 CHAPTER IX OF TAILS OF A VANISHING RIVER I had stopped on the old bridge in the twilight to look upon the glories of a dreamy afterglow, and the narrowed tree-forms that were etched against its symphony of color far away down the river. Just above the bands of purple and orange the evening star was coming out of a sea of turquoise, and its radiance was creeping into the waters below the trees. I heard a light footfall behind me. Excuse me, mister, have you got a match? I turned and saw an odd-looking little man of perhaps fifty, with a squirrel skin cap and ginger-colored hair and beard, who laid down a burden contained in a gunny sack and approached deferentially. As I produced the match he brought forth a virulent-looking pipe that seemed to consist mostly of solidified nicotine. I don't seem to have no tobacco, neither. He continued ruefully, as he fumbled in his pockets. I gave him a cigar, a portion of which he broke up and stuffed into his pipe. He carefully stowed the remainder in his vest pocket and began to smoke composately. I asked him if he lived in the neighborhood. No, my place is about two miles from here. I've been up the river after some snake-ruth that's wanted right away by the man I do business with. My name's Erastus Waddles, and I get all kinds of herbs around here for a man that sells them to the medicine-makers somewhere down east. We sat on the bridge-rail and talked for some time, and I became much interested in my new acquaintance. He spoke in a low voice, and his manner seemed rather furtive. He told me much of the herbs and rare plants that grew in the river-country and of his attempts to cultivate ginseng. Certain influences had repeatedly caused failures of his crop. That's a fine scene out yonder, he remarked, and the splendid glow of Jupiter in the western sky led to a subject that I found had enthralled his life and his eyes quickened with a new light as he told me his story. When he was a young man he had studied for the stage, but had made a failure of this and had gone to work on an Ohio River steamboat as a clerk. A very old man with long white whiskers and green spectacles came on board at Louisville late one night. He wanted to go to Cairo, but lacked a dollar of the amount necessary for his boat fare. He stated that he was a professor of astrology and offered to cast the horoscope of anybody on the boat who would supply the deficiency. After an eloquent exposition of the wonders of astrology by the professor, Waddles furnished the dollar in the date and hour of his birth. Amid the jibes of the other employees on the boat, he received his horoscope just before the landing was made at Cairo. The aged seer departed down the gangplank and disappeared. This was the turning point in the life of irrestous Waddles. He sought a secluded place on the boat and studied the several closely written pages of fool's cap that were pinned together and numbered and found that the old man had done a conscientious and thorough job. Waddles extracted a large worn envelope from an inside pocket. It contained the document, which he said he always carried with him, and he asked me to read it. On the first page was the circle of the horoscope, divided into its twelve houses, and above it was the nativity with the sidereal variation noted. In the delineation which occupied the remaining pages were black clouds of misfortune. If Waddles had selected his hour of birth, he could not have found one in the whole gamut of heavenly cords when his entrance into the world would have been more inopportune. Mars was on the ascendant in Taurus, and was his significator and ruling planet. Its position in relation to the other malefics, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune, all of which were above the horizon, was most disastrous. Two malefics were poised upon the cusp of the house of money, indicating that Waddles would go broke and remain so during life. The moon was also in a hostile square at the time. The hoary-headed astrologer had dived into the abyss of futurity, and through a glass darkly he had seen a pale light. It illuminated a life of hopeless sorrow and futility. Ever ananan, the blood-red eye of Mars gleamed with a baleful glow upon the destiny under consideration. When Mars was off duty, Saturn took up the Moline Rod, which was yielded to Uranus and Neptune when he passed temporarily into other fields of astral activity to indicate misfortunes of other people. Periods of deep perplexities were apparent when Waddles must not engage in new ventures or talk with men over sixty or with women under forty, when he must not deal with farmers or have anything to do with people with red hair or bushy eyebrows. He was not to ask favors, travel, trade, write letters, or marry when the moon was in its first or last quarter, or have anything to do with surgeons or tradesmen when the moon was in conjunction with Saturn. Flying pains in limbs and joints, warts, boils, and accidents to the head were indicated at these periods. New enterprises might be undertaken when the sun was in Leo, but not if Neptune was stationary in Aries at that time, or if Venus was retrogressing in Cancer or Capricorn. When Jupiter and Venus were together in Libra, there would be particularly distressing periods for Waddles. When Jupiter passed into Sagittarius, there might be temptation to make marry, but in the midst of mirth he must remember death. For almost fatal accidents and possibly severe illness were indicated for these times which were pregnant with calamity. A certain retrogation of Uranus in Leo in the fifth year after the casting with the sun high leg, Mars in Aquarius and the moon in Capricorn indicated a liver complaint with pains in the back and head, an almost fatal accident from an explosive compound, an interference in his affairs by a fat person, probably a female with a retreating chin whose significator would be the malefic Neptune. A minor subrelated transit might change this female to a dark-haired woman with pointed features who would spread strange reports with a bitter tongue but in an unknown language. No illnesses, accidents, or women materialized in that year, and Waddles thought they were all sidetracked by a retrogression of Mercury in Virgil. The influence of an evil-minded woman whose ruling planet was Saturn was indicated during the eleventh year. Long arms, freckles, and a high instep were suggested as Antares would be in Gemini when she came into the sketch. Waddles had assumed that this peril had been fended off by an unsuspected transit. He had stayed in the woods as much as possible while Antares was in Gemini and had spoken to no female during the eleventh year. But afterwards learned that the postmistress who answered the description had told an inquirer that no such man as Waddles lived in that part of the country. Somebody had tried to find him with a view of making a large herb contract which had been thereby lost, so after all the indication was correct. Under the heads of heredity, mental faculties, moral qualities, and disposition it appeared that Waddles possessed most of the characteristics of a goat. The cause was obscure but a siguous effort might gradually overcome some of the tendencies. In the twenty-second year, which was yet to come, the two malefics, Saturn and Neptune, would retrograde in Taurus. Mars and the moon would be inquirious, and this would probably mean that Waddles would have an affliction of the stomach and would lose one or both legs if he waited in unclear waters. There were so many things to look out for that he was dazed with their complexity. He was horrified by the variations and transits of evil women that were possible in unexpected quarters when the rest of the sky was apparently free. Temporizing signs and harmless transits were rare. Maligned conjunctions and oppositions were leading features in every month in the calendar. At one of the periods when the moon and Ceres would be in opposition, and Venus in Trine with Neptune, Waddles would die of an unindicated disorder. He had certainly got his dollars worth. With Mars careering continually through the Zodiac and all the other malefics falling into conjunction and opposition at the most fateful times, he saw a little prospect of escaping an astrological coil that reeked with woe. For him there was no bomb in Gilead or anywhere else in the universe. Like many others he let the blessings of existence take care of themselves and was concerned solely with its ills. Apparently he was hopelessly enmeshed, but instinctively he struggled on. The far-seeing sage delineated a collateral variation indicating that the subject of the horoscope would, within a year after its casting, become a disciple and possibly a practitioner of a certain ancient science that had to do with the heavenly bodies, but the indication was not quite clear as to its name. Impelled by this covert and ingeniously mystic suggestion, Waddles had procured all the literature he could find on the subject of astrology and had studied it carefully. He hoped that he might find error in his horoscope, but the more he studied the more he believed. He had been touched with a hypnotic wand and had drifted into the toils of a remorseless power. The opinion expressed by one of his friends on the steamboat that the old party who cast the horoscope was probably drunk, had no weight with Waddles. There were too many confirmations of planet positions and significations in the astrological almanacs and related literature that he had succeeded in accumulating. There was a postscript at the end of the delineation. Somewhere in the realms of infinite space the white-bearded prophet felt the presence of a strange and maligned star that, for the lack of data at hand, could not be named. Its unknown orbit dimly intersected the fate lines of Waddles. At some crisis in his affairs it would unexpectedly become manifest and would have a woeful significance. Waddles pondered long upon the missing star in his horoscope and had vainly sought it in his studies. There appeared to be nothing in his books that could lead to a solution and the unknown malific besieged his soul with a haunting fear. I got to keep track of all them heavenly bodies and if that damn star ever shows up I must get a line on it, he declared as he folded up his horoscope. I've got all the almanacs and I know where everything is all the time. I've studied astrology till I've been black in the face and I'm an expert caster. I'm going to cast horoscopes right along now. There's my significator coming up and it's in Aquarius now, he remarked as he pointed to Mars that had just scaled the treetops in the east. He offered for the small sum of fifty cents to sell me an unlabeled bottle of brown liquid which he said was an excellent tonic that he made himself. He called it wahoo bidders. I made the purchase and placed the precious compound on the bridge rail. He took a small book from his pocket which he consulted for a moment and then invited me to visit him if I would come at a particular hour on Thursday of the following week. This I promised to do if possible. He told me how to find his house, gratefully accepted another cigar and bade me good night. He then softly mingled with the shadows of the woods with his bag of roots. I pushed the wahoo bidders gently over into the river and continued my walk. He was a strange and pathetic figure. Naturally superstitious he had become imbued with illusions that for ages have lured the imaginations of those who have reached blindly into the unknowable and found only the eagle, the ruling star in all horoscopes. Verily to man the luminary of the greatest magnitude in the universe is himself. Not content to be silly over little things he must needs prowl among the constellations in there spin the web of his puny personal affairs, as in theology he assumes the particular concern of the Almighty with his daily doings. Ancient as astrology is, it is not as old as conceit. I was curious to know more about waddles. At heart I scoffed, but concluded to keep my engagement and ask him to cast my horoscope. On the appointed day I made the little journey. The road led through the woods for a mile or so to a big oak tree that waddles had described. Here a narrow path left it and followed the course of the river to a long bayou. Beyond the end of the bayou I found some high ground on which perhaps an acre had been cleared. Near the farther edge of the clearing was an unpainted single story house with low eaves. There was some queer looking framework and a small platform on the roof. As I approached the door I was confronted with cabalistic characters painted in black on the woodwork. The signs of the zodiac appeared around the rim of a roughly drawn circle. On a blue background at the top of the door were four stars and a crescent moon in yellow. I assumed that the stars represented the malefics in waddles' horoscope. In response to my knock he opened the door. Well, I'm glad to see you, he exclaimed. I didn't think you'd come. I thought maybe you might size me up for a queer bird after all that talk we had on the bridge. Sit down and make yourself comfortable. He flung a villainous looking Maltese tomcat that he had addressed as Scorpio out of a crippled rocking chair, and I occupied the vacated space. As Scorpio fled through a hole in the bottom of the door that apparently had been cut for his benefit I noticed that he was much scarred. One ear was gone, his left eyelid was missing. There were bare places on him where the fur had been removed, evidently with violence, and his tail was not complete. These things imparted a sinister aspect, and I did not like him. He looked like a thoroughly bad cat and was probably a malefic. It would seem fit that the cat found amid such uncanny surroundings should be black instead of Maltese, but as this is a voracious chronicle it is necessary to adhere to facts. We spent some time in desultory conversation before I mentioned the ostensible object of my visit. Now, said Waddles, before I do anything about your horoscope I want to show some I've been casting, and he began pulling over some papers on his shelves. While he was doing this I looked around the strange room. A row of bottles on one of the shelves contained various small reptiles with filmy orbs that peered out through alcohol. From the end of the shelf a stuffed badger stared fixedly and disdainfully with dull glass eyes at a moth-eaten coon that returned the gaze from a pedestal in a darkened corner. A dismal and tattered owl occupied a perch above the coon. One of his glass eyes had dropped out, but with the other he regarded the offending badger sadly. A dried snakeskin with several dangling rattles was tacked on the wall back of the stove with a few Indian relics, bows, arrows, and a spearhead that were arranged on each side of it. Some butterflies with broken wings and beetles impaled on pins were scattered through the spaces around the relics. A number of colored botanical prints and astronomical charts were pinned on the walls and there were cobwebs in the upper corners that appeared to be inhabited. Some bunches of withered herbs and a broken violin hung above the window. On a table nearer it was a violet-tended globe of solid glass, about six inches in diameter. It was mounted on a block of wood. Waddles afterwards explained that this was a magic crystal of marvelous power in that it pictured prophetic visions under certain influences. The air in the room had a pungent, musty odor as of dried roots and plants, and I thought that a pile of small sacks back of the stove might contain something of the kind. Waddles finally produced copies of the horoscopes, and I was pleased to find among them those of my friends Tipton Posey, Bill Stiles, and Rat Hyatt. As Waddles traded at Posey's store, his horoscope had probably been exchanged for merchandise. Posey's nativity was exceptionally fortuitous. Jupiter was his significator, and the other benefits were advantageously placed at the hour of his birth. In the delineation it appeared that there were few blessings that would escape him as long as he was kind to friends and not too fond of money. His historical parallel was a certain ancient Persian king, who after a long and happy reign, was suffocated in a shower of gold. He would be fortunate in his dealings with all those who had to do with medicines of any kind. It would always be safe for him to extend credit when any of the benefits were above the horizon, and at any time that the sun was in Aquarius, Scorpio, or Leo. It would be a bed time for Posey to ask for money, or to try to collect debts of any kind, when Mercury was in opposition to Mars, when the moon was full, or partially so, when the sun was in Virgo, Taurus, or Aries, or when two or more of the molyphics were above the horizon. Persons born under Posey's planet were tactful and magnetic, had much power over the minds of others, and were model housewives. They were proud, dignified, and conservative, intolerant of wrong, and well adapted to fill representative positions. Usually they had piercing intellects and triumphed in all things. They were at times inclined to avarice, and to be suspicious of others, and this must be strongly guarded against. There was a dark warning against the acquirement of too much wealth. In his magic crystal waddles dimly saw a figure that looked like Posey, but the head was that of some kind of a beast. It sat upon a rock with a big bag of gold, with which it had climbed a weary hill. Beyond was a shady bower among the trees, under which dwelt happy hours. The way was blocked by two black rams that signified opposition. The figure could not go on, for its fair form had been changed by the winning of the gold. Far beyond the bower was a wonderful city with brilliant domes, its towers sparkled with ruby and pearl, and into this bright city the figure could never go, because of its brutish aspect that betokened greed. Bill Stiles' ruling star was Saturn, and his nativity was questionable. The planet's position, with regard to the moon and Mars and Leo, indicated a master spirit, subject to many variations of fortune. The tendencies were modified by the benign presence of Arcturus and Venus in Aries at his natal hour. Two famous Roman emperors had almost identical nativities. Bill was studious, voracious, instinctively noble and imperious. He had an iron will, abhorred deception in others, and was stern and able. He would be warlike and refractory when Mars was in the square of Saturn. When his significator was in Aquarius, he would be liable to serious errors of judgment, and he would have great potency for evil. He would succeed in undertakings that would bring fame. Certain literary work upon which he was now engaged was likened to that of the ancient Jewish historian Josephus. At some period when Mercury and Venus were in opposition, and the moon was in Capricorn, Bill would fall to rise no more. Venus was ascendant in Virgo when Rat Hyatt came into the world, but the watchful eye of Saturn and Leo was upon him. The benign love-star was not allowed to monopolize his fortunes. There were three malefics in strategic sectors that betokened danger. The moon was coyly ensconced with respect to Venus, and thus neutralized the dire influences to some extent. Counterparts of Rat's characteristics, indicated by the planetary conditions at his birth, were found in Richard Coudaléon and Marcus Aurelius. They evidenced one skillful in command, ambitious, cautious, strenuous, obstinate, active, yet indolent at times. Versatile, inventive, acute, and self-confident, busy in all things, terrible in anger, intrepid and invincible when roused, loyal to friends and modest, yet fond of applause. There were many dark spots in the picture, aspected by the moon that were fraught with pearl, and Hyatt must be aware of the angry Saturn. Mars was also an interfering factor. Rat must never go below a certain bend in the river during a waning moon, or in the summertime, and must shun women with protruding teeth. An obvious allusion to Hyatt's friend, Malindy Taylor, whom Waddles admired from afar. In a vision in Waddles' crystal, while Rat Hyatt was under consideration, there appeared a tall skeleton with a helmet and a fiery spear. It wore a breastplate on which was inscribed, sent from God. The bony arms waved the spear, and the crystal was suffused with red. The interpretation was that Hyatt would be wanted in the near future. In another crystal vision, a slowly moving figure, with a sorrow-stricken mane and a halo above its head, approached a water's edge and contemplated men who drew a net. When the meshes came upon the sand, the figure stooped, took from them one of the fish, and cast it back into the sea. A darkness then came upon the face of the waters. Waddles divined that this signified something in connection with Hyatt, and that the fish was no good. As I finished reading the horoscopes, the Tomcat, Scorpio, returned through the hole in the door and crawled under the stove with a chipmunk he had caught in the woods. That crystal was at one time in India, explained Waddles as he placed the horoscopes between the leaves of a big book. The bodist used it, and it was stolen by a desecrator of the temple, who fled to Italy. There it was used by a greatest astrologer and magician for over fifty years. From Italy it went to England and into the possession of the world-renowned Zedekil. After that it went to New York by inheritance. I bought it from a man in Cincinnati for two dollars. He did not know what it was, but I did, for it was fully described in some books I have. I believed it to be the celebrated Lady Blessington Crystal that was exhibited in London before all the nobility in 1850. I will show you how it works. He placed the crystal on the window-edge, and into a little pan between it and the light, he poured some grey powder from a wide-mouthed bottle. He lighted the powder, and a pale yellow smoke descended. He then covered his head in half of the globe with a black cloth, as one would do in focusing a camera. In this way all light was excluded except that which passed through the smoke and crystal into the darkened space under the cloth. I am not expecting to see any visions now, he continued, but for all that there may be one there. He was silent for some time and then asked me to look. I carefully adjusted the cloth and gazed upon the luminous orb. Owing to the reeds of smoke on the other side of the globe, there were weirdly filmy changes in the field of light. A dark, indistinct form seemed to wander in the dim depths of the crystal. The movement ceased near the center. I told Waddles what had happened and asked him to interpret it, but he made no reply. I withdrew the cloth and found that the mysterious apparition had been produced by the blurred magnification of the silhouette of a blue bottle-fly that was crawling about on the light side of the crystal. Waddles said, in a regretful, kindly tone, that the influences were not quite right for the visions. He had found by the test that I was a skeptic, and when looked into by unbelievers the crystal remained clouded and never visualized. I accepted the explanation humbly. Now, said he, I want you to see my observatory. He took a long marine spyglass from behind the books on the shelf, and we ascended a rickety ladder to a trap door in the roof, by means of which we reached an enclosed platform over the house. By getting up here I command a better horizon than I would from the ground, he explained, as he adjusted the spyglass into the top of some revolving framework. From the low seat near it he could inspect the heavens to his heart's content. Through the glass I scrutinized a flock of turbulent crows around some treetops beyond the river a mile or so away, and it appeared to be an excellent instrument of its kind. In this humble eerie I could fancy wattles commuting with the stars on quiet nights, listening to their spiritual voices, gazing with apprehension upon the hovering malefics, and searching the immutable heavens for the missing orb of his horoscope. Like the Chaldeans of old upon their lonely watchtowers in the dawn of history, he contemplated the bejeweled scroll and beheld the endless processions of mighty planets that, in his belief, cycled through infinity to fashion minute destinies on the distant speck of earth. The flying shuttling spheres were weaving the mottled fabrics of the fates of men, and among them was the frail and ill-starred web of wattles. After all, was he of less consideration than all the others who assumed the creation of the universe to be a vast design for the final glory of humanity? We descended from the platform, and wattles conducted me to his laboratory, a small room at the rear of the house. Several large kettles were scattered about, and on a low platform was a large alembic. A big stove stood near the chimney. Stacked along the shelves were baskets of dried leaves, flowers and berries, piles of various herbs, bundles of wild cherry and wahoo bark, and bags of flag and snake roots. The toncat, Scorpio, had followed us, and he sniffed suspiciously around a barrel in the corner in which there were probably mouse nests. This is where I make them celebrated yahoo bidders, wattles announced proudly, as he pointed to a row of filled bottles on one of the shelves. I got the formula from Joaquina, the old engine squaw that used to live up in Whipperville Bayou. All the engines used to take it when they got sick, but they didn't have such improved ways of making it as I got. They used to drop red hot stones in with the things it's made of, and I think that killed part of the edge the bidders ought to have on them when they're done. They didn't know how to combine certain chemical diffusions and decant them off the way I do. I sell a good deal of them bidders round here. Posey keeps them at the store, and there's a lot of other places where they have them in the stores. We left the laboratory, and I heard the sound of a swift scrape along the floor. I inferred that Scorpio had made a seizure. Wattles kindly asked me to have some lunch with him. It was more of a feed than a repast. Late in the afternoon I finished my rather prolonged but interesting visit. Wattles wanted to show me his garden, and we walked out into the clearing along the edge of a deep ravine back of the house. Some of the vegetables in the garden had struggled hard for existence. Look at them beets, he exclaimed ruefully. I planted them under exactly proper lunar aspects, and I got a damn beat in the patch. He promised to leave my horoscope at Posey's store in about a week. I thanked him for his many courtesies and departed. I noticed that he did not invite me to make him another visit. It happened that nearly six months elapsed before I was in that part of the country again. I inquired at the store for my horoscope, and found that it had been left according to agreement. It was a thrilling document, and I found much amusement in it. I had a chat with Posey out on the platform, and he told me that my astrological friend had got into all kinds of trouble. That fella was a pippin, he declared. The slickest that ever lived round here, and we've had some pretty good ones. He was foregathered by the officers for making queer half-dollars up to his place, and the devil was to pay. The coins was finished up so fine you could hardly tell him. He shipped them out with the herbs he sent to some fella way off, and it was a long time before they traced him. He had a little furnace in the cellar under his house that he went down into through a trap door in the floor, and there was a tunnel from the cellar out to the side of the ravine back of his house that he dug to get away if anybody ever came after him. That wahoo bitters fluid he made was hot stuff. It was about three quarters bad alcohol. You could take three or four fair-sized doses and you'd want to go out and throw stones at your folks. Everybody was buying it. Old Swan Peterson took it regular, and half the time he didn't know his name. I used to leave Bill in charge of the store when I went off duck-shooting. He slept upstairs and would always have a spell of sickness while I was away, and he'd come down in the night and drink up the stock. He'd get a skinful, and sometimes he'd stay corned three days. There wasn't no money in that, and I had to quit carrying it. All the owls in the woods up and down the river hoot wahoo wahoo, and that always advertises dope, but I guess he made more money in his little furnace than he did out of wahoo. Them dizzy dreams he wrote about his fellas made me think he was loony for a while, and that moon had addled him in when he was roosting up among them sticks on top of his coop at night, but you bet there wasn't nothing loony about him. He had a wise head, all except getting away with it. Posey's story was rather lengthy and involved, but it seemed that a quiet and thorough investigation of the affairs of the versatile wattles had been made by a government detective. His place was visited one day during his absence. The small furnace, some moles and other counterfeiters' paraphernalia were discovered, and several hundred excellent imitations of Uncle Sam's legal tender and Pullman porter tips were found hidden under rubbish that concealed the entrance to the underground exit from the cellar. The opening in the ravine was well protected from observation by vegetation. Two secret servicemen accompanied by the sheriff had come quietly up the river in a boat late one night. One of the parties stole up the path along the bayou, one approached through the ravine, and the other remained with the boat at the entrance to the bayou. Wattles heard suspicious sounds and his lights went out. He crept noiselessly through his secret exit, and at the end he saw the missing evil star of his horoscope. It was on the vest of the officer who awaited him at the mouth of the tunnel. With the three malefics who came in the boat, poorer Wattles, ever a child of misfortune, and the accursed of the heavenly spheres, went forth to meet the vengeance of the law, and the scarred Tomcat Scorpio was alone with the visions in the crystal.