“Well,” I said to myself, if
Greenton
had forty thousand
inhabitants, it couldn't turn out a more astonishing old party
than that!
inhabitants, it couldn't turn out a more astonishing old party
than that!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v01 - A to Apu
They looked down scowling on the humble thatched
roof. The city was edging up, trying to crowd him off his land.
But he clung to it like lichen and refused to sell.
Speculators piled gold on his doorsteps, and he laughed at
them. Sometimes he was hungry, and cold, and thinly clad; but
he laughed none the less.
“Get thee behind me, Satan! ” said the old priest's smile.
Père Antoine was very old now, scarcely able to walk; but
he could sit under the pliant, caressing leaves of his palm, lov-
ing it like an Arab; and there he sat till the grimmest of specu-
lators came to him.
But even
in death Père Antoine
faithful to his trust: the owner of that land loses it if he harm
the date-tree.
And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street, a beautiful,
dreamy stranger, an exquisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy
to the eye, the incense of whose breath makes the air enamored.
May the hand wither that touches her ungently!
"Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice,” said Miss
Blondeau tenderly.
(C
was
## p. 330 (#360) ############################################
330
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
MISS MEHETABEL'S SON
I
THE OLD TAVERN AT BAYLEY'S FOUR-CORNERS
Yºu
was
gers to dine.
ou will not find Greenton, or Bayley's Four-Corners as it is
more usually designated, on any map of New England that
I know of. It is not a town; it is not even a village: it is
merely an absurd hotel. The almost indescribable place called
Greenton is at the intersection of four roads, in the heart of New
Hampshire, twenty miles from the nearest settlement of note, and
ten miles from any railway station. A good location for a hotel,
you will say. Precisely; but there has always been a hotel
there, and for the last dozen years it has been pretty well
patronized — by one boarder. Not to trifle with an intelligent
public, I will state at once that, in the early part of this century,
Greenton a point at which the mail-coach on the Great
Northern Route stopped to change horses and allow the passen-
People in the county, wishing to take the early
mail Portsmouth-ward, put up over night at the old tavern,
famous for its irreproachable larder and soft feather-beds. The
tavern at that time was kept by Jonathan Bayley, who rivaled
his wallet in growing corpulent, and in due time passed away.
At his death the establishment, which included a farm, fell into
the hands of a son-in-law. Now, though Bayley left his son-in-
law a hotel- - which sounds handsome — he left him no guests;
for at about the period of the old man's death the old stage-
coach died also. Apoplexy carried off one, and steam the other.
Thus, by a sudden swerve in the tide of progress, the tavern at
the Corners found itself high and dry, like a wreck on a sand-
bank. Shortly after this event, or maybe contemporaneously,
there was some attempt to build a town at Greenton; but it
apparently failed, if eleven cellars choked up with débris and
overgrown with burdocks are any indication of failure.
The
farm, however, was a good farm, as things go in New Hamp-
shire, and Tobias Sewell, the son-in-law, could afford to snap
his fingers at the traveling public if they came near enough
which they never did.
The hotel remains to-day pretty much the same
as when
Jonathan Bayley handed in his accounts in 1840, except that
## p. 331 (#361) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
331
Sewell has from time to time sold the furniture of some of the
upper chambers to bridal couples in the neighborhood. The bar
is still open, and the parlor door says Parlour in tall black
letters. Now and then a passing drover looks in at that lonely
bar-room, where a high-shouldered bottle of Santa Cruz rum
ogles with a peculiarly knowing air a shriveled lemon on a
shelf; now and then a farmer rides across country to talk crops
and stock and take a friendly glass with Tobias; and now and
then a circus caravan with speckled ponies, or a menagerie with
a soggy elephant, halts under the swinging sign, on which there
is a dim mail-coach with four phantomish horses driven by a
portly gentleman whose head has been washed off by the rain.
Other customers there are none, except that one regular boarder
whom I have mentioned.
If misery makes a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows,
it is equally certain that the profession of surveyor and civil
engineer often takes one into undreamed-of localities. I had
never heard of Greenton until my duties sent me there, and kept
me there two weeks in the dreariest season of the year. I do
not think I would, of my own volition, have selected Greenton
for a fortnight's sojourn at any time; but now the business is
over, I shall never regret the circumstances that made me the
guest of Tobias Sewell, and brought me into intimate relations
with Miss Mehetabel's Son.
It was a black October night in the year of grace 1872, that
discovered me standing in front of the old tavern at the Corners.
Though the ten miles' ride from K— had been depressing,
especially the last five miles, on account of the cold autumnal
rain that had set in, I felt a pang of regret on hearing the
rickety open wagon turn round in the road and roll off in the
darkness. There were no lights visible anywhere, and only for
the big, shapeless mass of something in front of me, which the
driver had said was the hotel, I should have fancied that I had
been set down by the roadside. I was wet to the skin and in
no amiable humor; and not being able to find bell-pull or
knocker, or even a door, I belabored the side of the house with
my heavy walking-stick. In a minute or two I saw a light
flickering somewhere aloft, then I heard the sound of a window
opening, followed by an exclamation of disgust as a blast of
a
wind extinguished the candle which had given me an instant-
aneous picture en silhouette of a man leaning out of a casement.
## p. 332 (#362) ############################################
332
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"I say, what do you want, down there ? ” inquired an unpre-
possessing voice.
“I want to come in; I want a supper, and a bed, and num-
berless things. ”
“This isn't no time of night to go rousing honest folks out
of their sleep. Who are you, anyway? ”
The question, superficially considered, was a very simple one,
and I, of all people in the world, ought to have been able to
answer it off-hand, but it staggered me. Strangely enough, there
came drifting across my memory the lettering on the back of a
metaphysical work which I had seen years before on a shelf in
the Astor Library. Owing to an unpremeditatedly funny collo-
cation of title and author, the lettering read as follows:-“Who
am I? Jones.
”
Evidently it had puzzled Jones to know who
he was, or he wouldn't have written a book about it, and come
to so lame and impotent a conclusion. It certainly puzzled me
at that instant to define my identity. « Thirty years ago,
I
reflected, "I was nothing; fifty years hence I shall be nothing
again, humanly speaking. In the mean time, who am I, sure
enough ? ” It had never before occurred to me what an indefinite
article I was. I wish it had not occurred to me then. Standing
there in the rain and darkness, I wrestled vainly with the prob-
lem, and was constrained to fall back upon a Yankee expedient.
“Isn't this a hotel ? ” I asked finally.
“Well, it is a sort of hotel,” said the voice, doubtfully. My
hesitation and prevarication had apparently not inspired my inter-
locutor with confidence in me.
« Then let me in. I have 'just driven over from K- in
this infernal rain. I am wet through and through. ”
“But what do you want here, at the Corners ?
business? People don't come here, leastways in the middle of
the night. ”
“It isn't in the middle of the night," I returned, incensed.
"I come
on business connected with the new road. I'm the
superintendent of the works. ”
“Oh! ”
"And if you don't open the door at once, I'll raise the whole
neighborhood -- and then go to the other hotel. ”
When I said that, I supposed Greenton was a village with a
population of at least three or four thousand, and was wonder-
ing vaguely at the absence of lights and other signs of human
What's your
## p. 333 (#363) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
333
habitation. Surely, I thought, all the people cannot be abed and
asleep at half past ten o'clock: perhaps I am in the business
section of the town, among the shops.
"You jest wait,” said the voice above.
This request was not devoid of a certain accent of menace,
and I braced myself for a sortie on the part of the besieged, if
he had any such hostile intent. Presently a door opened at the
very place where I least expected a door, at the farther end of
the building, in fact, and a man in his shirt-sleeves, shielding a
candle with his left hand, appeared on the threshold. I passed
quickly into the house, with Mr. Tobias Sewell (for this was
Mr. Sewell) at my heels, and found myself in a long, low-
studded bar-room.
There were two chairs drawn up before the hearth, on which
a huge hemlock back-log was still smoldering, and on the un-
painted deal counter contiguous stood two cloudy glasses with
bits of lemon-peel in the bottom, hinting at recent libations.
Against the discolored wall over the bar hung a yellowed hand-
bill, in a warped frame, announcing that “the Next Annual
N. H. Agricultural Fair” would take place on the 10th of Sep-
tember, 1841. There. was no other furniture or decoration in
this dismal apartment, except the cobwebs which festooned the
ceiling, hanging down here and there like stalactites.
Mr. Sewell set the candlestick on the mantel-shelf, and threw
some pine-knots on the fire, which immediately broke into a
blaze, and showed him to be a lank, narrow-chested man, past
sixty, with sparse, steel-gray hair, and small, deep-set eyes, per-
fectly round, like a fish's, and of no particular color. His chief
personal characteristics seemed to be too much feet and not
enough teeth. His sharply cut, but rather simple face, as he
turned it towards me, wore a look of interrogation. I replied to
his mute inquiry by taking out my pocket-book and handing him
my business-card, which he held up to the candle and perused
with great deliberation.
« You're a civil engineer, are you? ” he said, displaying his
gums, which gave his countenance an expression of almost infant-
ile innocence. He made no further audible remark, but mum-
bled between his thin lips something which an imaginative person
might have construed into, "If you're a civil engineer, I'll be
blessed if I wouldn't like to see an uncivil one! »
Mr. Sewell's growl, however, was worse than his bite, - owing
to his lack of teeth, probably — for he very good-naturedly set
## p. 334 (#364) ############################################
334
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
To my
(C
himself to work preparing supper for me. After a slice of cold
ham, and a warm punch, to which my chilled condition gave a
grateful flavor, I went to bed in a distant chamber in a most
amiable mood, feeling satisfied that Jones was a donkey to
bother himself about his identity.
When I awoke, the sun was several hours high.
My bed
faced a window, and by raising myself on one elbow I could
look out on what I expected would be the main street.
astonishment I beheld a lonely country road winding up a sterile
hill and disappearing over the ridge. In a cornfield at the right
of the road was a small private graveyard, inclosed by a crum-
bling stone wall with a red gate. The only thing suggestive of
life was this little corner lot occůpied by death. I got out of
bed and went to the other window. There I had an uninter-
rupted view of twelve miles of open landscape, with Mount
Agamenticus in the purple distance. Not a house or a spire in
sight. “Well, I exclaimed, "Greenton doesn't appear to be a
very closely packed metropolis! ” That rival hotel with which I
had threatened Mr. Sewell overnight was not a deadly weapon,
looking at it by daylight. "By Jove! ” I reflected, maybe I'm
in the wrong place. ” But there, tacked against a panel of the
bedroom door, was a faded time-table dated Greenton, August
ist, 1839
I smiled all the time I was dressing, and went smiling down-
stairs, where I found Mr. Sewell, assisted by one of the fair sex
in the first bloom of her eightieth year, serving breakfast for
me on a small table — in the bar-room!
"I overslept myself this morning," I remarked apologetically,
and I see that I am putting you to some trouble. In future,
if you will have me called, I will take my meals at the usual
table d'hôte. ”
“At the what ? ” said Mr. Sewell.
“I mean with the other boarders. ”
Mr. Sewell paused in the act of lifting a chop from the fire,
and, resting the point of his fork against the woodwork of the
mantel-piece, grinned from ear to ear.
“Bless you! there isn't any other boarders. There hasn't
been anybody put up here sence - let me see
sence father-in-
law died, and that was in the fall of '40. To be sure, there's
Silas; he's a regular boarder: but I don't count him. ”
Mr. Sewell then explained how the tavern had lost its custom
when the old stage line was broken up by the railroad. The
(c
## p. 335 (#365) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
335
»
>
introduction of steam was, in Mr. Sewell's estimation, a fatal
error. "Jest killed local business. Carried it off, I'm darned if
I know where. The whole country has been sort o' retrograding
.
ever sence steam was invented. »
“You spoke of having one boarder," I said.
« Silas ? Yes; he come here the summer 'Tilda died — she
that was 'Tilda Bayley—and he's here yet, going on thirteen
year. He couldn't live any longer with the old man. Between
you and I, old Clem Jaffrey, Silas's father, was a hard nut.
Yes,” said Mr. Sewell, crooking his elbow in inimitable panto-
mime, altogether too often. Found dead in the road hugging
a three-gallon demijohn. Habeas corpus in the barn,” added Mr.
Sewell, intending, I presume, to intimate that a post-mortem
examination had been deemed necessary. «Silas,” he resumed,
in that respectful tone which one should always adopt when speak-
ing of capital, “is a man of considerable property; lives on his
interest, and keeps a hoss and shay. He's a great scholar, too,
Silas: takes all the pe-ri-odicals and the Police Gazette regular. ”
Mr. Sewell was turning over a third chop, when the door
opened and a stoutish, middle-aged little gentleman, clad in deep
black, stepped into the room.
«Silas Jaffrey,” said Mr. Sewell, with a comprehensive sweep
of his arm, picking up me and the new-comer on one fork, so to
speak. Be acquainted! ”
Mr. Jaffrey advanced briskly, and gave me his hand with
unlooked-for cordiality. He was a dapper little man, with a
a
head as round and nearly as bald as an orange, and not unlike
an orange in complexion, either; he had twinkling gray eyes and
a pronounced Roman nose, the numerous freckles upon which
were deepened by his funereal dress-coat and trousers. He
reminded me of Alfred de Musset's blackbird, which, with its
yellow beak and sombre plumage, looked like an undertaker
eating an omelet.
“Silas will take care of you,” said Mr. Sewell, taking down
his hat from a peg behind the door. "I've got the cattle to look
after. Tell him if you want anything. ”
While I ate my breakfast, Mr. Jaffrey hopped up and down
the narrow bar-room and chirped away as blithely as a bird on a
cherry-bough, occasionally ruffling with his fingers a slight fringe
of auburn hair which stood up pertly round his head and seemed
to possess a luminous quality of its own.
»
(
## p. 336 (#366) ############################################
336
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
«Don't I find it a little slow up here at the Corners ? Not at
all, my dear sir. I am in the thick of life up here.
So many
interesting things going on all over the world— inventions, dis-
coveries, spirits, railroad disasters, mysterious homicides. Poets,
murderers, musicians, statesmen, distinguished travelers, prodi-
gies of all kinds turning up everywhere. Very few events or
persons escape me. I take six daily city papers, thirteen weekly
journals, all the monthly magazines, and two quarterlies. I
could not get along with less. couldn't if you asked me. I
never feel lonely. How can I, being on intimate terms, as it
were, with thousands and thousands of people ? There's that
young woman out West.
What an entertaining creature she
is! — now in Missouri, now in Indiana, and now in Minnesota,
always on the go, and all the time shedding needles from vari-
ous parts of her body as if she really enjoyed it! Then there's
that versatile patriarch who walks hundreds of miles and saws
thousands of feet of wood, before breakfast, and shows no signs
of giving out. Then there's that remarkable, one may say that
historical colored woman who knew Benjamin Franklin, and
fought at the battle of Bunk — no, it is the old negro man who
fought at Bunker Hill, a mere infant, of course, at that period.
Really, now, it is quite curious to observe how that venerable
female slave — formerly an African princess — is repeatedly dying
in her hundred and eleventh year, and coming to life again
punctually every six months in the small-type paragraphs. Are
you aware, sir, that within the last twelve years no fewer than
two hundred and eighty-seven of General Washington's colored
coachmen have died ? »
For the soul of me I could not tell whether this quaint little
gentleman was chaffing me or not. I laid down my knife and
fork, and stared at him.
« Then there are the mathematicians! ” he cried vivaciously,
without waiting for a reply. "I take great interest in them.
Hear this! " and Mr. Jaffrey drew a newspaper from a pocket in
the tail of his coat, and read as follows:-" It has been estimated
that if all the candles manufactured by this eminent firm (Stear-
ine & Co. ) were placed end to end, they would reach 2 and 7-8
times around the globe. Of course,” continued Mr. Jaffrey, fold-
ing up the journal reflectively, “abstruse calculations of this
kind are not, perhaps, of vital importance, but they indicate
the intellectual activity of the age. Seriously, now," he said,
## p. 337 (#367) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
337
(
halting in front of the table, “what with books and papers and
drives about the country, I do not find the days too long,
though I seldom
see any one, except when I
go over to
K- for my mail. Existence may be very full to a man who
stands a little aside from the tumult and watches it with philo-
sophic eye. Possibly he may see more of the battle than those
who are in the midst of the action. Once I was struggling with
the crowd, as eager and undaunted as the best; perhaps I should
have been struggling still. Indeed, I know my life would have
been very different now if I had married Mehetabel — if I had
married Mehetabel. ”
His vivacity was gone, a sudden cloud had come over his
bright face, his figure seemed to have collapsed, the light
seemed to have faded out of his hair. With a shuffling step,
the very antithesis of his brisk, elastic tread, he turned to the
door and passed into the road.
“Well,” I said to myself, if Greenton had forty thousand
inhabitants, it couldn't turn out a more astonishing old party
than that! ”
II
THE CASE OF SILAS JAFFREY
A MAN with a passion for bric-à-brac is always stumbling over
antique bronzes, intaglios, mosaics, and daggers of the time of
Benvenuto Cellini; the bibliophile finds creamy Vellum folios
and rare Alduses and Elzevirs waiting for him at unsuspected
bookstalls; the numismatist has but to stretch forth his palm
to have priceless coins drop into it. My own weakness is odd
people, and I am constantly encountering them. It was plain
that I had unearthed a couple of very queer specimens at
I
Bayley's Four-Corners. I saw that a fortnight afforded me too
brief an opportunity to develop the richness of both, and I
resolved to devote my spare time to Mr. Jaffrey alone, instinct-
ively recognizing in him an unfamiliar species. My professional
work in the vicinity of Greenton left my evenings and occas-
ionally an afternoon unoccupied; these intervals I purposed to
employ in studying and classifying my fellow-boarder.
necessary, as a preliminary step, to learn something of his
previous history, and to this end I addressed myself to Mr.
Sewell that same night.
It was
1-22
## p. 338 (#368) ############################################
338
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
(
“I do not want to seem inquisitive,” I said to the landlord,
as he was fastening up the bar, which, by the way, was the
salle à manger and general sitting-room — "I do not want to
seem inquisitive, but your friend Mr. Jaffrey dropped a remark
this morning at breakfast which – which was not altogether
clear to me. "
«About Mehetabel ? ” asked Mr. Sewell, uneasily.
Yes. ”
“Well, I wish he wouldn't! »
"He was friendly enough in the course of conversation to
hint to me that he had not married the young woman, and
seemed to regret it. ”
“No, he didn't marry Mehetabel. ”
“May I inquire why he didn't marry Mehetabel ? »
“Never asked her. Might have married the girl forty times.
Old Elkins's daughter, over at K—, She'd have had him
quick enough. Seven years, off and on, he kept company with
Mehetabel, and then she died. ”
“And he never asked her ? »
“He shilly-shallied. Perhaps he didn't think of it. When
she was dead and gone, then Silas was struck all of a heap-
and that 's all about it. ”
Obviously Mr. Sewell did not intend to tell me anything
more, and obviously there was more to tell.
The topic was
plainly disagreeable to him for some reason or other, and that
unknown reason of course piqued my curiosity.
As I was absent from dinner and supper that day, I did not
meet Mr. Jaffrey again until the following morning at break-
fast. He had recovered his bird-like manner, and was full of
a mysterious assassination that had just taken place in New
York, all the thrilling details of which were at his fingers' ends.
It was at once comical and sad to see this harmless old gen-
tleman, with his naïve, benevolent countenance, and his thin
hair flaming up in a semicircle, like the footlights at a theatre,
reveling in the intricacies of the unmentionable deed.
«You come up to my room to-night,” he cried, with horrid
glee, and I'll give you my theory of the murder. I'll make it
as clear as day to you that it was the detective himself who
fired the three pistol-shots. ”
It was not so much the desire to have this point elucidated
as to make a closer study of Mr. Jaffrey that led me to accept
## p. 339 (#369) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
339
his invitation. Mr. Jaffrey's bedroom was in an L of the
building, and was in no way noticeable except for the numer-
ous files of newspapers neatly arranged against the blank
spaces of the walls, and a huge pile of old magazines which
stood in one corner, reaching nearly up to the ceiling, and
threatening to topple over each instant, like the Leaning Tower
at Pisa. There were green paper shades at the windows, some
faded chintz valances about the bed, and two or three easy-
chairs covered with chintz. On a black-walnut shelf between
the windows lay a choice collection of meerschaum and brier-
wood pipes.
Filling one of the chocolate-colored bowls for me and an-
other for himself, Mr. Jaffrey began prattling; but not about
the murder, which appeared to have flown out of his mind. In
fact, I do not remember that the topic was even touched upon,
either then or afterwards.
« Cozy nest this,” said Mr. Jaffrey, glancing complacently
over the apartment. “What is more cheerful, now, in the fall
of the year, than an open wood-fire ? Do you hear those little
chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood ?
Those are the ghosts of the robins and bluebirds that sang
upon the bough when it was in blossom last spring.
In sum-
mer whole flocks of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees
under the window: so I have singing birds all the year round.
I take it very easy here, I can tell you, summer and winter.
Not much society. Tobias is not, perhaps, what one would
term a great intellectual force, but he means well. He's a
realist - believes in coming down to what he calls the hardpan’;
but his heart is in the right place, and he's very kind to me.
The wisest thing I ever did in my life was to sell out my grain
business over at K- thirteen years ago, and settle down at
the Corners. When a man has made a competency, what does
he want more? Besides, at that time an event occurred which
destroyed any ambition I may have had. Mehetabel died. ”
«The lady you were engaged to ? ”
«N-o, not precisely engaged. I think it was quite under-
stood between us, though nothing had been said on the subject.
Typhoid,” added Mr. Jaffrey, in a low voice.
For several minutes he smoked in silence, a vague, troubled
look playing over his countenance. Presently this passed away,
and he fixed his gray eyes speculatively upon my face.
>
>>
## p. 340 (#370) ############################################
340
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
(C
“If I had married Mehetabel,” said Mr. Jaffrey, slowly, and
then he hesitated. I blew a ring of smoke into the air, and,
resting my pipe on my knee, dropped into an attitude of
attention. "If I had married Mehetabel, you know, we should
have had -ahem! -- a family. ”
“Very likely,” I assented, vastly amused at this unexpected
turn.
“A Boy! ” exclaimed Mr. Jaffrey, explosively.
“By all means, certainly, a son. ”
«Great trouble about naming the boy. Mehetabel's family
want him named Elkanah Elkins, after her grandfather; I want
him named Andrew Jackson. We compromise by christening
him Elkanah Elkins Andrew Jackson Jaffrey. Rather a long
name for such a short little fellow,” said Mr. Jaffrey, musingly.
Andy isn't a bad nickname,” I suggested.
« Not at all. We call him Andy, in the family. Somewhat
fractious at first-colic and things. I suppose it is right, or it
wouldn't be so; but the usefulness of measles, mumps, croup,
whooping-cough, scarlatina, and fits is not clear to the parental
eye. I wish Andy would be a model infant, and dodge the
whole lot. ”
This suppositious child, born within the last few minutes,
was plainly assuming the proportions of a reality to Mr. Jaffrey.
I began to feel a little uncomfortable. I am, as I have said, a
civil engineer, and it is not strictly in my line to assist at the
births of infants, imaginary or otherwise. I pulled away vigor-
ously at the pipe, and said nothing.
"What large blue eyes he has,” resumed Mr. Jaffrey, after
a pause; “just like Hetty's; and the fair hair, too, like hers.
How oddly certain distinctive features are handed down in
families! Sometimes a mouth, sometimes a turn of the eye-
brow. Wicked little boys over at K— have now and then
derisively advised me to follow my nose. It would be an inter-
esting thing to do. I should find my nose flying about the
world, turning up unexpectedly here and there, dodging this
branch of the family and reappearing in that, now jumping
over one great-grandchild to fasten itself upon another, and
never losing its individuality. Look at Andy. There's Elkanah
Elkins's chin to the life. Andy's chin is probably older than
the Pyramids. Poor little thing,” he cried, with sudden inde-
scribable tenderness, “to lose his mother so early! ” And Mr.
## p. 341 (#371) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
341
come
Jaffrey's head sunk upon his breast, and his shoulders slanted
forward, as if he were actually bending over the cradle of the
child. The whole gesture and attitude was so natural that it
startled me. The pipe slipped from my fingers and fell to the
floor.
“Hush! ” whispered Mr. Jaffrey, with a deprecating motion
of his hand. “Andy's asleep! ”
He rose softly from the chair, and walking across the room
on tiptoe, drew down the shade at the window through which
the moonlight was streaming. Then he returned to his seat,
and remained gazing with half-closed eyes into the dropping
embers.
I refilled my pipe and smoked in profound silence, wonder-
ing what would
next. But nothing came next. Mr.
Jaffrey had fallen into so brown a study that, a quarter of an
hour afterwards, when I wished him good-night and withdrew,
I do not think he noticed my departure.
I am not what is called a man of imagination; it is my
habit to exclude most things not capable of mathematical
demonstration: but I am not without a certain psychological
insight, and I think I understood Mr. Jaffrey's case. I could
easily understand how a with an unhealthy, sensitive
nature, overwhelmed by sudden calamity, might take refuge in
some forlorn place like this old tavern, and dream his life
away. To such a man – brooding forever on what might have
-
been, and dwelling wholly in the realm of his fancies— the
actual world might indeed become as a dream, and nothing
seem real but his illusions. I dare say that thirteen years of
Bayley's Four-Corners would have its effect upon me; though
instead of conjuring up golden-haired children of the Madonna,
I should probably see gnomes and kobolds, and goblins engaged
in hoisting false signals and misplacing switches for midnight
express trains.
“No doubt," I said to myself that night, as I lay in bed,
thinking over the matter, “this once possible but now impos-
sible child is a great comfort to the old gentleman, –a greater
comfort, perhaps, than a real son would be. Maybe Andy will
vanish with the shades and mists of night, he's such an unsub-
stantial infant; but if he doesn't, and Mr. Jaffrey finds pleasure
in talking to me about his son, I shall humor the old fellow.
It wouldn't be a Christian act to knock over his harmless fancy. "
man
(
## p. 342 (#372) ############################################
342
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
((
I was very impatient to see if Mr. Jaffrey's illusion would
stand the test of daylight. It did. Elkanah Elkins Andrew
Jackson Jaffrey was, so to speak, alive and kicking the next
morning On taking his seat at the breakfast-table, Mr. Jaffrey
whispered to me that Andy had had a comfortable night.
«Silas! ” said Mr. Sewell, sharply, “what are you whispering
about ? »
Mr. Sewell was in an ill humor; perhaps he was jealous
because I had passed the evening in Mr. Jaffrey's room; but
surely Mr. Sewell could not expect his boarders to go to bed at
eight o'clock every night, as he did. From time to time during
the meal Mr. Sewell regarded me unkindly out of the corner of
his eye, and in helping me to the parsnips he poniarded them
with quite a suggestive air. All this, however, did not prevent
me from repairing to the door of Mr. Jaffrey's snuggery when
night came.
"Well, Mr. Jaffrey, how's Andy this evening ? »
“Got a tooth! » cried Mr. Jaffrey, vivaciously.
“No!
“Yes, he has! Just through. Give the nurse a silver dollar.
Standing reward for first tooth. ”
It was on the tip of my tongue to express surprise that an
infant a day old should cut a tooth, when I suddenly recollected
that Richard III. was born with teeth. Feeling myself to be on
unfamiliar ground, I suppressed my criticism. It was well I
did so, for in the next breath I was advised that half a year
had elapsed since the previous evening.
“Andy's had a hard six months of it,” said Mr. Jaffrey, with
the well-known narrative air of fathers. "We've brought him
up by hand.
His grandfather, by the way, was brought up by
the bottle and brought down by it, too, I added mentally,
»
I ,
recalling Mr. Sewell's account of the old gentleman's tragic
end.
Mr. Jaffrey then went on to give me a history of Andy's
first six months, omitting no detail however insignificant or
irrelevant. This history I would in turn inflict upon the reader,
if I were only certain that he is one of those dreadful parents
who, under the ægis of friendship, bore you at a street-corner
with that remarkable thing which Freddy said the other day,
and insist on singing to you, at an evening party, the Iliad of
Tommy's woes.
## p. 343 (#373) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
343
But to inflict this enfantillage upon the unmarried reader
would be an act of wanton cruelty. So I pass over that part
of Andy's biography, and for the same reason make no record
of the next four or five interviews I had with Mr. Jaffrey.
It
will be sufficient to state that Andy glided from extreme
infancy to early youth with astonishing celerity — at the rate
of one year per night, if I remember correctly; and — must I
confess it ? — before the week came to an end, this invisible
hobgoblin of a boy was only little less of a reality to me than
to Mr. Jaffrey.
At first I had lent myself to the old dreamer's whim with a
keen perception of the humor of the thing; but by and by I
found that I was talking and thinking of Miss Mehetabel's son
as though he were a veritable personage. Mr. Jaffrey spoke of
the child with such an air of conviction ! as if Andy were
playing among his toys in the next room, or making mud-
pies down in the yard. In these conversations, it should be
observed, the child was never supposed to be present, except
on that single occasion when Mr. Jaffrey leaned over the
cradle. After one of our séances I would lie awake until the
small hours, thinking of the boy, and then fall asleep only to
have indigestible dreams about him. Through the day, and
sometimes in the midst of complicated calculations, I would
catch myself wondering what Andy was up to now! There was
no shaking him off; he became an inseparable nightmare to me;
and I felt that if I remained much longer at Bayley's Four-
Corners I should turn into just such another bald-headed, mild-
eyed visionary as Silas Jaffrey.
Then the tavern was a grewsome old shell any way, full of
unaccountable noises after dark — rustlings of garments along
unfrequented passages, and stealthy footfalls in unoccupied
chambers overhead. I never knew of an old house without
these mysterious noises. Next to my bedroom was a musty,
dismantled apartment, in one corner of which, leaning against
the wainscot, was a crippled mangle, with its iron crank tilted
in the air like the elbow of the late Mr. Clem Jaffrey. Some.
times,
«In the dead vast and middle of the night,
I used to hear sounds as if some one were turning that rusty
crank on
the sly. This occurred only on particularly cold
## p. 344 (#374) ############################################
344
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
nights, and I conceived the uncomfortable idea that it was the
thin family ghosts, from the neglected graveyard in the corn-
field, keeping themselves warm by running each other through
the mangle. There was a haunted air about the whole place
that made it easy for me to believe in the existence of a phan-
tasm like Miss Mehetabel's son, who, after all, was less un-
earthly than Mr. Jaffrey himself, and seemed more properly an
inhabitant of this globe than the toothless ogre who kept the
inn, not to mention the silent Witch of Endor that cooked our
meals for us over the bar-room fire.
In spite of the scowls and winks bestowed upon me by Mr.
Sewell, who let slip no opportunity to testify his disapprobation
of the intimacy, Mr. Jaffrey and I spent all our evenings to-
gether— those long autumnal evenings, through the length of
which he talked about the boy, laying out his path in life and
hedging the path with roses. He should be sent to the High
School at Portsmouth, and then to college; he should be edu-
cated like a gentleman, Andy.
“When the old man dies,” remarked Mr. Jaffrey one night,
rubbing his hands gleefully, as if it were a great joke, “Andy
will find that the old man has left him a pretty plum.
roof. The city was edging up, trying to crowd him off his land.
But he clung to it like lichen and refused to sell.
Speculators piled gold on his doorsteps, and he laughed at
them. Sometimes he was hungry, and cold, and thinly clad; but
he laughed none the less.
“Get thee behind me, Satan! ” said the old priest's smile.
Père Antoine was very old now, scarcely able to walk; but
he could sit under the pliant, caressing leaves of his palm, lov-
ing it like an Arab; and there he sat till the grimmest of specu-
lators came to him.
But even
in death Père Antoine
faithful to his trust: the owner of that land loses it if he harm
the date-tree.
And there it stands in the narrow, dingy street, a beautiful,
dreamy stranger, an exquisite foreign lady whose grace is a joy
to the eye, the incense of whose breath makes the air enamored.
May the hand wither that touches her ungently!
"Because it grew from the heart of little Anglice,” said Miss
Blondeau tenderly.
(C
was
## p. 330 (#360) ############################################
330
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
MISS MEHETABEL'S SON
I
THE OLD TAVERN AT BAYLEY'S FOUR-CORNERS
Yºu
was
gers to dine.
ou will not find Greenton, or Bayley's Four-Corners as it is
more usually designated, on any map of New England that
I know of. It is not a town; it is not even a village: it is
merely an absurd hotel. The almost indescribable place called
Greenton is at the intersection of four roads, in the heart of New
Hampshire, twenty miles from the nearest settlement of note, and
ten miles from any railway station. A good location for a hotel,
you will say. Precisely; but there has always been a hotel
there, and for the last dozen years it has been pretty well
patronized — by one boarder. Not to trifle with an intelligent
public, I will state at once that, in the early part of this century,
Greenton a point at which the mail-coach on the Great
Northern Route stopped to change horses and allow the passen-
People in the county, wishing to take the early
mail Portsmouth-ward, put up over night at the old tavern,
famous for its irreproachable larder and soft feather-beds. The
tavern at that time was kept by Jonathan Bayley, who rivaled
his wallet in growing corpulent, and in due time passed away.
At his death the establishment, which included a farm, fell into
the hands of a son-in-law. Now, though Bayley left his son-in-
law a hotel- - which sounds handsome — he left him no guests;
for at about the period of the old man's death the old stage-
coach died also. Apoplexy carried off one, and steam the other.
Thus, by a sudden swerve in the tide of progress, the tavern at
the Corners found itself high and dry, like a wreck on a sand-
bank. Shortly after this event, or maybe contemporaneously,
there was some attempt to build a town at Greenton; but it
apparently failed, if eleven cellars choked up with débris and
overgrown with burdocks are any indication of failure.
The
farm, however, was a good farm, as things go in New Hamp-
shire, and Tobias Sewell, the son-in-law, could afford to snap
his fingers at the traveling public if they came near enough
which they never did.
The hotel remains to-day pretty much the same
as when
Jonathan Bayley handed in his accounts in 1840, except that
## p. 331 (#361) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
331
Sewell has from time to time sold the furniture of some of the
upper chambers to bridal couples in the neighborhood. The bar
is still open, and the parlor door says Parlour in tall black
letters. Now and then a passing drover looks in at that lonely
bar-room, where a high-shouldered bottle of Santa Cruz rum
ogles with a peculiarly knowing air a shriveled lemon on a
shelf; now and then a farmer rides across country to talk crops
and stock and take a friendly glass with Tobias; and now and
then a circus caravan with speckled ponies, or a menagerie with
a soggy elephant, halts under the swinging sign, on which there
is a dim mail-coach with four phantomish horses driven by a
portly gentleman whose head has been washed off by the rain.
Other customers there are none, except that one regular boarder
whom I have mentioned.
If misery makes a man acquainted with strange bed-fellows,
it is equally certain that the profession of surveyor and civil
engineer often takes one into undreamed-of localities. I had
never heard of Greenton until my duties sent me there, and kept
me there two weeks in the dreariest season of the year. I do
not think I would, of my own volition, have selected Greenton
for a fortnight's sojourn at any time; but now the business is
over, I shall never regret the circumstances that made me the
guest of Tobias Sewell, and brought me into intimate relations
with Miss Mehetabel's Son.
It was a black October night in the year of grace 1872, that
discovered me standing in front of the old tavern at the Corners.
Though the ten miles' ride from K— had been depressing,
especially the last five miles, on account of the cold autumnal
rain that had set in, I felt a pang of regret on hearing the
rickety open wagon turn round in the road and roll off in the
darkness. There were no lights visible anywhere, and only for
the big, shapeless mass of something in front of me, which the
driver had said was the hotel, I should have fancied that I had
been set down by the roadside. I was wet to the skin and in
no amiable humor; and not being able to find bell-pull or
knocker, or even a door, I belabored the side of the house with
my heavy walking-stick. In a minute or two I saw a light
flickering somewhere aloft, then I heard the sound of a window
opening, followed by an exclamation of disgust as a blast of
a
wind extinguished the candle which had given me an instant-
aneous picture en silhouette of a man leaning out of a casement.
## p. 332 (#362) ############################################
332
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
"I say, what do you want, down there ? ” inquired an unpre-
possessing voice.
“I want to come in; I want a supper, and a bed, and num-
berless things. ”
“This isn't no time of night to go rousing honest folks out
of their sleep. Who are you, anyway? ”
The question, superficially considered, was a very simple one,
and I, of all people in the world, ought to have been able to
answer it off-hand, but it staggered me. Strangely enough, there
came drifting across my memory the lettering on the back of a
metaphysical work which I had seen years before on a shelf in
the Astor Library. Owing to an unpremeditatedly funny collo-
cation of title and author, the lettering read as follows:-“Who
am I? Jones.
”
Evidently it had puzzled Jones to know who
he was, or he wouldn't have written a book about it, and come
to so lame and impotent a conclusion. It certainly puzzled me
at that instant to define my identity. « Thirty years ago,
I
reflected, "I was nothing; fifty years hence I shall be nothing
again, humanly speaking. In the mean time, who am I, sure
enough ? ” It had never before occurred to me what an indefinite
article I was. I wish it had not occurred to me then. Standing
there in the rain and darkness, I wrestled vainly with the prob-
lem, and was constrained to fall back upon a Yankee expedient.
“Isn't this a hotel ? ” I asked finally.
“Well, it is a sort of hotel,” said the voice, doubtfully. My
hesitation and prevarication had apparently not inspired my inter-
locutor with confidence in me.
« Then let me in. I have 'just driven over from K- in
this infernal rain. I am wet through and through. ”
“But what do you want here, at the Corners ?
business? People don't come here, leastways in the middle of
the night. ”
“It isn't in the middle of the night," I returned, incensed.
"I come
on business connected with the new road. I'm the
superintendent of the works. ”
“Oh! ”
"And if you don't open the door at once, I'll raise the whole
neighborhood -- and then go to the other hotel. ”
When I said that, I supposed Greenton was a village with a
population of at least three or four thousand, and was wonder-
ing vaguely at the absence of lights and other signs of human
What's your
## p. 333 (#363) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
333
habitation. Surely, I thought, all the people cannot be abed and
asleep at half past ten o'clock: perhaps I am in the business
section of the town, among the shops.
"You jest wait,” said the voice above.
This request was not devoid of a certain accent of menace,
and I braced myself for a sortie on the part of the besieged, if
he had any such hostile intent. Presently a door opened at the
very place where I least expected a door, at the farther end of
the building, in fact, and a man in his shirt-sleeves, shielding a
candle with his left hand, appeared on the threshold. I passed
quickly into the house, with Mr. Tobias Sewell (for this was
Mr. Sewell) at my heels, and found myself in a long, low-
studded bar-room.
There were two chairs drawn up before the hearth, on which
a huge hemlock back-log was still smoldering, and on the un-
painted deal counter contiguous stood two cloudy glasses with
bits of lemon-peel in the bottom, hinting at recent libations.
Against the discolored wall over the bar hung a yellowed hand-
bill, in a warped frame, announcing that “the Next Annual
N. H. Agricultural Fair” would take place on the 10th of Sep-
tember, 1841. There. was no other furniture or decoration in
this dismal apartment, except the cobwebs which festooned the
ceiling, hanging down here and there like stalactites.
Mr. Sewell set the candlestick on the mantel-shelf, and threw
some pine-knots on the fire, which immediately broke into a
blaze, and showed him to be a lank, narrow-chested man, past
sixty, with sparse, steel-gray hair, and small, deep-set eyes, per-
fectly round, like a fish's, and of no particular color. His chief
personal characteristics seemed to be too much feet and not
enough teeth. His sharply cut, but rather simple face, as he
turned it towards me, wore a look of interrogation. I replied to
his mute inquiry by taking out my pocket-book and handing him
my business-card, which he held up to the candle and perused
with great deliberation.
« You're a civil engineer, are you? ” he said, displaying his
gums, which gave his countenance an expression of almost infant-
ile innocence. He made no further audible remark, but mum-
bled between his thin lips something which an imaginative person
might have construed into, "If you're a civil engineer, I'll be
blessed if I wouldn't like to see an uncivil one! »
Mr. Sewell's growl, however, was worse than his bite, - owing
to his lack of teeth, probably — for he very good-naturedly set
## p. 334 (#364) ############################################
334
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
To my
(C
himself to work preparing supper for me. After a slice of cold
ham, and a warm punch, to which my chilled condition gave a
grateful flavor, I went to bed in a distant chamber in a most
amiable mood, feeling satisfied that Jones was a donkey to
bother himself about his identity.
When I awoke, the sun was several hours high.
My bed
faced a window, and by raising myself on one elbow I could
look out on what I expected would be the main street.
astonishment I beheld a lonely country road winding up a sterile
hill and disappearing over the ridge. In a cornfield at the right
of the road was a small private graveyard, inclosed by a crum-
bling stone wall with a red gate. The only thing suggestive of
life was this little corner lot occůpied by death. I got out of
bed and went to the other window. There I had an uninter-
rupted view of twelve miles of open landscape, with Mount
Agamenticus in the purple distance. Not a house or a spire in
sight. “Well, I exclaimed, "Greenton doesn't appear to be a
very closely packed metropolis! ” That rival hotel with which I
had threatened Mr. Sewell overnight was not a deadly weapon,
looking at it by daylight. "By Jove! ” I reflected, maybe I'm
in the wrong place. ” But there, tacked against a panel of the
bedroom door, was a faded time-table dated Greenton, August
ist, 1839
I smiled all the time I was dressing, and went smiling down-
stairs, where I found Mr. Sewell, assisted by one of the fair sex
in the first bloom of her eightieth year, serving breakfast for
me on a small table — in the bar-room!
"I overslept myself this morning," I remarked apologetically,
and I see that I am putting you to some trouble. In future,
if you will have me called, I will take my meals at the usual
table d'hôte. ”
“At the what ? ” said Mr. Sewell.
“I mean with the other boarders. ”
Mr. Sewell paused in the act of lifting a chop from the fire,
and, resting the point of his fork against the woodwork of the
mantel-piece, grinned from ear to ear.
“Bless you! there isn't any other boarders. There hasn't
been anybody put up here sence - let me see
sence father-in-
law died, and that was in the fall of '40. To be sure, there's
Silas; he's a regular boarder: but I don't count him. ”
Mr. Sewell then explained how the tavern had lost its custom
when the old stage line was broken up by the railroad. The
(c
## p. 335 (#365) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
335
»
>
introduction of steam was, in Mr. Sewell's estimation, a fatal
error. "Jest killed local business. Carried it off, I'm darned if
I know where. The whole country has been sort o' retrograding
.
ever sence steam was invented. »
“You spoke of having one boarder," I said.
« Silas ? Yes; he come here the summer 'Tilda died — she
that was 'Tilda Bayley—and he's here yet, going on thirteen
year. He couldn't live any longer with the old man. Between
you and I, old Clem Jaffrey, Silas's father, was a hard nut.
Yes,” said Mr. Sewell, crooking his elbow in inimitable panto-
mime, altogether too often. Found dead in the road hugging
a three-gallon demijohn. Habeas corpus in the barn,” added Mr.
Sewell, intending, I presume, to intimate that a post-mortem
examination had been deemed necessary. «Silas,” he resumed,
in that respectful tone which one should always adopt when speak-
ing of capital, “is a man of considerable property; lives on his
interest, and keeps a hoss and shay. He's a great scholar, too,
Silas: takes all the pe-ri-odicals and the Police Gazette regular. ”
Mr. Sewell was turning over a third chop, when the door
opened and a stoutish, middle-aged little gentleman, clad in deep
black, stepped into the room.
«Silas Jaffrey,” said Mr. Sewell, with a comprehensive sweep
of his arm, picking up me and the new-comer on one fork, so to
speak. Be acquainted! ”
Mr. Jaffrey advanced briskly, and gave me his hand with
unlooked-for cordiality. He was a dapper little man, with a
a
head as round and nearly as bald as an orange, and not unlike
an orange in complexion, either; he had twinkling gray eyes and
a pronounced Roman nose, the numerous freckles upon which
were deepened by his funereal dress-coat and trousers. He
reminded me of Alfred de Musset's blackbird, which, with its
yellow beak and sombre plumage, looked like an undertaker
eating an omelet.
“Silas will take care of you,” said Mr. Sewell, taking down
his hat from a peg behind the door. "I've got the cattle to look
after. Tell him if you want anything. ”
While I ate my breakfast, Mr. Jaffrey hopped up and down
the narrow bar-room and chirped away as blithely as a bird on a
cherry-bough, occasionally ruffling with his fingers a slight fringe
of auburn hair which stood up pertly round his head and seemed
to possess a luminous quality of its own.
»
(
## p. 336 (#366) ############################################
336
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
«Don't I find it a little slow up here at the Corners ? Not at
all, my dear sir. I am in the thick of life up here.
So many
interesting things going on all over the world— inventions, dis-
coveries, spirits, railroad disasters, mysterious homicides. Poets,
murderers, musicians, statesmen, distinguished travelers, prodi-
gies of all kinds turning up everywhere. Very few events or
persons escape me. I take six daily city papers, thirteen weekly
journals, all the monthly magazines, and two quarterlies. I
could not get along with less. couldn't if you asked me. I
never feel lonely. How can I, being on intimate terms, as it
were, with thousands and thousands of people ? There's that
young woman out West.
What an entertaining creature she
is! — now in Missouri, now in Indiana, and now in Minnesota,
always on the go, and all the time shedding needles from vari-
ous parts of her body as if she really enjoyed it! Then there's
that versatile patriarch who walks hundreds of miles and saws
thousands of feet of wood, before breakfast, and shows no signs
of giving out. Then there's that remarkable, one may say that
historical colored woman who knew Benjamin Franklin, and
fought at the battle of Bunk — no, it is the old negro man who
fought at Bunker Hill, a mere infant, of course, at that period.
Really, now, it is quite curious to observe how that venerable
female slave — formerly an African princess — is repeatedly dying
in her hundred and eleventh year, and coming to life again
punctually every six months in the small-type paragraphs. Are
you aware, sir, that within the last twelve years no fewer than
two hundred and eighty-seven of General Washington's colored
coachmen have died ? »
For the soul of me I could not tell whether this quaint little
gentleman was chaffing me or not. I laid down my knife and
fork, and stared at him.
« Then there are the mathematicians! ” he cried vivaciously,
without waiting for a reply. "I take great interest in them.
Hear this! " and Mr. Jaffrey drew a newspaper from a pocket in
the tail of his coat, and read as follows:-" It has been estimated
that if all the candles manufactured by this eminent firm (Stear-
ine & Co. ) were placed end to end, they would reach 2 and 7-8
times around the globe. Of course,” continued Mr. Jaffrey, fold-
ing up the journal reflectively, “abstruse calculations of this
kind are not, perhaps, of vital importance, but they indicate
the intellectual activity of the age. Seriously, now," he said,
## p. 337 (#367) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
337
(
halting in front of the table, “what with books and papers and
drives about the country, I do not find the days too long,
though I seldom
see any one, except when I
go over to
K- for my mail. Existence may be very full to a man who
stands a little aside from the tumult and watches it with philo-
sophic eye. Possibly he may see more of the battle than those
who are in the midst of the action. Once I was struggling with
the crowd, as eager and undaunted as the best; perhaps I should
have been struggling still. Indeed, I know my life would have
been very different now if I had married Mehetabel — if I had
married Mehetabel. ”
His vivacity was gone, a sudden cloud had come over his
bright face, his figure seemed to have collapsed, the light
seemed to have faded out of his hair. With a shuffling step,
the very antithesis of his brisk, elastic tread, he turned to the
door and passed into the road.
“Well,” I said to myself, if Greenton had forty thousand
inhabitants, it couldn't turn out a more astonishing old party
than that! ”
II
THE CASE OF SILAS JAFFREY
A MAN with a passion for bric-à-brac is always stumbling over
antique bronzes, intaglios, mosaics, and daggers of the time of
Benvenuto Cellini; the bibliophile finds creamy Vellum folios
and rare Alduses and Elzevirs waiting for him at unsuspected
bookstalls; the numismatist has but to stretch forth his palm
to have priceless coins drop into it. My own weakness is odd
people, and I am constantly encountering them. It was plain
that I had unearthed a couple of very queer specimens at
I
Bayley's Four-Corners. I saw that a fortnight afforded me too
brief an opportunity to develop the richness of both, and I
resolved to devote my spare time to Mr. Jaffrey alone, instinct-
ively recognizing in him an unfamiliar species. My professional
work in the vicinity of Greenton left my evenings and occas-
ionally an afternoon unoccupied; these intervals I purposed to
employ in studying and classifying my fellow-boarder.
necessary, as a preliminary step, to learn something of his
previous history, and to this end I addressed myself to Mr.
Sewell that same night.
It was
1-22
## p. 338 (#368) ############################################
338
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
(
“I do not want to seem inquisitive,” I said to the landlord,
as he was fastening up the bar, which, by the way, was the
salle à manger and general sitting-room — "I do not want to
seem inquisitive, but your friend Mr. Jaffrey dropped a remark
this morning at breakfast which – which was not altogether
clear to me. "
«About Mehetabel ? ” asked Mr. Sewell, uneasily.
Yes. ”
“Well, I wish he wouldn't! »
"He was friendly enough in the course of conversation to
hint to me that he had not married the young woman, and
seemed to regret it. ”
“No, he didn't marry Mehetabel. ”
“May I inquire why he didn't marry Mehetabel ? »
“Never asked her. Might have married the girl forty times.
Old Elkins's daughter, over at K—, She'd have had him
quick enough. Seven years, off and on, he kept company with
Mehetabel, and then she died. ”
“And he never asked her ? »
“He shilly-shallied. Perhaps he didn't think of it. When
she was dead and gone, then Silas was struck all of a heap-
and that 's all about it. ”
Obviously Mr. Sewell did not intend to tell me anything
more, and obviously there was more to tell.
The topic was
plainly disagreeable to him for some reason or other, and that
unknown reason of course piqued my curiosity.
As I was absent from dinner and supper that day, I did not
meet Mr. Jaffrey again until the following morning at break-
fast. He had recovered his bird-like manner, and was full of
a mysterious assassination that had just taken place in New
York, all the thrilling details of which were at his fingers' ends.
It was at once comical and sad to see this harmless old gen-
tleman, with his naïve, benevolent countenance, and his thin
hair flaming up in a semicircle, like the footlights at a theatre,
reveling in the intricacies of the unmentionable deed.
«You come up to my room to-night,” he cried, with horrid
glee, and I'll give you my theory of the murder. I'll make it
as clear as day to you that it was the detective himself who
fired the three pistol-shots. ”
It was not so much the desire to have this point elucidated
as to make a closer study of Mr. Jaffrey that led me to accept
## p. 339 (#369) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
339
his invitation. Mr. Jaffrey's bedroom was in an L of the
building, and was in no way noticeable except for the numer-
ous files of newspapers neatly arranged against the blank
spaces of the walls, and a huge pile of old magazines which
stood in one corner, reaching nearly up to the ceiling, and
threatening to topple over each instant, like the Leaning Tower
at Pisa. There were green paper shades at the windows, some
faded chintz valances about the bed, and two or three easy-
chairs covered with chintz. On a black-walnut shelf between
the windows lay a choice collection of meerschaum and brier-
wood pipes.
Filling one of the chocolate-colored bowls for me and an-
other for himself, Mr. Jaffrey began prattling; but not about
the murder, which appeared to have flown out of his mind. In
fact, I do not remember that the topic was even touched upon,
either then or afterwards.
« Cozy nest this,” said Mr. Jaffrey, glancing complacently
over the apartment. “What is more cheerful, now, in the fall
of the year, than an open wood-fire ? Do you hear those little
chirps and twitters coming out of that piece of apple-wood ?
Those are the ghosts of the robins and bluebirds that sang
upon the bough when it was in blossom last spring.
In sum-
mer whole flocks of them come fluttering about the fruit-trees
under the window: so I have singing birds all the year round.
I take it very easy here, I can tell you, summer and winter.
Not much society. Tobias is not, perhaps, what one would
term a great intellectual force, but he means well. He's a
realist - believes in coming down to what he calls the hardpan’;
but his heart is in the right place, and he's very kind to me.
The wisest thing I ever did in my life was to sell out my grain
business over at K- thirteen years ago, and settle down at
the Corners. When a man has made a competency, what does
he want more? Besides, at that time an event occurred which
destroyed any ambition I may have had. Mehetabel died. ”
«The lady you were engaged to ? ”
«N-o, not precisely engaged. I think it was quite under-
stood between us, though nothing had been said on the subject.
Typhoid,” added Mr. Jaffrey, in a low voice.
For several minutes he smoked in silence, a vague, troubled
look playing over his countenance. Presently this passed away,
and he fixed his gray eyes speculatively upon my face.
>
>>
## p. 340 (#370) ############################################
340
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
(C
“If I had married Mehetabel,” said Mr. Jaffrey, slowly, and
then he hesitated. I blew a ring of smoke into the air, and,
resting my pipe on my knee, dropped into an attitude of
attention. "If I had married Mehetabel, you know, we should
have had -ahem! -- a family. ”
“Very likely,” I assented, vastly amused at this unexpected
turn.
“A Boy! ” exclaimed Mr. Jaffrey, explosively.
“By all means, certainly, a son. ”
«Great trouble about naming the boy. Mehetabel's family
want him named Elkanah Elkins, after her grandfather; I want
him named Andrew Jackson. We compromise by christening
him Elkanah Elkins Andrew Jackson Jaffrey. Rather a long
name for such a short little fellow,” said Mr. Jaffrey, musingly.
Andy isn't a bad nickname,” I suggested.
« Not at all. We call him Andy, in the family. Somewhat
fractious at first-colic and things. I suppose it is right, or it
wouldn't be so; but the usefulness of measles, mumps, croup,
whooping-cough, scarlatina, and fits is not clear to the parental
eye. I wish Andy would be a model infant, and dodge the
whole lot. ”
This suppositious child, born within the last few minutes,
was plainly assuming the proportions of a reality to Mr. Jaffrey.
I began to feel a little uncomfortable. I am, as I have said, a
civil engineer, and it is not strictly in my line to assist at the
births of infants, imaginary or otherwise. I pulled away vigor-
ously at the pipe, and said nothing.
"What large blue eyes he has,” resumed Mr. Jaffrey, after
a pause; “just like Hetty's; and the fair hair, too, like hers.
How oddly certain distinctive features are handed down in
families! Sometimes a mouth, sometimes a turn of the eye-
brow. Wicked little boys over at K— have now and then
derisively advised me to follow my nose. It would be an inter-
esting thing to do. I should find my nose flying about the
world, turning up unexpectedly here and there, dodging this
branch of the family and reappearing in that, now jumping
over one great-grandchild to fasten itself upon another, and
never losing its individuality. Look at Andy. There's Elkanah
Elkins's chin to the life. Andy's chin is probably older than
the Pyramids. Poor little thing,” he cried, with sudden inde-
scribable tenderness, “to lose his mother so early! ” And Mr.
## p. 341 (#371) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
341
come
Jaffrey's head sunk upon his breast, and his shoulders slanted
forward, as if he were actually bending over the cradle of the
child. The whole gesture and attitude was so natural that it
startled me. The pipe slipped from my fingers and fell to the
floor.
“Hush! ” whispered Mr. Jaffrey, with a deprecating motion
of his hand. “Andy's asleep! ”
He rose softly from the chair, and walking across the room
on tiptoe, drew down the shade at the window through which
the moonlight was streaming. Then he returned to his seat,
and remained gazing with half-closed eyes into the dropping
embers.
I refilled my pipe and smoked in profound silence, wonder-
ing what would
next. But nothing came next. Mr.
Jaffrey had fallen into so brown a study that, a quarter of an
hour afterwards, when I wished him good-night and withdrew,
I do not think he noticed my departure.
I am not what is called a man of imagination; it is my
habit to exclude most things not capable of mathematical
demonstration: but I am not without a certain psychological
insight, and I think I understood Mr. Jaffrey's case. I could
easily understand how a with an unhealthy, sensitive
nature, overwhelmed by sudden calamity, might take refuge in
some forlorn place like this old tavern, and dream his life
away. To such a man – brooding forever on what might have
-
been, and dwelling wholly in the realm of his fancies— the
actual world might indeed become as a dream, and nothing
seem real but his illusions. I dare say that thirteen years of
Bayley's Four-Corners would have its effect upon me; though
instead of conjuring up golden-haired children of the Madonna,
I should probably see gnomes and kobolds, and goblins engaged
in hoisting false signals and misplacing switches for midnight
express trains.
“No doubt," I said to myself that night, as I lay in bed,
thinking over the matter, “this once possible but now impos-
sible child is a great comfort to the old gentleman, –a greater
comfort, perhaps, than a real son would be. Maybe Andy will
vanish with the shades and mists of night, he's such an unsub-
stantial infant; but if he doesn't, and Mr. Jaffrey finds pleasure
in talking to me about his son, I shall humor the old fellow.
It wouldn't be a Christian act to knock over his harmless fancy. "
man
(
## p. 342 (#372) ############################################
342
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
((
I was very impatient to see if Mr. Jaffrey's illusion would
stand the test of daylight. It did. Elkanah Elkins Andrew
Jackson Jaffrey was, so to speak, alive and kicking the next
morning On taking his seat at the breakfast-table, Mr. Jaffrey
whispered to me that Andy had had a comfortable night.
«Silas! ” said Mr. Sewell, sharply, “what are you whispering
about ? »
Mr. Sewell was in an ill humor; perhaps he was jealous
because I had passed the evening in Mr. Jaffrey's room; but
surely Mr. Sewell could not expect his boarders to go to bed at
eight o'clock every night, as he did. From time to time during
the meal Mr. Sewell regarded me unkindly out of the corner of
his eye, and in helping me to the parsnips he poniarded them
with quite a suggestive air. All this, however, did not prevent
me from repairing to the door of Mr. Jaffrey's snuggery when
night came.
"Well, Mr. Jaffrey, how's Andy this evening ? »
“Got a tooth! » cried Mr. Jaffrey, vivaciously.
“No!
“Yes, he has! Just through. Give the nurse a silver dollar.
Standing reward for first tooth. ”
It was on the tip of my tongue to express surprise that an
infant a day old should cut a tooth, when I suddenly recollected
that Richard III. was born with teeth. Feeling myself to be on
unfamiliar ground, I suppressed my criticism. It was well I
did so, for in the next breath I was advised that half a year
had elapsed since the previous evening.
“Andy's had a hard six months of it,” said Mr. Jaffrey, with
the well-known narrative air of fathers. "We've brought him
up by hand.
His grandfather, by the way, was brought up by
the bottle and brought down by it, too, I added mentally,
»
I ,
recalling Mr. Sewell's account of the old gentleman's tragic
end.
Mr. Jaffrey then went on to give me a history of Andy's
first six months, omitting no detail however insignificant or
irrelevant. This history I would in turn inflict upon the reader,
if I were only certain that he is one of those dreadful parents
who, under the ægis of friendship, bore you at a street-corner
with that remarkable thing which Freddy said the other day,
and insist on singing to you, at an evening party, the Iliad of
Tommy's woes.
## p. 343 (#373) ############################################
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
343
But to inflict this enfantillage upon the unmarried reader
would be an act of wanton cruelty. So I pass over that part
of Andy's biography, and for the same reason make no record
of the next four or five interviews I had with Mr. Jaffrey.
It
will be sufficient to state that Andy glided from extreme
infancy to early youth with astonishing celerity — at the rate
of one year per night, if I remember correctly; and — must I
confess it ? — before the week came to an end, this invisible
hobgoblin of a boy was only little less of a reality to me than
to Mr. Jaffrey.
At first I had lent myself to the old dreamer's whim with a
keen perception of the humor of the thing; but by and by I
found that I was talking and thinking of Miss Mehetabel's son
as though he were a veritable personage. Mr. Jaffrey spoke of
the child with such an air of conviction ! as if Andy were
playing among his toys in the next room, or making mud-
pies down in the yard. In these conversations, it should be
observed, the child was never supposed to be present, except
on that single occasion when Mr. Jaffrey leaned over the
cradle. After one of our séances I would lie awake until the
small hours, thinking of the boy, and then fall asleep only to
have indigestible dreams about him. Through the day, and
sometimes in the midst of complicated calculations, I would
catch myself wondering what Andy was up to now! There was
no shaking him off; he became an inseparable nightmare to me;
and I felt that if I remained much longer at Bayley's Four-
Corners I should turn into just such another bald-headed, mild-
eyed visionary as Silas Jaffrey.
Then the tavern was a grewsome old shell any way, full of
unaccountable noises after dark — rustlings of garments along
unfrequented passages, and stealthy footfalls in unoccupied
chambers overhead. I never knew of an old house without
these mysterious noises. Next to my bedroom was a musty,
dismantled apartment, in one corner of which, leaning against
the wainscot, was a crippled mangle, with its iron crank tilted
in the air like the elbow of the late Mr. Clem Jaffrey. Some.
times,
«In the dead vast and middle of the night,
I used to hear sounds as if some one were turning that rusty
crank on
the sly. This occurred only on particularly cold
## p. 344 (#374) ############################################
344
THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH
nights, and I conceived the uncomfortable idea that it was the
thin family ghosts, from the neglected graveyard in the corn-
field, keeping themselves warm by running each other through
the mangle. There was a haunted air about the whole place
that made it easy for me to believe in the existence of a phan-
tasm like Miss Mehetabel's son, who, after all, was less un-
earthly than Mr. Jaffrey himself, and seemed more properly an
inhabitant of this globe than the toothless ogre who kept the
inn, not to mention the silent Witch of Endor that cooked our
meals for us over the bar-room fire.
In spite of the scowls and winks bestowed upon me by Mr.
Sewell, who let slip no opportunity to testify his disapprobation
of the intimacy, Mr. Jaffrey and I spent all our evenings to-
gether— those long autumnal evenings, through the length of
which he talked about the boy, laying out his path in life and
hedging the path with roses. He should be sent to the High
School at Portsmouth, and then to college; he should be edu-
cated like a gentleman, Andy.
“When the old man dies,” remarked Mr. Jaffrey one night,
rubbing his hands gleefully, as if it were a great joke, “Andy
will find that the old man has left him a pretty plum.
