Short Stories, - [books to read fiction .txt] 📗

Bear City—or what the scarcely more important bustle that the whole round earth makes as it spins. Six months back the “Professor” had landed in this rude mining-town of the Sierras. Gaunt, middle-aged, travel-stained and timid was this waif and stray of art, blown by some ironical wind hither. Under one arm was a music portfolio; hanging to the other, a daughter. Nevertheless, Professor Jovanny made his advent in a smiling hour for his fortunes. Between Dennison, proprietor of the Cosmopolitan, and the newcomer an out-of-hand bargain was struck in very Western English and very badly mangled Italian ditto that was satisfactory to both parties. Professor Jovanny abode in Yellow Bear and won reputation. Whether he had ever tried his hand at other music than the festive waltz, jig and walk-around is open to doubt. But certain it was that he played everything of that stamp with such irresistible vigor and spirit that the Cosmopolitan outrivaled all its compeers apace, and the mirth and fun of its nightly revels (termed upon Sundays, out of deference to religious scruples, “grand sacred concerts”) waxed nightly more fast and furious. As for the daughter, one single relic of her father’s early refinement asserted itself on her behalf, namely, that not one of the Yellow Bear species-male could truly say that he knew her. Rioba Jack, Dennison of the Cosmopolitan, “Mister” (whose sobriquet was the derisive contraction of one lone visiting card unfortunately discovered among the effects of Mr. James Thornborough Harrington, formerly of the State of Maine), nor any of their fraternity, had been able to get the advantage of this mortifying dilemma. The girl was hardly ever seen upon the street, so jealous was her father’s watchfulness. In time Rioba Jack and the rest of them came to respect this position. That is, they ceased to combat it actively. “After all,” remarked some one, during a discussion of the topic, “it ain’t a bad idea to have one real woman in this here town.” There happened to be a considerable female contingent already in Yellow Bear society, so the remark last quoted evinced a good deal of nice discrimination on the speaker’s part.

It was not until evening that, with the session of the wonted parliament around the Cosmopolitan bar, the proposition to inter Professor Jovanny with civic honors took shape. The full quorum was present in that hospitable retreat. Distilled liquors flowed, albeit no dance was forthcoming. Rioba Jack rose to address the company. “It appears to me,” said that gentleman, covering both his awkwardness as orator and his mouth with a tumbler, when desirable—“it appears to me that we had ought—that in view of his position in Yellow Bear—that we had ought to give Professor Jovanny his funeral.” “My sentiments,” interrupted an approving voice, promptly. Rioba Jack continued: “He hain’t left nothin’ worth chattering about, except the gal, and all gals ain’t cash. Jovanny was a artist way above tide-level—there ain’t no mistake about that. Talk about your celluloid-clawyers! Talk about your Dumb Toms! Talk of your—of your scales,” the Rioba concluded hastily, suddenly realizing that he was drifting among breakers in any rash employment of technical terms, “unless a man had heerd Jovanny rattlin’ ‘Where was Moses,’ in this here hotel, he hadn’t never heerd no genuine tunin’ up at all. I say, we had ought to give Jovanny a big time.”

The chorus of approval came fortissimo.

“I move that Rioba Jack be app’inted a committee of one to wait on deceased and ask his gal if the notion jumps with her feelin’s, like as it were.” This suggestion from a distant quarter, however mixed, was to the point. It was carried. Every man present felt equal to himself undertaking this preliminary; but this was no time for permitting personal interests to dam the current of popular feeling. Rioba Jack strode from the barroom. Applause and suggestion swelled behind his back. “Make it a square out-and-out show.” “Borry the Methodist’s gospel stamp.” “Pay an entrance fee for the benefit of the gal.” “Embalm the corpse!” and the like, were distinguishable among these. High over all the tumult broke the stentorian voice of Dennison of the Cosmopolitan, commanding order and enforcing the same by the handle of his knife applied vigorously to a tumbler. Finally some settled plan of action crystalized. A “square funeral” Professor Jovanny should have. His body should “lay in state” for the whole of the ensuing day—on the piano in the adjoining dance-room—that piano which had so often been shaken to its center beneath the defunct’s nimble fingers. “Mister’s” proposal of an admission fee—for gentlemen only—was accepted. The entire male population of Yellow Bear City was to be duly invited to appear and “view the remains” for the modest sum of one dollar, during any hour of the morrow’s daylight most suited to individual convenience. A brass band had not yet been organised in Yellow Bear, or it would unquestionably have been provided. A free bar was—of course. At nightfall Professor Jovanny should be buried with all the mortuary pomp practicable.

Rioba Jack was greeted eagerly upon his return. “It’s all right,” responded that worthy, composedly resuming his seat. “Go ahead, all hands! I didn’t see the gal, but Big Jinny and Pearl Kate are settin’ round with her, and they give her the message. Jinny says its all right. We can go ahead.”

The Rioba was fully posted on the progress of affairs during his absence. The idea of Professor Jovanny’s “laying in state” upon the old piano alone drew forth his contempt in round terms; which, although they betrayed surprising acquaintance with scriptural phraseology, were by no means pious. “D—— any such half-way style as that,” he ended, explosively; “What I say is, buy the old tune-box from Dennison and bury Jovanny in it!” The uproar that greeted this novel proposal, like Prospero’s tale, might have cured deafness. Naturally, each person present promptly claimed to have thought of it himself—and rejected it unuttered. Dennison announced his entire willingness to dispose of the widowed instrument at a reasonable figure. There was a unanimous rush into the long dance-room adjoining. Away flew the emblems of grief dangling about the object of special inspection. Its cover was laid off, bodily, in a twinkling. Its length, its depth, its available breadth and strength of bottom were excitedly ascertained. It was bought within ten minutes by a lavish collection, Dennison mentioning a price that certainly showed him to be an astute man in recognizing a commercial opportunity. Thereupon did the whole roomful resolve itself into a committee on destruction. Alas! what soft-hearted story-teller can dwell upon the unholy hammering and cleaving, the ruthless hacking and smashing which ended in making visible for weeks thereafter in the back yard of the Cosmopolitan a hideous wreck of tangled steel wire, white and black keys and splinters of sounding-board—in a word, the entrails of the murdered piano?

By ten o’clock the work was fairly done. The crowd had departed, and only Dennison, Rioba Jack and “Mister” now remained in the long dance-room. Dennison was smoking, as he leaned against one end of his late piece of property. “Mister,” with bared arms, diligently rubbed oil over sundry scratches upon its case. Rioba Jack was strengthening with hammer and nails some weak spot beneath. The flaring light from a couple of oil lamps on the side of the wall brought out strong shadows on the three dark, heavily-mustached faces. Neither of the trio broke the silence for a few moments. Presently the Rioba emerged from his close quarters and began hammering at the end opposite to Dennison. He looked up. “What’s goin’ to become of the gal?” he queried, abruptly; “Yellow Bear ain’t no place for a decent one like her, ’specially if she’s left alone in it.”

“Oh, I’ve fixed that,” replied Dennison, leisurely, “Mother Sal’s a-goin’ to take keer of her till she can do for herself.”

The Rioba dropped his lathe-nail and stopped his pounding. “Mother Sal,” he repeated—“Mother Sal around on San Monito street?”

“Yes! who else?”

Rioba Jack quietly turned and slipped on his coat.

“Dennison,” he said, with an unwonted accent of expostulation lurking in his voice, “don’t do this thing. Keep your hand out of deviltry for once—leastways such deviltry as this. I don’t know Jovanny’s gal. I hain’t hardly ever seen her. ’Taint for myself I’m askin’ it—but just you let her alone. Won’t you?”

Dennison had removed his pipe from his mouth for good now. He stood staring angrily at the Rioba, whose clear, dark eyes under their bushy brows were fixed with unwonted brilliancy upon his own. The proprietor of the Cosmopolitan burst into a rude laugh. “What’s the matter with the man?” he ejaculated. Then returning the Rioba’s steadfast gaze with an equally pertinacious and meaning one, he answered with much deliberateness, “Look-a-here, Rioba, I suppose I can take a hint if I must—especially when it’s rammed down into my skull as this one appears to be. You and me has got along without trouble for ever since we come to Yellow Bear. I should be sorry, very sorry, to be obleeged to have any unpleasantness between us now. I always feel bound to have unpleasantness with any man, partner or stranger, who interferes with my own partic’ler concerns. Do you take?”

The Rioba made no direct reply. He stood with his eyes bent upon the floor abstractedly. Nevertheless he “took.” “Good-night, Dennison—good-night, ‘Mister,’” he suddenly said, and turning abruptly upon his heel he quitted the Cosmopolitan without another syllable.

The gray Nevada dawn was beginning to filter between the sharp Sierra peaks. Yellow Bear looked like a sketch in India-ink on gray paper. Around the corner of the Cosmopolitan came a little procession not irreverently conveying upon a shutter something over which a sheet had been loosely spread. The air was raw and cold. “Careful—that’s it—steady now,” cautioned Dennison in a low voice as they mounted the Cosmopolitan doorstep. “Mister,” Rioba Jack, Big Jinny, and Pearl Kate set down their burden at the upper end of the dance-room. “Come gals, fly round,” exhorted Dennison, “there’s all the bar to be set up across there—them windows has got to be darkened up—there ain’t no time to waste. ‘Mister’ and me’ll tend to our share of the performance.” “I say, Jinny,” questioned the Rioba sotto voce to that Paphian nymph a moment later, when Dennison and “Mister” were engaged at a distance, “you left her asleep, eh?” (There had, by the way, been no allusion from either party concerned as to the embryo “unpleasantness” of the preceding night—again to “Mister’s” secret regret). “Sound, Jack—just like she was dead drunk,” responded Big Jinny, cheerfully, pounding away with her hammer at the window-sash. Her interrogator frowned. The answer somehow gritted against his dormant sense of the fitting. Big Jinny drove another tack and began to whistle.

A little later a magnificent eastern flare of pink and gold fell through the one window yet undarkened upon the face of Professor Jovanny, peacefully upturned from his last pillow—a roll of his own thumbed dance-music wrapped about with a white bar napkin. A moth-eaten knitted lap-robe was thrown across his feet. Dressed in his one threadbare black suit—a pile of his own music beneath the forlorn gray head—truly here went one to the grave with all that he possessed—except a daughter.

Dennison, the Rioba, “Mister” and the women stood for a moment motionless beside the body—their tasks completed.

“A becomin’ caskit, altogether,” exclaimed the proprietor of the Cosmopolitan, eyeing it critically.

“There’s somethin’ wanting all the same,” quoth “Mister,” after the continued pause had grown oppressive.

“Wantin’,” retorted Dennison; “I’d like to know what it is. Look at them there flags over the windows! Look at that there bar, where all that a man’s got to do is to walk up, after he’s paid his dollar, and help himself or let Pearl and Jinny here help him! Look at this