If you had
seen little Jo standing at the street corner in the rain, you would hardly have
admired him. It was apparently an ordinary autumn rainstorm, but the water
which fell upon Jo (who was hardly old enough to be either just or unjust, and
so perhaps did not come under the law of impartial distribution) appeared to
have some property peculiar to itself: one would have said it was dark and
adhesive - sticky. But that could hardly be so, even in Blackburg, where things
certainly did occur that were a good deal out of the common.
For
example, ten or twelve years before, a shower of small frogs had fallen, as is
credibly attested by a contemporaneous chronicle, the record concluding with a
somewhat obscure statement to the effect that the chronicler considered it good
growing-weather for Frenchmen.
Some
years later Blackburg had a fall of crimson snow; it is cold in Blackburg when
winter is on, and the snows are frequent and deep. There can be no doubt of it
- the snow in this instance was of the colour of blood and melted into water of
the same hue, if water it was, not blood. The phenomenon had attracted wide
attention, and science had as many explanations as there were scientists who
knew nothing about it. But the men of Blackburg - men who for many years had
lived right there where the red snow fell, and might be supposed to know a good
deal about the matter - shook their heads and said something would come of it.
And
something did, for the next summer was made memorable by the prevalence of a
mysterious disease - epidemic, endemic, or the Lord knows what, though the
physicians didn't - which carried away a full half of the population. Most of
the other half carried themselves away and were slow to return, but finally
came back, and were now increasing and multiplying as before, but Blackburg had
not since been altogether the same.
Of
quite another kind, though equally 'out of the common,' was the incident of
Hetty Parlow's ghost. Hetty Parlow's maiden name had been Brownon, and in
Blackburg that meant more than one would think.
The
Brownons had from time immemorial - from the very earliest of the old colonial
days - been the leading family of the town. It was the richest and it was the
best, and Blackburg would have shed the last drop of its plebeian blood in
defence of the Brownon fair fame. As few of the family's members had ever been
known to live permanently away from Blackburg, although most of them were educated
elsewhere and nearly all had travelled, there was quite a number of them. The
men held most of the public offices, and the women were foremost in all good
works. Of these latter, Hetty was most beloved by reason of the sweetness of
her disposition, the purity of her character and her singular personal beauty.
She married in Boston a young scapegrace named Parlow, and like a good Brownon
brought him to Blackburg forthwith and made a man and a town councillor of him.
They had a child which they named Joseph and dearly loved, as was then the
fashion among parents in all that region. Then they died of the mysterious
disorder already mentioned, and at the age of one whole year Joseph set up as
an orphan.
Unfortunately
for Joseph the disease which had cut off his parents did not stop at that; it
went on and extirpated nearly the whole Brownon contingent and its allies by
marriage; and those who fled did not return. The tradition was broken, the
Brownon estates passed into alien hands, and the only Brownons remaining in
that place were underground in Oak Hill Cemetery, where, indeed, was a colony
of them powerful enough to resist the encroachment of surrounding tribes and
hold the best part of the grounds. But about the ghost:
One
night, about three years after the death of Hetty Parlow, a number of the young
people of Blackburg were passing Oak Hill Cemetery in a wagon - if you have
been there you will remember that the road to Greenton runs alongside it on the
south. They had been attending a May Day festival at Greenton; and that serves
to fix the date. Altogether there may have been a dozen, and a jolly party they
were, considering the legacy of gloom left by the town's recent sombre
experiences. As they passed the cemetery the man driving suddenly reined in his
team with an exclamation of surprise. It was sufficiently surprising, no doubt,
for just ahead, and almost at the roadside, though inside the cemetery, stood
the ghost of Hetty Parlow. There could be no doubt of it, for she had been
personally known to every youth and maiden in the party. That established the
thing's identity; its character as ghost was signified by all the customary
signs - the shroud, the long, undone hair, the 'far-away look' - everything.
This disquieting apparition was stretching out its arms toward the west, as if
in supplication for the evening star, which, certainly, was an alluring object,
though obviously out of reach. As they all sat silent (so the story goes) every
member of that party of merrymakers - they had merrymade on coffee and lemonade
only - distinctly heard that ghost call the name 'Joey, Joey!' A moment later
nothing was there. Of course one does not have to believe all that.
Now,
at that moment, as was afterward ascertained, Joey was wandering about in the
sagebrush on the opposite side of the continent, near Winnemucca, in the State
of Nevada. He had been taken to that town by some good persons distantly
related to his dead father, and by them adopted and tenderly cared for. But on
that evening the poor child had strayed from home and was lost in the desert.
His
after history is involved in obscurity and has gaps which conjecture alone can
fill. It is known that he was found by a family of Piute Indians, who kept the
little wretch with them for a time and then sold him - actually sold him for
money to a woman on one of the east-bound trains, at a station a long way from
Winnemucca. The woman professed to have made all manner of inquiries, but all
in vain: so, being childless and a widow, she adopted him herself. At this
point of his career Jo seemed to be getting a long way from the condition of
orphanage; the interposition of a multitude of parents between himself and that
woeful state promised him a long immunity from its disadvantages.
Mrs.
Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleveland, Ohio. But her adopted son did
not long remain with her. He was seen one afternoon by a policeman, new to that
beat, deliberately toddling away from her house, and being questioned answered
that he was 'a doin' home.' He must have travelled by rail, somehow, for three
days later he was in the town of Whiteville, which, as you know, is a long way
from Blackburg. His clothing was in pretty fair condition, but he was sinfully
dirty. Unable to give any account of himself he was arrested as a vagrant and
sentenced to imprisonment in the Infants' Sheltering Home - where he was
washed.
Jo
ran away from the Infants' Sheltering Home at Whiteville - just took to the
woods one day, and the Home knew him no more for ever.
We
find him next, or rather get back to him, standing forlorn in the cold autumn
rain at a suburban street corner in Blackburg; and it seems right to explain
now that the raindrops falling upon him there were really not dark and gummy;
they only failed to make his face and hands less so. Jo was indeed fearfully
and wonderfully besmirched, as by the hand of an artist. And the forlorn little
tramp had no shoes; his feet were bare, red, and swollen, and when he walked he
limped with both legs. As to clothing - ah, you would hardly have had the skill
to name any single garment that he wore, or say by what magic he kept it upon
him. That he was cold all over and all through did not admit of a doubt; he
knew it himself. Anyone would have been cold there that evening; but, for that
reason, no one else was there. How Jo came to be there himself, he could not
for the flickering little life of him have told, even if gifted with a
vocabulary exceeding a hundred words. From the way he stared about him one
could have seen that he had not the faintest notion of where (nor why) he was.
Yet
he was not altogether a fool in his day and generation; being cold and hungry,
and still able to walk a little by bending his knees very much indeed and
putting his feet down toes first, he decided to enter one of the houses which
flanked the street at long intervals and looked so bright and warm. But when he
attempted to act upon that very sensible decision a burly dog came browsing out
and disputed his right. Inexpressibly frightened, and believing, no doubt (with
some reason, too), that brutes without meant brutality within, he hobbled away
from all the houses, and with grey, wet fields to right of him and grey, wet
fields to left of him - with the rain half blinding him and the night coming in
mist and darkness, held his way along the road that leads to Greenton. That is
to say, the road leads those to Greenton who succeed in passing the Oak Hill
Cemetery. A considerable number every year do not.
Jo did not.
They
found him there the next morning, very wet, very cold, but no longer hungry. He
had apparently entered the cemetery gate - hoping, perhaps, that it led to a
house where there was no dog - and gone blundering about in the darkness,
falling over many a grave, no doubt, until he had tired of it all and given up.
The little body lay upon one side, with one soiled cheek upon one soiled hand,
the other hand tucked away among the rags to make it warm, the other cheek
washed clean and white at last, as for a kiss from one of God's great angels.
It was observed - though nothing was thought of it at the time, the body being
as yet unidentified - that the little fellow was lying upon the grave of Hetty
Parlow. The grave, however, had not opened to receive him. That is a
circumstance which, without actual irreverence, one may wish had been ordered
otherwise.
No comments:
Post a Comment