You get me into trouble, and then you won't help me out! »
exclaimed Daphne with considerable heat.
“It might not make matters any better for me to hide,” he
answered quietly. “But if he comes over here and tries to get
us into trouble, I'll see then what I can do. ”
Daphne lay silent for a moment, thinking. Then she nestled
more closely down, and said with gay, unconscious archness:
" “I'm not hiding because I'm afraid of him. I'm doing it just
because I want to. ”
She did not know that the fresh happiness flushing her at
that moment came from the fact of having Hilary between her-
self and her father as a protector; that she was drinking in the
delight a woman feels in getting playfully behind the man she
loves in the face of danger: but her action bound her to him
and brought her more under his influence.
His words showed that he also felt his position, the position
of the male who stalks forth from the herd and stands the silent
challenger. He was young, and vain of his manhood in the
usual innocent way that led him to carry the chip on his
## p. 415 (#449) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
415
shoulder for the world to knock off; and he placed himself
before Daphne with the understanding that if they were discov-
ered, there would be trouble. Her father was a violent man,
and the circumstances were not such that any Kentucky father
would overlook them. But with his inward seriousness, his face
wore its usual look of reckless unconcern.
Is he coming this way? ” asked Daphne, after an interval of
impatient waiting.
“Straight ahead. Are you hid ? »
"I can't see whether I'm hid or not. Where is he now ? »
Right on us. ”
« Does he see you ? ”
« Yes. ”
“Do you think he sees me ? »
“I'm sure of it. ”
«Then I might as well get up,” said Daphne, with the cour-
age of despair, and up she got. Her father was riding along
the path in front of them, but not looking. She was down
again like a partridge.
«How could you fool me, Hilary ? Suppose he had been
looking! ”
“I wonder what he thinks I'm doing, sitting over here in the
grass like a stump,” said Hilary. If he takes me for one, he
must think I've got an awful lot of roots. ”
« Tell me when it's time to get up. ”
«I will. "
He turned softly toward her. She was lying on her side, with
her burning cheek in one hand. The other hand rested high on
the curve of her hip. Her braids had fallen forward, and lay in
a heavy loop about her lovely shoulders. Her eyes were closed,
her scarlet lips parted in a smile. The edges of her snow-white
petticoats showed beneath her blue dress, and beyond these one
of her feet and ankles. Nothing more fragrant with innocence
ever lay on the grass.
"Is it time to get up now ? ”
«Not yet,” and he sat bending over her.
Now ? »
“Not yet,” he repeated more softly.
“Now, then ? ”
“Not for a long time. ”
His voice thrilled her, and she glanced up at him. His laugh-
ing eyes were glowing down upon her under his heavy mat of
C
## p. 416 (#450) ############################################
416
JAMES LANE ALLEN
hair. She sat up and looked toward the wagon crawling away in
the distance; her father was no longer in sight.
One of the ewes, dissatisfied with a back view, stamped her
forefoot impatiently, and ran round in front, and out into the
sun. Her lambs followed, and the three, ranging themselves
abreast, stared at Daphne, with a look of helpless inquiry.
« Sh-pp-pp! ” she cried, throwing up her hands at them, irri-
tated. “Go away! ”
They turned and ran; the others followed; and the whole
number, falling into line, took a path meekly homeward. They
left a greater sense of privacy under the tree. Several yards off
was a small stock-pond. Around the edge of this the water
stood hot and green in the tracks of the cattle and the sheep,
and about these pools the yellow butterflies were thick, alighting
daintily on the promontories of the mud, or rising two by two
through the dazzling atmosphere in columns of enamored flight.
Daphne leaned over to the blue grass where it swayed un-
broken in the breeze, and drew out of their sockets several stalks
of it, bearing on their tops the purplish seed-vessels. With them
she began to braid a ring about one of her fingers in the old
simple fashion of the country.
As they talked, he lay propped on his elbow, watching her
fingers, the soft slow movements of which little by little wove a
spell over his eyes. And once again the power of her beauty
began to draw him beyond control. He felt a desire to seize her
hands, to crush them in his. His eyes passed upward along her
tapering wrists, the skin of which was like mother-of-pearl; up-
ward along the arm to the shoulder — to her neck to her deeply
crimsoned cheeks — to the purity of her brow — to the purity of
her eyes, the downcast lashes of which hid them like conscious
fringes.
An awkward silence began to fall between them. Daphne
felt that the time had come for her to speak. But, powerless
to begin, she feigned to busy herself all the more devotedly
with braiding the deep-green circlet. Suddenly he drew himself
through the grass to her side.
“Let me ! »
"No! ” she cried, lifting her arm above his reach and looking
at him with a gay threat. « You don't know how. ”
«I do know how,” he said, with his white teeth on his red
underlip, and his eyes sparkling; and reaching upward, he laid
his hand in the hollow of her elbow and pulled her arm down.
## p. 417 (#451) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
417
»
»
«No! No! ” she cried again, putting her hands behind her
back. « You will spoil it ! »
“I will not spoil it,” he said, moving so close to her that his
breath was on her face, and reaching round to unclasp her hands.
“No! No! No! ” she cried, bending away from him. I don't
want any ring! ” and she tore it from her finger and threw it out
on the grass. Then she got up, and, brushing the grass-seed off
her lap, put on her hat.
He sat cross-legged on the grass before her. He had put on
his hat, and the brim hid his eyes.
And you are not going to stay and talk to me ? ” he said in
a tone of reproachfulness, without looking up.
She was excited and weak and trembling, and so she put out
her hand and took hold of a strong loop of the grape-vine hang-
ing from a branch of the thorn, and laid her cheek against her
hand and looked away from him.
“I thought you were better than the others,” he continued,
with the bitter wisdom of twenty years. “But you women are
all alike. When a man gets into trouble, you desert him. You
hurry him on to the devil. I have been turned out of the
church, and now you are down on Oh, well! But you
know how much I have always liked you, Daphne. ”
It was not the first time he had acted this character.
It had
been a favorite rôle. But Daphne had never seen the like. She
was overwhelmed with happiness that he cared so much for her;
and to have him reproach her for indifference, and see him suf-
fering with the idea that she had turned against him—that
instantly changed the whole situation. He had not heard then
what had taken place at the dinner. Under the circumstances,
feeling certain that the secret of her love had not been dis-
covered, she grew emboldened to risk a little more.
So she turned toward him smiling, and swayed gently as she
clung to the vine.
« Yes; I have my orders not even to speak to you! Never
again! ” she said, with the air of tantalizing.
« Then stay with me a while now," he said, and lifted slowly
to her his appealing face. She sat down, and screened herself
with a little feminine transparency.
"I can't stay long: it's going to rain! ”
He cast a wicked glance at the sky from under his hat; there
were a few clouds on the horizon.
me.
»
1-27
## p. 418 (#452) ############################################
418
JAMES LANE ALLEN
“And so you are never going to speak to me again ? ” he
said mournfully.
“Never! » How delicious her laughter was.
“I'll put a ring on your finger to remember me by. ”
He lay over in the grass and pulled several stalks. Then he
lifted his eyes beseechingly to hers.
“Will you let me ? ”
Daphne hid her hands. He drew himself to her side and
took one of them forcibly from her lap.
With a slow, caressing movement he began to braid the
grass ring around her finger- in and out, around and around,
his fingers laced with her fingers, his palm lying close upon her
palm, his blood tingling through the skin upon her blood. He
made the braiding go wrong, and took it off and began , over
again. Two or three times she drew a deep breath, and stole a
bewildered look at his face, which was so close to hers that his
hair brushed it—so close that she heard the quiver of his own
breath. Then all at once he folded his hands about hers with a
quick, fierce tenderness, and looked up at her. She turned her
face aside and tried to draw her hand away. His clasp tight-
ened. She snatched it away, and got up with a nervous laugh.
« Look at the butterflies! Aren't they pretty ? ”
He sprang up and tried to seize her hand again.
“You shan't go home yet! ” he said, in an undertone.
«Shan't I? ” she said, backing away from him. “Who's
going to keep me ? »
"I am,” he said, laughing excitedly and following her closely.
“My father's coming! " she cried out as a warning.
He turned and looked: there was no one in sight.
“He is coming sooner or later! she called.
She had retreated several yards off into the sunlight of the.
meadow.
The remembrance of the risk that he was causing her to run
checked him. He went over to her.
“When can I see you again — soon? ”
He had never spoken so seriously to her before. He had
never before been so serious. But within the last hour Nature
had been doing her work, and its effect was immediate. His
sincerity instantly conquered her. Her eyes fell.
“No one has any right to keep us from seeing each other! "
he insisted. “We must settle that for ourselves. »
>>
## p. 419 (#453) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
419
(
Daphne made no reply.
“But we can't meet here any more - with people passing
backward and forward! ” he continued rapidly and decisively.
“What has happened to-day mustn't happen again. ”
“No! ” she replied, in a voice barely to be heard. “It must
never happen again. We can't meet here. "
They were walking side by side now toward the meadow-
path. As they reached it he paused.
“Come to the back of the pasture — to-morrow! - at four
o'clock! ” he said, tentatively, recklessly.
Daphne did not answer as she moved away from him along
the path homeward.
“Will you come ? ” he called out to her.
She turned and shook her head. Whatever her own new
plans may have become, she was once more happy and laugh-
ing.
“Come, Daphne!
She walked several paces further and turned and shook her
head again.
“Come! ” he pleaded.
She laughed at him.
He wheeled round to his mare grazing near. As he put his
foot into the stirrup, he looked again: she was standing in the
same place, laughing still.
“You go," she cried, waving him good-by. « There'll not be
a soul to disturb you! To-morrow - at four o'clock ! »
“Will you be there? ” he said,
“Will you ? ” she answered.
« I'll be there to-morrow,” he said, “and every other day till
»
C
you come. »
By permission of the Macmillan Company, Publishers.
OLD KING SOLOMON'S CORONATION
From (Flute and Violin, and Other Kentucky Tales and Romances)
Copyright 1891, by Harper and Brothers
E
H
STOOD on the topmost of the court-house steps, and for a
moment looked down on the crowd with the usual air of
official severity.
"Gentlemen," he then cried out sharply, "by an ordah of the
cou't I now offah this man at public sale the highes' biddah.
## p. 420 (#454) ############################################
420
JAMES LANE ALLEN
He is able-bodied but lazy, without visible property or means of
suppoht, an' of dissolute habits. He is therefoh adjudged guilty
of high misdemeanahs, an' is to be sole into labah foh a twelve.
month. How much, then, am I offahed foh the vagrant? How
much am I offahed foh ole King Sol'mon ? »
Nothing was offered for old King Solomon. The spectators
formed themselves into a ring around the big vagrant, and settled
down to enjoy the performance.
Staht 'im, somebody. "
Somebody started a laugh, which rippled around the circle.
The sheriff looked on with an expression of unrelaxed severity,
but catching the eye of an acquaintance on the outskirts, he ex-
changed a lightning wink of secret appreciation. Then he lifted
off his tight beaver hat, wiped out of his eyes a little shower of
perspiration which rolled suddenly down from above, and warmed
a degree to his theme.
«Come, gentlemen,” he said more suasively, “it's too hot to
stan' heah all day. Make me an offah! You all know ole King
Sol'mon; don't wait to be interduced. How much, then, to staht
'im?
Say fifty dollahs! Twenty-five! Fifteen!
Ten! Why,
gentlemen! Not ten dollahs ? Remembah, this is the Blue-Grass
Region of Kentucky - the land of Boone an' Kenton, the home
of Henry Clay! ” he added, in an oratorical crescendo.
«He ain't wuth his victuals,” said an oily little tavern-keeper,
folding his arms restfully over his own stomach and cocking up
one piggish eye into his neighbor's face. “He ain't wuth his
'taters. ”
“Buy 'im foh 'is rags! ” cried a young law student, with a
Blackstone under his arm, to the town rag picker opposite, who
was unconsciously ogling the vagrant's apparel.
«I might buy 'im foh 'is scalp,” drawled a farmer, who had
taken part in all kinds of scalp contests, and was now known to
be busily engaged in collecting crow scalps for a match soon to
come off between two rival counties.
“I think I'll buy 'im foh a hat sign,” said a manufacturer of
ten-dollar Castor and Rhorum hats. This sally drew merry atten-
tion to the vagrant's hat, and the merchant felt rewarded.
“You'd bettah say the town ought to buy 'im an' put 'im up
on top of the cou't-house as a scarecrow foh the cholera,” said
some one else.
“What news of the cholera did the stage coach bring this
mohning ? » quickly inquired his neighbor in his ear; and the two
## p. 421 (#455) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
421
immediately fell into low, grave talk, forgot the auction, and
turned away
“Stop, gentlemen, stop! ” cried the sheriff, who had watched
the rising tide of good humor, and now saw his chance to float
in on it with spreading sails. "You're runnin' the price in the
wrong direction - down, not up. The law requires that he be
sole to the highes' biddah, not the lowes'. As loyal citizens,
uphole the constitution of the commonwealth of Kentucky an'
make me an offah; the man is really a great bargain. In the
first place, he would cos' his ownah little or nothin', because, as
you see, he keeps himself in cigahs an' clo'es; then, his main
article of diet is whisky-a supply of which he always has on
han'. He don't even need a bed, foh you know he sleeps jus'
as well on any doohstep; noh a chair, foh he prefers to sit roun'
on the curbstones. Remembah, too, gentlemen, that ole King
Sol'mon is a Virginian - from the same neighbohhood as Mr.
Clay. Remembah that he is well educated, that he is an awful
Whig, an' that he has smoked mo' of the stumps of Mr. Clay's
cigahs than any other man in existence. If you don't b'lieve me,
gentlemen, yondah goes Mr. Clay now; call him ovah an' ask
'im foh yo'se'ves. "
He paused, and pointed with his right forefinger towards
Main Street, along which the spectators, with a sudden craning
of necks, beheld the familiar figure of the passing statesman.
“But you don't need anybody to tell these fac's, gentlemen,"
he continued. “You merely need to be reminded that ole King
Sol'mon is no ohdinary man. Mo'ovah he has a kine heaht; he
nevah spoke a rough wohd to anybody in this worl', an' he is as
proud as Tecumseh of his good name an' charactah. An', gentle.
men,” he added, bridling with an air of mock gallantry and lay-
ing a hand on his heart, “if anythin' fu'thah is required in the
way of a puffect encomium, we all know that there isn't anothah
man among us who cuts as wide a swath among the ladies.
The'foh, if you have any appreciation of virtue, any magnanimity
of heaht; if you set a propah valuation upon the descendants of
Virginia, that mothah of Presidents; if you believe in the pure
laws of Kentucky as the pioneer bride of the Union; if you love
America an' love the worl'— make me a gen'rous, high-toned
offah foh ole King Sol'mon! ”
He ended his peroration amid a shout of laughter and ap-
plause, and feeling satisfied that it was a good time for returning
## p. 422 (#456) ############################################
422
JAMES LANE ALLEN
to a more practical treatment of his subject, proceeded in a sin-
cere tone:
“He can easily earn from one to two dollahs a day, an' from
three to six hundred a yeah. There's not anothah white man in
town capable of doin' as much work. There's not a niggah han'
in the hemp factories with such muscles an' such a chest. Look
at 'em! An', if you don't b'lieve me, step fo'ward and feel 'em.
How much, then, is bid foh 'im ? »
“One dollah! ” said the owner of a hemp factory, who had
walked forward and felt the vagrant's arm, laughing, but coloring
up also as the eyes of all were quickly turned upon him. In
those days it was not an unheard-of thing for the muscles of a
human being to be thus examined when being sold into servitude
to a new master,
« Thank you! » cried the sheriff, cheerily. «One precinc
heard from! One dollah! I am offahed one dollah foh ole King
Sol'mon. One dollah foh the king! Make it a half. One dollah
an' a half. Make it a half. One dol-dol-dol-dollah ! »
Two medical students, returning from lectures at the old Med.
ical Hall, now joined the group, and the sheriff explained:
“One dollah is bid foh the vagrant ole King Sol'mon, who is
to be sole into labah foh a twelvemonth. Is there any othah
bid ? Are you all done ? One dollah, once — "
“Dollah and a half,” said one of the students, and remarked
half jestingly under his breath to his companion, “I'll buy him
on the chance of his dying. We'll dissect him. ”
« Would you own his body if he should die ? »
“If he dies while bound to me, I'll arrange that. ”
«One dollah an' a half,” resumed the sheriff, and falling into
the tone of a facile auctioneer he rattled on:-
«One dollah an' a half foh ole Sol'mon - sol, sol, sol,- do, re,
mi, fa, sol,- do, re, mi, fa, sol! Why, gentlemen, you can set
the king to music!
All this time the vagrant had stood in the centre of that close
ring of jeering and humorous bystanders-a baffling text from
which to have preached a sermon on the infirmities of our imper-
fect humanity. Some years before, perhaps as a master-stroke of
derision, there had been given to him that title which could but
heighten the contrast of his personality and estate with every
suggestion of the ancient sacred magnificence; and never had the
mockery seemed so fine as at this moment, when he was led
## p. 423 (#457) ############################################
JAMES LANE ALLEN
423
forth into the streets to receive the lowest sentence of the law
upon his poverty and dissolute idleness. He was apparently in
the very prime of life - a striking figure, for nature at least had
truly done some royal work on him. Over six feet in height,
erect, with limbs well shaped and sinewy, with chest and neck full
of the lines of great power, a large head thickly covered with long,
reddish hair, eyes blue, face beardless, complexion fair but dis-
colored by low passions and excesses - such was old King Solo-
mon. He wore a stiff, high, black Castor hat of the period, with
the crown smashed in and the torn rim hanging down over one
ear; a black cloth coat in the old style, ragged and buttonless; a
white cotton shirt, with the broad collar crumpled wide open at
the neck and down his sunburnt bosom; blue jean pantaloons,
patched at the seat and the knees; and ragged cotton socks that
fell down over the tops of his dusty shoes, which were open at
the heels.
In one corner of his sensual mouth rested the stump of a
cigar. Once during the proceedings he had produced another,
lighted it, and continued quietly smoking. If he took to himself
any shame as the central figure of this ignoble performance, no
one knew it. There was something almost royal in his uncon-
cern. The humor, the badinage, the open contempt, of which he
was the public target, fell thick and fast upon him, but as harm-
lessly as would balls of pith upon a coat of mail. In truth, there
was that in his great, lazy, gentle, good-humored bulk and bear-
ing which made the gibes seem all but despicable. He shuffled
from one foot to the other as though he found it a trial to stand
up so long, but all the while looking the spectators full in the
eyes without the least impatience. He suffered the man of the
factory to walk round him and push and pinch his muscles as
calmly as though he had been the show bull at a country fair.
Once only, when the sheriff had pointed across the street at the
figure of Mr. Clay, he had looked quickly in that direction with
a kindling light in his eye and a passing flush on his face. For
the rest, he seemed like a man who has drained his cup of human
life and has nothing left him but to fill again and drink without
the least surprise or eagerness.
The bidding between the man of the factory and the student
had gone slowly on. The price had reached ten dollars. The
heat was intense, the sheriff tired. Then something occurred to
revivify the scene. Across the market place and toward the steps
## p. 424 (#458) ############################################
424
JAMES LANE ALLEN
of the court-house there suddenly came trundling along in breath-
less haste a huge old negress, carrying on one arm a large shal-
low basket containing apple-crab lanterns and fresh gingerbread.
