The Ape, the Idiot Other People | Page 5

strange procession which made its way along the alley under the porch? There were white men with three prisoners--three who so recently had tested the sweets of freedom, and they had been dragged back to servitude. Two of these had been haled from the freedom of life and one from the freedom of death, and all three had been found fast asleep in the early morning beside the open grave and empty coffin of little Wang Tai. There were wise men abroad, and they said that little Wang Tai, through imperfect medical skill, had been interred alive, and that Romulus and Moses, by means of their impish pranks, had brought her to life after raising her from the grave. But wherefore the need of all this talk? Is it not enough that these two brigands were whipped and sent back into servitude, and that when the little yellow woman from Asia had gathered her baby to her breast the windows of her soul were opened to receive the warmth of the yellow sunshine that poured in a flood from heaven?

The Hero of the Plague
I
On a sweltering July day a long and ungainly shadow, stretching thirty feet upon the ground, crept noiselessly up an avenue leading to a fashionable hotel at a great summer resort. The sun was setting, and its slanting rays caused the shadow to assume the appearance of an anamorphosis of ludicrous proportions. It was a timid shadow--perhaps a shadow of strange and unnerving experiences.
The original of it was worthy of study. He was a short, stout, stoop-shouldered man; his hair was ragged and dusty, his beard straggling and scant. His visible clothing consisted of a slouch hat, torn around the rim and covered with dust; a woollen shirt; a pair of very badly soiled cotton trousers; suspenders made of rawhide strips, fastened to his trousers with wooden pins, and the strangest of old boots, which turned high up at the toes like canoes (being much too long for his feet), and which had a rakish aspect.
The man's face was a protest against hilarity. Apparently he had all the appurtenances of natural manhood, yet his whole expression would have at once aroused sympathy, for it was a mixture of childishness, confidence, timidity, humility, and honesty. His look was vague and uncertain, and seemed to be searching hopelessly for a friend--for the guidance of natures that were stronger and minds that were clearer. He could not have been older than thirty-five years, and yet his hair and beard were gray, and his face was lined with wrinkles. Occasionally he would make a movement as if to ward off a sudden and vicious blow.
He carried a knotty stick, and his ample trousers-pockets were filled to such an extent that they made him appear very wide in the hips and very narrow in the shoulders. Their contents were a mystery. The pockets at least produced the good effect of toning down the marvellous ellipticity of his legs, and in doing this they performed a valuable service.
"Hullo! who are you?" gruffly demanded a porter employed in the hotel, as the disreputable-looking man was picking his way with great nicety up the broad interior stairs, afraid that his dusty boots would deface the polished brasses under foot.
"Baker," promptly replied the man, in a small, timid voice, coming to a halt and humbly touching his hat.
"Baker? Well, what's your other name?"
"Mine?"
"Yes, yours."
The stranger was evidently puzzled by the question. He looked vacantly around the ceiling until his gaze rested upon a glass chandelier above him; but, finding no assistance there, his glance wandered to an oriel, in which there was a caged mocking-bird.
"Jess Baker--that's all," he answered at last, in his thin voice and slow, earnest manner.
"What! don't know your other name?"
"No, I reckin not," said Baker, after a thoughtful pause. "I reckin it's jess Baker--that's all."
"Didn't they ever call you anything else?"
"Me?"
"Yes, you."
Again Baker looked helplessly around until he found the chandelier, and then his eyes sought the oriel. Then he started as if he had received a blow, and immediately reached down and felt his ankles.
"Yes, sir," he answered.
"What was it?"
"Hunder'd'n One," he quietly said, looking at his questioner with a shade of fear and suspicion in his face.
The porter believed that a lunatic stood before him. He asked:
"Where are you from?"
"Georgy."
"What part of Georgia?"
Again was Baker at sea, and again did his glance seek the chandelier and the oriel.
"Me?" he asked.
"Yes, you. What part of Georgia are you from?"
"Jess Georgy," he finally said.
"What do you want here?"
"Well, I'll tell you. I want you to hire me," he replied, with a faint look of expectancy.
"What can you do?"
"Me?"
"Yes, you."
"Oh, well, I'll tell you. Most everything."
"What salary do you want?"
"Me?"
"Of course you."
"Want?"
"Yes."
"Oh, well, about five dollars a day, I reckin."
The porter laughed coarsely.