A Man in the Open

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

ON THE LABRADOR

Dictated by Mr. Jesse Smith

Don't you write anything down yet, 'cause I ain't ready.

If I wrote this yarn myself, I'd make it good and red from tip to tip, claws out, teeth bare, fur crawling with emotions. It wouldn't be dull, no, or evidence.

But then it's to please you, and that's what I'm for.

So I proceeds to stroke the fur smooth, lay the paws down soft, fold up the smile, and purr. A sort of truthfulness steals over me. Goin' to be dull, too.

No, I dunno how to begin. If this yarn was a rope, I'd coil it down before I begun to pay out. You lays the end, so, and flemish down, ring by ring until the bight's coiled, smooth, ready to flake off as it runs. I delayed a lynching once to do just that, and relieve the patient's mind. It all went off so well!

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When we kids were good, mother she used to own we came of pedigree stock; but when we're bad, seems we took after father. You see mother's folk was the elect, sort of born saved. They allowed there'd be room in Heaven for one hundred and forty-four thousand just persons, mostly from Nova Scotia, but when they took to sorting the neighbors, they'd get exclusive. The McGees were all right until Aunt Jane McGee up and married a venerable archdeacon, due to burn sure as a bishop. The Todds were through to glory, with doubts on Uncle Simon, who'd been a whaler captain until he found grace and opened a dry-goods store. Seeing he died in grace, worth all of ten thousand dollars, the heirs concluded the Lord should act reasonable, until they found uncle had left his wealth to charities. Then they put a text on his tomb—"For he had great possessions."

The McAndrewses has corner lots in the New Jerusalem, and is surely the standard of morals until Cousin Abner went shiftless and wrote poems. They'd allus been so durned respectable, too.

Anyway, mother's folk as a tribe, is millionaires in grace and pretty well fixed in Nova Scotia. She'd talk like a book, too. You'd never suspect mother, playing the harmonium in church, with a tuning-fork to sharpen the preacher's voice, black boots, white socks, box-plaited crinoline, touch-me-not frills, poke bonnet, served all round with scratch-the-kisser roses. Yes, I seen the daguerreotype, work of a converted photographer—nothing to pay. Thar's mother—full suit of sail, rated a hundred A-one at Lloyd's, the most important sheep in the Lord's flock. Then she's found out, secretly married among the goats. Her name's scratched out of the family Bible, with a strong hint to the Lord to scratch her entry from the Book of Life. She's married a sailorman before the mast, a Liveyere from the Labrador, a man without a dollar, suspected of being Episcopalian. Why, she'd been engaged to the leading grocery in Pugwash. Oh, great is the fall thereof, and her name ain't alluded to no more. "The ways of the Lord," says she, "is surely wonderful."

In them days the Labrador ain't laid out exactly to suit mother. She's used to luxury—coal in the lean-to, taties in the cellar, cows in the barn, barter store round the corner, mails, church, school, and a jail right handy, so she can enjoy the ungodly getting their just deserts. But in our time the Labrador was just God's country, all rocks, ice, and sea, to put the fear into proud hearts—no need of teachers. It kills off the weaklings—no need of doctors. A school to raise men—no need of preachers. The law was "work or starve"—no place for lawyers. It's police, and court, and hangman all complete, fire and hail, snow and vapors, wind and storm fulfilling His word. Nowadays I reckon there'd be a cinematograph theater down street to distract your attention from facts, and you'd order molasses by wireless, invoiced C....