 CHAPTER 6 PART 1 OF TAILS OF A VANISHING RIVER For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Hirsch. Tales of a Vanishing River by Earl H. Reed Muskrat Hyatt's Redemption Except from my picturesque standpoint, Rat Hyatt was not an ornament to the river country. Its meager and widely scattered social life, and its average of morality, were more or less affected by his shortcomings. In many communities he would be considered an undesirable citizen. He was looked upon as a good-natured bad-egg, and as one industrious in the ways of sin by his associates at Tipton-Posey's store. But the habituaries of that time-honored loafing-place always welcomed him, for he possessed a reminiscent talent and a peculiar kind of dry, wet, and riparté that helped to enliven this sleepy days. In this world much sin is forgiven and entertaining personality. There was always a feeling of incompleteness on the store platform when Rat was absent, that nobody ever admitted. But when he arrived and took his accustomed seat on the green wheel-barrel, that was part of the merchandise that Posey kept outside in the daytime, the depressing vacancy existed no longer. Bill Stiles' temperamental discharges of ornate philosophy and his comments on life's ironies in human folly required a target, and this was commonly the role assigned to Rat Hyatt. I'm always the goat, remarked Rat one hot afternoon, as we sat in the shade of the wooden awning. Why don't you pick on somebody that likes to listen? I've been kitted by experts, and this long talk of urine seems kind of mixed up. The trouble with you and a lot of the other old mud-birds round here is you open your mouth and go away and leave it and forget you started it. Now look here, Rat, replied Bill, you ain't got no call to talk back to me. When I'm talking to you I ain't arguing, I'm telling you how tis. I knowed you when you was knee-high to a duck, and you ain't got brains enough to have the headache with. That fellow that you sold my dog to last time was here yesterday asking about you, and if Spot had ever come back. He'd been up to your place, and it's a good thing for you that you and Spot was off somewheres in the woods. He'd told me what he'd treated you for the animal, and I want you to bring them things to me, for it was my dog that you got them with. As Spot was asleep under the wheelbarrow, Bill's equity in the repeating rifle and cartridges that Hyatt had received in exchange for him seemed rather hazy. The reason for Spot's prolonged absence some months before was now apparent to Bill, and although the intelligent animal had returned home as expected after being traded off, the old man's nurtured wrath was waiting for Rat when he arrived that afternoon. Hyatt seemed in no wise abashed at the revelation of Bill's knowledge of his shady transaction with the Trapper. If I hadn't annouced the dog had come home, I wouldn't have let him go. It showed how much I trusted him when I let him go off with a stranger like that. If that fellow thought he could keep a fine dog like that away from them that loved him, he ought to suffer for its foolishness and leave something in the country to be remembered by. Of course, if something had happened to Spot, and he hadn't come back, I'd have given you the rifle. But I know that dog was all right. You can have him back any time you want him, if he'll stay with you. But you hadn't ought to jump on me as long as I ain't lost him. He's in a first-class health. It's the funny ideas that some fellas have about other people's property that keeps the state's prison filled up, remarked Bill. It ain't the lion and stealing that gets him there. It's getting caught. If they don't get caught, it's just called business shrewdness. You built that fella out of that gun and you're depriving me of it when you used my dog to get it with. You're a fine man to trust anything with, Yar. If I add my place to keep Spot, I wouldn't let you have him a minute. I can fill my shandy with stuff by trading him off, and then waitin' for him to come home just as well as you can. And it would be all right for me to do it, but you ain't got no such right, especially if you're gonna swindle people. After Bill's assurance that he had told the deluded trepper nothing of Spot's return and that he had gone off up the river, the conversation drifted into channels that were less irritating. The old man's mind became calm and he ascended the narrow stairway on the outside of the building to his room over the store for a nap. That old fella oughta have a funny graph with his voice in it so he could spin it and listen to himself spiel, remarked rad after Bill had left. I used to often watch him when he was settin' quiet out there by the hour, with that dinky hat bowled down in front of him, lookin' wise, and wonderin' what big thoughts was fermentin' up in that old moss-covered doma his, but I found out after a while that he wasn't thinkin' about nothing at all. Rat went his way down to the bank under the bridge where he had left his pushboat, followed by Faithful Spot, and pulled his way upstream. When he reached the vicinity of this stranded houseboat where he had lived for several years, he reconnoitred it cautiously. No malign present was detected. He looked over his beehives that were scattered about among the trees and provided two or three weeks food supplies for his chickens, and some young coons and weasels that he was raisin' for their fur and some wire cages under the house. He then packed a few necessities into his boat and secured the door of the house with a padlock. He was not quite satisfied that the trapper, who was lookin' for spot, had left the country, and he did not intend to take any chances. The dog was ordered to lie down in the bow of the canoe where he was carefully covered. The intelligent animal complied cheerfully with all of the arrangements. Rat then proceeded down the river for several miles to the Big Marsh, where he did most of his trapping during the late fall, winter, and spring. He had two motives for his trip, besides the idea of avoiding a possible visit of the trapper to the houseboat. One was to see if the muskrat population on the marsh had increased properly during the summer, and the other was to visit Melindy Taylor, whom he deeply loved, and by whom he was scorned as a suitor. Melindy was a peppery widow of about forty, who lived with her aged mother in a small house beyond the marsh. She was the owner of a wild duck farm, and conducted it with such success that Rat looked forward to spending his declining days in peace and comfort, if he could persuade Melindy to take him into life partnership. Many hundreds of mallards and teal nested among the boggy places in the marsh during the summer. The eggs were gathered, put into incubators and under complacent hens, on the farm. The ducklings were reared in wire enclosures that prevented them from joining their kind in the skies when the fall migrations began. During the game season, when they were properly matured, they were skillfully strangled and shipped away as wild birds at game prices. Rat had always willingly hunted nests and gathered eggs for his beloved. He did odd jobs about the farm and participated in everything but the harvest. Like Jacob of Old toiling for the hand of Rachel, Rat's industry, although intermittent, was sustained by alluring hope. Outside of her earthly possessions it must be admitted that Melindy had few charms. One of her eyes was slightly on the bias, and at times it had a baleful gleam. Two of her front teeth protruded in a particularly unpleasant way, as though she expected to bite at something alive. She had an angular disposition, and her temper was not conducive to the even flow of life's little amenities. To use a scotch expression, she was Uncle Pernickety. She was intolerant of human frailty and others, especially of the kinds that entered so largely into Rat Hyatt's makeup. But divinities sometimes appeared in strange forms. To Rat's love-blinded eyes, she was the one lone flower that grew in the dreary desert of life's monotonies. There is something about everybody that appeals to somebody, and this is why there is nobody who cannot find somebody willing to marry them. Perhaps this streak of primitive cussedness in Melindy appealed to compatible instincts in Rat's heart. But be that as it may, he was a faithful and much abused worshiper. When he reached the farther end of the Great Marsh, he threaded his way through familiar openings among the tall masses of rushes and wild rice, landed on the soggy shore, and pulled his canoe up among the underbrush. He in spot then took the winding path that led through the woods to the duck farm about a quarter of a mile away. He intended to stay at the farm, in seclusion, for a week or two, do some work that he had long promised, and then put out his traps on the marsh. He kept about a hundred of them in Melindy's barn when they were not in use. About halfway down the marsh, a long tongue of wooded land extended out into the oozy slew. It was known as Swallow Tail Point. This was Tipton Posey's favorite haunt during the shooting season. Thousands of wild ducks and geese passed over it on their way up or down the river, and encircling about over the marsh, which was a bountiful feeding-ground. Bill Wirick spent much time on the point with Posey. They had a little shack back among the low trees, sheltered so that it could not be seen from the sky, and hidden from the water by the tall brush. These two worthy's had solved at least one of life's problems in this secluded retreat, for they did not have to adjust themselves to the convenience of anybody else. In the early morning, just before daylight, when the ducks began to move over the marsh, and in the evening twilight, when the incoming flocks were settling for the night, little puffs of smoke and faint reports issued from the end of the point, and dark objects fell out of the sky. They were diligently retrieved by Posey's brown water spanieler. Occasionally wild geese would sweep low over the point, scatter and rise excitedly as the puffs of smoke took toll from the honking ranks. In addition to a big bunch of wooden decoys that floated in an open space near the edge of the point, the wary birds were lured by mechanical quacks and honks from small patented devices operated by their concealed enemies. Notwithstanding their civilized garb and highly developed weapons, Tip and Bill were barbarians. Their instincts were lower than those of the carnivora of the jungle, for they killed, not for food or even for profit, but for the joy of the killing. They did not bother about the wounded birds that curved away and fluttered into the matted grasses and rushes to suffer in silence or be eaten by the big snapping turtles that had no ideas of sport. They exalted over piles of beautiful feathered creatures, motionless and splashed with blood, many of which were afterwards thrown away. Tip had devoted many of his idle hours to the invention of a new goose-call. The range of the ordinary devices seemed to him too restricted. His theory was that if the volume of sound could be increased so as to fill a radius of four or five miles, the distant V-shaped flocks could be lured to within gunshot of the point. After long meditation and consultation with Bill Wyrick, they began putting the plan into execution. They procured a pair of blacksmith's bellows from a distant country town and some big instruments that had once belonged to a local brass band. These things, in addition to some rubber garden hose and a lot of other miscellaneous material, were carefully covered in a wagon and secretly conveyed to the point. Weeks were spent in the construction of the apparatus. The brass instruments were arranged in the interior of a huge megaphone. Rubber balls bobbed about intermittently within the capacious horns when the air was pumped through them. The requisite volume of sound was attained, but somehow the turbulent honks of the wild geese were not satisfactorily imitated, although repeated adjustment and alteration gave much hope of success. The experiments were conducted cautiously during the summer when there was nobody on the marsh and no mention of the contrivance was made around the store, for a cruel gauntlet of jibes and merciless humor awaited the non-success of the enterprise, if the wise-acres on the platform ever learned of it. Rat Hyatt, although much interested in all that pertained to the marsh in its surroundings, had never suspected what was going on on the point. He never had occasion to land there, and, by common consent, its possession by Posey and Wyrick for shooting purposes was respected by the few hunters who frequented the vicinity. Melindy Taylor had sometimes heard some terrible noises from the direction of the point, but she was too far away to be much disturbed. Both Posey and Wyrick had often referred to Melindy as an old fussbug, although she was much younger than either of them, and they probably would not have cared if they had scared her out of the country, but she had little curiosity about things that did not affect her duck farm. She and her mother had concluded that the uncanny sounds were produced by donkeys in the woods, and doubtless this was also the opinion of most of those who afterward learned all of the facts. When Rat emerged from his retirement at the duck farm, he spent two or three days puttering about through the water openings, setting his traps. The furred inhabitants of the slew had build their picturesque little domes of stringy roots, rushes, and dead grass, and plastered them together with lumps of mud in the quiet places, away from the river currents that crept insinuous and broken channels through the broad wastes of sodden labyrinths. Hyatt was an intelligent trapper, and he was careful not to depoculate his grounds. He frequently moved the traps, so as not to exhaust the animals in a particular locality. The little competition he had on the marsh must have been discouraging to his rivals, for he always had more traps at the end of the season than at its beginning, and the traps set by others never seemed to be very productive, except to Hyatt. By degrees each newcomer was eliminated. Rat had finished a hard day's work. He sat on some dry grass in the bottom of his canoe, lighted a redolent old pipe, and decided to indulge in a good smoke and a long rest before starting up the river. Twilight had come. The vast expanse of overgrown water was silent, except for the low lullabies of the marsh-birds among the thick grasses and bull-rushes. He sat for a long time and watched the smoke curl up into the still air. The moon came over the distant rim of the forest that bordered the great marsh, and one by one the stars began to tremble in the crystal sky. But it was not with the eye of the poet that Rat regarded these things. The moon-lighted river would be easy to navigate on the trip home. Suddenly a flash of greenish light shot into the heavens in the northwest, and in a few minutes the entire horizon in every direction flamed and shimmered with long gleaming streamers of rows and green beams that touched fluttering segments of a corona of orange glow at the Zena. Rat had often seen the aurora borealis. He was familiar with sheet lightning and the electrical discharges of the thunderstorms, but this awful light was something new. It was a magnetic storm, one of those rare phenomena that the average person sees but once in a lifetime and never forgets, caused by the sudden incandescence of heavily charged solar dust in the Earth's atmosphere. The play of the fitful quivering gleams through the firmament was a sublime spectacle. The motionless air had the peculiar odor that comes from an excess of ozone. Rat Hyatt was in the throes of mortal fright. The dog uttered a long howl, and just at that moment like a yell of demonic mockery out of sulfurous caverns, the unearthly tones of Tipton Posey's goose call resonated from the woods on Swallowtail Point and reverberated beyond the weirdly lighted waters. One or both of its builders had probably come to test the powers of the unholy device and were unabashed by the drama that glorified the night skies. With blind instinctive self-preservation, Rat rose to his knees and made a faltering attempt to grasp his paddle, but his hands refused the dictates of his palsied brain. He cowered as one in the presence of the ultimate. To him, in this appalling display of supernatural power and the evident impending end of all things, had come the agony of abject terror and despair, and before it, his rude conception of life collapsed. His past flashed before his distorted vision like a hideous nightmare. His world suddenly lost reality. The human creatures in it changed to throngs of fleeting phantoms, impelled by unseen forces. They glared, grinned, and jibbered at each other as they hurried through the mist and vanished into the oblivion from which they came. In the realm of fear there are ghastly solitudes. They purvey dim, phosphorescent glows on ocean floors, and they brood in the desolation around the poles. They creep into ostrich and hearts when the filmy strands that sustain the ego on its frail human web are broken and denuded spirits stand an utter loneliness at the brink of chaos. In the course of an hour the wonderful radiance that had transfigured the heavens and chilled the marrow bones of Rat Hyatt ceased as suddenly as it had begun. The frightful unknown sounds from the woods were not repeated. Rat finally succeeded in getting on his feet. He pushed his canoe out into the channel and started upstream. But it was a changed man who swung the long paddle. His soul had been rarefied in chastening flames. He was as one who had met his maker face to face, and his only hope now was that his lifespan might be mercifully extended until he could make amends for the past. He reached the houseboat in the early morning, much exhausted, and threw himself on the rude bed where his shattered nerves found partial repose. CHAPTER VI PART II This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Tom Hirsch. Tales of a Vanishing River by Earl H. Reed Muskrat Hyatt's Redemption Rat's sleep was much troubled. He awoke with a sudden start late in the afternoon, and lashed by an avenging conscience slid his canoe into the river and hurried upstream to find the Reverend Daniel Butters, a venerable preacher who lived about six miles away. To him he would carry his heavy laden heart and, in the consolations of religion, seek forgiveness and peace. The Reverend Butters was known far and wide as Dismaldan, and was referred to in Bill Stiles' Chronicles as the Javelin of the Lord. He was an eccentric, heavily bewiskered old character who believed in the church militant and had exhorted, quoted reproving scripture, and made dullful prophecies in the river country for two normal generations. In the little weather-beaten country church up the river, his small audiences consisted of aged ladies and pious old settlers who were already saved and did not need the rescuing hand. He preached Calvinistic damnation in the belief that fear of hell was a more potent factor in human redemption than hope of reward. His principal authority on hell was Jonathan Edwards, a fiery divine who glowed in Massachusetts about two hundred years ago. During his eruptive period, Edwards' sermons on damnation blistered and enriched the sectarian literature of his time. Dismaldan frequently resurrected and reheated these old printed sermons and hurled the sputtering embers at his inoffensive listeners. He had not made a convert for many years. Of late his powers of spiritual persuasion had languished and, like his hearers, had become atrophied. He was a revivalist who did not revive. He needed new and pliant material, and when Musker at Hyatt had told his errand, he was welcomed as one who had fled from among the Pharisees. Out of the wilderness of sin a lowly suppliant had come. They talked of the mysterious and unknown light that had illuminated the heavens the night before, and the terrifying sounds that had come over the water. Dismaldan pronounced it all to be a manifestation. He had long expected signs and angry portents in the skies as a warning to sinners. Probably his biased mind would eagerly have ascribed divine origin to any natural phenomena that shooed fish into his ministerial net. They spent many days and nights in prayer and assiduous scriptural readings. A faraway look came into Hyatt's eyes and an elevation of brow that did not seem to be of this world. The spiritual comb of the neophyte within cloistered walls was his. He had laid a contrite heart upon the altar of his fears, and on it rested celestial rays. He interrupted the period of his reconstruction with a trip down the river to visit Melindy Taylor. Just what passed at the duck farm was never known, but after three days Melindy opened her heart of stone to the penitent. They came up the stream in the canoe, and as the enraptured township correspondent of the county paper expressed it, they were united on the front porch in the sacred bonds of holy matrimony by the Reverend Daniel Butters on the afternoon of Thursday, the bridegroom being attired in conventional black, and the bride with a bouquet of white flowers. Ratbie took himself to the duck farm with his bride. He removed all his traps from the marsh, for he now considered the problem of his future earthly existence solved, without the necessity of very much hard work. He made frequent visits to Dismaldan, but kept entirely away from the store. That place was a sink of iniquity that he desired to avoid. He and the old man spent many hours together that were sweetened with blissful discourse. Dismaldan felt that a lifetime devoted to expounding the Gospels had found glorious fruition in the salvation of Muscratt Hyatt, and he was greatly elated by the sustained piety of the proselyte. He proposed to Brother Hyatt that they go together to the store and, if possible, convert the bunch on the platform. In his opinion, a successful attack on that citadel of sin would practically put the devil out of business in the river country. Brother Hyatt willingly consented. He was without fear of ridicule. He floated in an atmosphere of moral purity that the mockery of sinners could not defile. They took a Bible, two old hymn books, and some lunch to the canoe, and accompanied by the trustful and devoted spot they proceeded down the river. They snapped at the houseboat and secured the gun and cartridges that the trepper had left in exchange for the dog, and went on down to the bridge. On the river they practiced some of the old hymns, in the rendition of which Brother Hyatt displayed a woeful technique. They finally gave up trying to sing them, and Brother Butters droned out the rhythmic lines in a most doleful way that Brother Hyatt soon imitated successfully. Brother Butters then outlined the form of exhortation that he would use at the store, and instructed his assistant how he was to cooperate with deep and loud, Amens, whenever big climaxes were reached. Minor climaxes were to be left to Brother Hyatt's judgment. He was to watch Brother Butters, and when the forefinger was raised above the head, an Amen of more than usual sonorousness was to be forthcoming. Brother Hyatt had studied the hymn books industriously, and had selected scattered verses that pleased him and seemed appropriate. They were laboriously copied on loose sheets of paper. It was his intention to introduce these snatches of hymns into Brother Butters' sermons with the Amens whenever possible, and they both considered that holy power would thereby be added to the exhortation. The order in which the extracts were to be introduced was considered on the way down, but the sheets got somewhat mixed in Brother Hyatt's pocket before it was time to use them. The enemies of Satan, with their carefully prepared batteries of pious invective and Calvinistic hymns, landed safely under the bridge late in the afternoon. The canoe was pulled out. Brother Hyatt peeked over the top of the embankment and saw that the chairs on the store-platform were all filled, and that its edge was festooned with the usual attendance. Tipton Posey, Pop Wilkins, Bill Stiles, Doc Dust, Bill Warrick, The Jaundiced Viking, The Serpent's Hiss, and the other regulars were all there. The vineyard looked ripe and inviting. Bill Stiles hailed the proselytors cordially as they approached the stronghold. Say, Rat, why are you been buried all this time? Bill, days something wonderful happened to me. I've got religion. A great light has come to me, and I've repented of all my sins. I've brought that gun and then cartridges that I had traded your dog for, and I want you to find that, feller, and give him back to him. I've done wrong, and I want to square things up. Three or four times, I sold spot, knowing he'd come home. But I've spent the money. I'm going to get some of my friends to pay back every cent, if I can find the fellas that bought them. That'll make your friends awful happy, Rat. Say, you certainly are a pippin. What done all this? Never mind, Bill. You'll see the light some day. No man knows when the spirit cometh. Brother Butters and I are going to hold some services out in front of the store this afternoon. We want all the chairs fixed nice and even. Brother Butters will teach, and I am going to line out hymn passages along with the sermon. We ain't got no music, but me lining them out'll be just the same as if they was played in tunes, for it'll show what they are. I hope that some of you fellers will bite on what's offered. Rat was regarded with much concealed levity and mock respect, as he arranged the chairs in a curved row, and further developments were awaited with suppressed interest. Bill's styles joyfully accepted the centre of the row. Tipton Posey and the Serpent's hiss were at the ends. After the chairs were filled, the rest of the audience sat along the edge of the platform and dangled its feet. Brother Butters and Brother Hyatt brought out a box, which they placed on the ground about twenty feet from the audience. Brother Butters thought that a little distance would add dignity and solemnity. During the preparations, the similarity of the chair arrangement on the platform to that in the minstrel show at the county seat, which nearly everybody present had attended during the preceding winter, occurred to Tipton Posey. Mr. Brown, he called to Bill's styles in the centre. Yes, Mr. Bones, responded Bill, instantly catching the spirit of the occasion. Mr. Brown, why is this congregation like a tenpenny nail? I don't know, Mr. Bones, why this congregation is like a tenpenny nail? Why is this congregation like a tenpenny nail? Because, Mr. Brown, it's going to be driven in, sagely replied Mr. Bones, with a significant glance at the gathering rain clouds overhead. Gentlemen, please shed your hats, said Brother Hyatt, as he pounded for order on the box with a carrot that he had taken from a basket in the store. Brother Butters will now lead in prayer. During the invocation, which was brief but heartfelt, Spot walked out and stretched himself on the ground in front of the box. Brother Butters and Brother Hyatt both ended the prayer with loud, Amen's. Here are the lines of the first hymn, announced Brother Hyatt. Blow ye the trumpet, blow the gladly solemn sound, let all the nations know to earth's remotest bound, the day of jubilee is come, return ye ransom sinners home, and now the living waters flow to cheer the humble soul, from sea to sea the rivers go and spread from pole to pole. Brother Butters then began his discourse, most of which consisted of written extracts from old Calvinistic exhortations. Our sermon this afternoon is on the subject of the Eternity of Hell Torments, and the text is from Matthew 2546. The shell go away into everlasting punishment. Brother Hyatt, Amen, now feel ye the sting of the lash of the prophet, low on a narrow neck of land, twix two unbounded seas I stand, yet how insensible, a point of time a moment's space removes me to yon heavenly place, or shuts me up in hell. Brother Butters, you have a glorious opportunity today that may never come again. The door of mercy is opened wide, but the path that leads to it is long and narrow. A slight swerve leads to the fiery pit. Many come from the east, the west, the north, the south, and many fall. We may conceive of the fierceness of that awful fire of wrath if we think of a spider or other noisome insect thrown into the midst of glowing coals. How immediately it yields and curls and withers in the frightful heat. What pleasure we take in its agonizing destruction. Here is a little image of what ye may expect if ye persist in sin, and a picture of the place where pestilential sinners wail. Brother Hyatt, amen! O hear ye the happy message, since man by sin has lost his God, he seeks creation through and vainly hopes for solid bliss in trying something new. Brother Butters, the thought comes to me that the row of sinners in yonder chairs typifies sin in its vilest form, that of a snake. Tip at one end suggests the tale, and Dick shakes, whom ye call the serpent's hiss, at the other represents the loathsome head. It was a snake that carried sin into the Garden of Eden. It is a snake that confronts the Lord's service at this meeting. And in my mind's eye I see that writhing serpent, breeze-shakin' and hair hung over the yawning abyss of hell. Brother Hyatt, can you beat that? O blissful thought, there seems a voice in every gale, a tongue in every opening flower. Bill Stiles, this is hot stuff. Brother Butters, how will the duration of torment without end cause the heart to melt like wax? Even those proud, sturdy and hell-hardened spirits, the devils, tremble at the thoughts of that greater torture, which they are to suffer on the day of judgment. The poor damned souls of men will have their misery vastly augmented. Brother Hyatt, amen, they will get the limit. O Lord, behold me, and see how vile I am. Brother Butters, the fierceness of a great fire is when a house's all in flames gives one an idea of its rage, and we see that the greater the fire is, the fiercer is its heat in every part, and the reason is because one part heats another part. Bill Stiles, if that rain don't come pretty soon, you fellers' talk will set fire to that box. Brother Hyatt, the mockery of sinners availeth not. Now listen to another verse. I love to tell the story, it is pleasant to repeat, what seems each time I tell it, more wonderfully sweet. Brother Butters, we have seen that the misery of the departed soul of a sinner, besides what it now feels, consists in amazing fears of what is yet to come. When the union of the soul and the body is actually broken, and the body has fetched its last gasp, the soul forsakes the old habitation, and then falls into the hands of devils, who fly upon it, and seize it more violently than ever hungry lions flew upon their fray. Brother Hyatt, amen! Oh, what a finish! They are no ice hunks there! Fresh as the grass, our bodies stand and flourish bright as day, a blasting wind sweeps over the land and fades the grass away. Brother Butters, we now come to the joy of the saints in heaven, who behold the sufferings of sinners and unbaptized infants in hell. They shall see their doleful state, and it will heighten their sense of blessedness. When they shall see the smoke of their torment and the raging of the flames, and hear their dolorous shrieks and cries, and consider that they in the meantime are in the most blissful state for all eternity, how they will rejoice. Brother Hyatt, oh, listen ye to the comforts of the church! Oh, speed that happy day! Hark, hark, the notes of joy roll, o'er the heavenly plains, and all the seraphs find employ for their sublimus strains. Brother Butters, the scriptures plainly teach that the saints in glory shall see the doleful state of the damned, and witness the execution of almighty wrath. Brother Hyatt, amen! Oh, the transporting rapture scene that rises to my sight! Brother Butters, the sight of hell torments will exalt the happiness of the saints forever, and give them a more lively relish of the joys of their heavenly home. The righteous and the wicked in the other world will see each other's state. Thus the rich man in hell and Lazarus and Abraham in heaven are represented as seeing each other in the sixteenth chapter of Luke. The wicked in their misery will see the saints in the kingdom of heaven, Luke 13, 28, 29. There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, and you yourselves thrust out. Brother Hyatt, the seraphs bright are hovering around the throne above, their harps are ever-tuning to thrilling strains of love. They'll tell the sweet old story I always loved so well. Oh, let me float in glory and hear sinners wail in hell! Brother Butters, now come we to the procrastination practiced by the average sinner, and in Proverbs 27, 1 we find the words, boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth. Brother Hyatt, the lilies of the field that quickly fade away may well to us a lesson yield, for we are frail as they. Brother Butters, dear friends, tomorrow is not our own. There are many ways and means whereby the lives of men are ended. It is written in the Book of Job, Chapter 21, Verse 23, that one dieth in his full strength, being holy at ease and quiet. Brother Hyatt, amen! Now listen ye unto these words. Melt, melt these frozen hearts, these stubborn wills subdue. Each evil passion overcome and form them all anew. Brother Butters, oh ye unregenerates, that wallow in sin and wickedness on that platform. God despises you, and the flames await you. Go down upon your accursed knees tonight and beseech salvation. This is Friday, Saturday may be too late, and everything in the way of grace may be gone. Brother Hyatt, slim chance for this bunch, it's you to the red-hot hooks. Hark, what celestial notes, what melody do we hear? Soft on the morn it floats and fills the ravished ear. Brother Butters, how can you be reasonably quiet for one day, or for one night when you know not when the end will come? If you should be found unregenerate, how fearful would be the consequence? Consider and harken unto this council, repent and be prepared for death. The bow of wrath is bent, the arrow is made ready on the string, and nothing but the restraint of all mighty anger keeps the arrow one moment from being made drunk with your blood. Brother Hyatt, amen, amen, oh ye tight wads of iniquity loosen up, for this is the last call. Let floods of penitential grief burst forth from every eye. Brother Butters, be prepared for the opening of the eternal gates of pearl that are bathed in the light that shines for the meek and the pure in heart. The blessings of repentance are now before you. The choice of taking or leaving is yours. Brother Hyatt, nothing could be fairer than that. O bless the harps that played the tune that brings us together this afternoon. Brother Butters, be prepared for that awful day of judgment, when the paths that lead to heaven and the paths that lead to hell are divided by the width of a hair. Brother Hyatt, amen, amen, there is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins, and sinners plunged beneath that flood lose all their guilty stains. At this point the rain descended out of the kindly skies, the flaming oratory was extinguished, and everybody retreated into the store. It was getting dark, and while the services were not completed, the exorters felt that much spiritual progress had been made. Most of the regulars departed silently when the shower was over. Say, Rat, was that you down on the marsh the night we tried the goose call? asked Bill Wirick. I seen somebody out near the channel when them funny streaks was in the sky. Since it all come out about the goose call, we don't try to keep it dark no more. The fellers round the store got onto it, and they've been deviling the life out of me in tip. The dead, gassed thing wouldn't work, and we've took it apart. We tried to make it sound like a flock of geese, but it sounded more like a flock of thunderstorms. Them sky streaks that night was a funny thing. There's a paper here, Summers, that got it all in. Let me see if I can find it. Tip had it yesterday. Wirick finally found the newspaper. Hyatt took it to the dim kerosene lamp and spent some time studying the long account of the magnetic storm. It was explained by scientific authorities, and be moaned by the interests it had affected. The telegraph and telephone companies had been put out of business for several hours, and commerce had suffered while Hyatt's soul was being purified in celestial fires. Disillusionment came. As long as the things that were going on in the world were natural, and could be explained, rats saw no reason for worrying about the next. A cherished idol was shattered, his piety was dead sea fruit. With the calmness of a cool game-ster who has thrown and lost his all, slightly pale but with firm and deliberate step, he went behind the door and secured the rifle and cartridges he had asked Bill Stiles to restore to the swindled trapper. With no word of farewell to those around him, he lighted his long neglected old pipe, wreaking with sin and nicotine, whistled a spot, and walked away down the path to the river bank where the canoe had been left, and disappeared. Brother Butters went out on the platform and looked longingly after him. Night had fallen upon the river. Somewhere far away in the purple gloom that softly lay upon its dimpling and restless tide was a lost sheep. Its fleece had become black, but it was more precious than the ninety and nine that were still within the fold. The Turkish Club We're going to take you upriver to the Turkey Club tomorrow, announced Rat Hyatt as we left Posey's store one night. There's going to be some do-ins there that you'll like and you'll meet a lot of people you never seen before, and probably some you won't never want to see again. We had spent the evening with the usual group that clustered around the smoky stove when the weather rendered the platform outside uncomfortable. It was late in the fall, and Thanksgiving was only a few days away, but Indian summer still lingered with its purple days and frosty nights, and I was loath to leave the river country while it lasted. The council around the stove often varied in composition, but not in character. It was always picturesque, not only in its light and shade and color, but in the primitive philosophy, spontaneous wit, original profanity, and ornate narrative that issued from it. On this occasion, Pop Wilkins had told with much circumstantial detail a long story about his old plug hat. He said it was minted about 30 years ago, summers down east, and was bought for him by subscription by the congregation over which he at that time presided. The hat was in the Allegheny River a couple of days during its journey to his address, but when it finally got to him, the congregation had it all fixed up so that everybody said it was just as good as new. Since then he had only had to have it repaired twice. He had a great affection for it, on account of its old associations, and hoped that it would be buried with him when he died. A hope that was shared by all present. The old plug was an echo of years long departed and a never-failing butt of merry jest. The tickets of all the raffles that had ever been held in that part of the country that anybody could remember had been shaken up in Pop's hat. The old man's story had reminded his listeners of others, and it was quite late when Posey remarked that he was going upstairs to bed, and to keep things from being carried off, he was going to lock up. At ten the next morning five of us started upstream in three of the small boats that were usually attached to stakes under the bridge. Hyatt and I were in his duck canoe, which he skillfully propelled with his long paddle. Posey and Pop Wilkins followed in a leaky green craft with squeaky oars. Far in the rear Bill's styles stemmed the gentle current in his push boat, which he declared was never intended for anybody but him. This idea had been generally accepted along the river, for Bill's boat was the only one for many miles up and downstream that had never been borrowed or stolen. The fact that it was so tippy that nobody but Bill seemed to be able to sit in it without being spilled into the river accounted for its immunity. Someday, remarked Bill, a cold wet stranger will come to the store and get warm and tell some kind of a story about falling off on the bridge into the river. But everybody will know what's happened. Nobody that's acquainted round here ever tried to navigate with my push boat. He called the craft the flapjack. The roughly lettered name appeared in yellow paint on each side of the bow, and to his subtle mind it was sufficient warning to the unwary. He said that the name was also lettered along the bottom of the boat underneath. And anybody that wants to can take her out in the river and read it. She won't keep them waiting more than a few minutes. The river was low and we scraped gently over a few sandbars on the way up. After proceeding about two miles we came to a wobbly and much patched bridge on which were several figures. A fringe of cane fish-polls drooped idly from its side. The figures were motionless and would remain so until the turkey club activities began. Here's where we get off, said Hyatt, as we turned in near the bridge. We waited for the rest of the flotilla to come up. When our party had all arrived we climbed a zigzag path and walked along the road to the Little Grey Church a few hundred feet away. It was here that the Reverend Daniel Butters, the javelin of the Lord, was wanted to expound the Gospels, formulate dreary doctrines, and to depict the frankfulness of damnation to his superannuated and docile flock. So far as human faith and opinion could influence the destinies of any of these aged and serene believers, their spiritual safety had been assured for many years. They went regularly to church, principally because they wanted to be seen there, because they had nothing else particularly to do or think about Sundays. And, last, how the ranks of warriorly worshipers would dwindle were it not for these things. Like that of many preachers the voice of Butters was of one crying in the desert to passing errors in unheeding sands. There were none to sucker or uplift, and none to be beckoned to the fold. They were all in, and further effort was painting the lily and adding perfume to the rose. This strife was won, but yet he battled on. The great tide of human error flowed far beyond his can, and he could drag no spiritual spoil from its turbid waters. In fancy his religious establishment might be likened to a cocoon into which none might enter, and from which none might emerge, except in a new and glorified state. Some mournful Lombardy populars stood in front of the unpainted structure, and on one side was the little cemetery, with its serried mounds and conventional epithets. A weeping willow wept near the center of the plot. Some rabbits hopped about near the broken fence at the farther side of the enclosure, and a stray cow fed peacefully among the leaning slabs. There's a lot of people represented in that flock of tombstones, observed Hyatt, as we turned in from the road, and there's a lot of cussedness out there that it's a good thing to have covered up. Both physically and spiritually the old church was a dismal remnant, but it was the regional social center. The building was utilized in many profane ways that saddened the pious heart of the river and butters, but to him its crowning desecration was the turkey club. The membership of this unique organization comprised practically all of the male population within eight or ten miles up and down the river, and soapy perkins, of whom more hereafter. Most of the small politicians of the county were affiliated with the club, and used it for such propaganda as, from time to time, befitted their objects and petty ambitions. Originally its purpose was to foster and finance the annual turkey shoot. This popular event usually just preceded Thanksgiving and was the occasion of a general holiday. During the forty odd years of the club's existence it had gradually broadened to the scope of its early activities, until it became more or less identified with pretty much everything of a local public character. Its only rival as a social focus was Posey's store. Under its auspices the Fourth of July, golden weddings and other anniversaries were celebrated. Dances, amateur theatricals, old settlers picnics, tax protest meetings, lectures, political rallies, grand raffles, dog and chicken fights, greased pig contests, quilting bees, ministerial showers, and other affairs were pulled off during the year. The ministerial showers were about the only functions that the Reverend Butters did not consider unholy. There were special meetings for discussion of diverse subjects, including the mistakes of Congress, advice to the President, the tariff, the oppressions of capital, the tyranny of labor, prohibition, the Negro question, restriction of immigration, Shakespeare criticism, the wrongs of Ireland, and a host of other things that generated heat and lasting acrimony. The meetings sometimes approached turbulence when some overzealous orator gave vent to unpopular ideas or made statements that seemed to justify somebody in the audience in calling him a liar. Few participants ever left, convinced of anything in particular, except the correctness of the opinions they had brought with them. We found a gathering of about a hundred club members and numerous small boys in the grove back of the church. We strolled about through the crowd, and I was introduced by my companions to a number of their old friends. Bill was the official head of the club and deservedly popular. To the small boys he was a deified personage. His constitutional title was Chief Gobbler, and he bore it with easy grace in a quiet era of noblesse oblige. His opinion prevailed on club matters, except when Sophie Perkins was in contact with the situation, and this was most of the time. Sophie was the secretary, treasurer, general manager, board of directors, and, to her mind, constituted the greater part of the membership, although her duties were supposed to be merely clerical. All her life she had yearned for something besides her husband to regulate and superintend, and the turkey club had been a godsend. She was a somewhat attenuated female on the regretful side of fifty. Her physiognomy was repelling and expressed characteristics of an alley cat. There was a predatory gleam in her narrowly placed greenish eyes. They bespoke malignant jealousy and relentless cupidity. She seemed enveloped by an atmosphere vague and indefinable that prompted cautious and immediate retirement from her vicinity. In private conversation she was commonly referred to as the Stinger, and the sobacue seemed to have been justly earned by a badly speckled record of secret intrigue and underhanded methods. Anonymous letters, petty trickery, and duplicity in manifold forms were included in the misdeeds that had been tacitly laid at Sophie's door. She was of that female type that demands all male privileges, in addition to those of her own sex, and she often took advantage of the fact that she was a woman to do and say things that she would probably have been knocked down for, if she had been a man, one of the most contemptible forms of cowardice. Her shortcomings were legion, but nobody else was available who was willing to carry the burden of the clerical duties of the club, and she was allowed to run things to her heart's content. Her main reward was the occasional mention of her name in the county paper in connection with the activities of the club. She treasured the carefully garnered clippings and gloated over them through the dreary years. To her they were precious incense, and while they gratified, but never satisfied her vanity and hunger for notoriety, they were the compensation of her narrow and disappointed life and the food of her impoverished and selfish spirit. She was without the consolations of religion, the resources of culture, or the sweet recompense of children's voices to soften the asperities of her fruitless existence. The gray hairs had come, and there was no love around Sophie, for she had sent forth none during the period of life in which temples of the soul must be built if, kindly light, beams from their windows, and there be fit sanctuary for the weary spirit in the after-years. Successive official heads of the club, who seemed to be attracting more public attention than Sophie, were submarineed, made officially sick, and retired gracefully. The supply of these official heads finally became restricted, and for the past few years Bill's incumbency had been undisturbed, although he frequently threatened to throw up the job. J. Montgomery Perkins was a subdued helpmate. He was an inoffensive little man who was always alluded to as Sophie's husband, and when this happened somebody would usually exclaim sympathetically, poor Perk! Of late years the club had suffered from too much Sophie Perkins. Interest had begun to lag, and empathy was creeping over the membership. You want to look out for Sophie, confided Hyatt, before I admit her. She's got a lot of wires loose in the upper story, but she knows where the ends of all of them are when there's anything in it for her. Promptly at 2 p.m. Bill pounded with a big stick on a board that was sustained at the ends by the heads of two resonant barrows. The confused hum of voices ceased, and the eyes of the scattered groups were upon him. Sophie whispered to him that he was now to announce the opening of the shoot. It was Bill's intention to do this anyway, but Sophie thought it better that she should take part in what was going on. Substantially, his remarks were as follows. Gentlemen, and one lady, this ain't no time for a long speech. The annual turkey shoot of this club's now on, and anybody that's paid his dues and his entrance fee can get in on the game. Ten fat and husky birds are in them boxes, and the boxes are 50 yards from the rope that stretch between them two trees, and that's the shooting stand. The chair has made the measurements. The birds will keep their heads poked up out of the holes in the top of the boxes to rubber at the scenery, and they gotta be killed by a bullet in the head or neck. Hitting them through the boxes don't go this year like it did last. Them stone piles is to protect them up to the tops. Any eggs found in the boxes after the shooting belongs to the winners. Every shooter will have ten shots for his dollar, and he must stand and shoot without resting his rifle on anything but himself. No bullet bigger than your thumbs allowed. If you bust the bird's head or break his neck, it's yours. And if you don't hit nothing in the first ten shots, you can buy more chances as long as the turkey's in your money last. The money from the shooter will be to pay for the falls, and if there's any live ones left after the show, they'll be auctioned off to the highest bidders if they don't get insulted by the low bids and fly off with the boxes. I guess I've told all they is to say, but if there's anything anybody don't understand, or if got any kickin' comin', speak up. Oh, yes, I forgot to say, there'll be a booby prize of a little tin horn with a purple ribbon on it, for them the can't shoot should be allowed to toot. If they ain't no objection, the shooting will now commence. With another loud bang on the board, the address closed and the crowd drifted towards the taut rope. Hold on there, yelled Sophie Perkins, frantically waving a small book. Nobody's paid a cent yet. You fellas don't have to ante up before any blood runs, shouted Bill as he again pounded the board. Nineteen contestants qualified at the barrel behind which Sophie presided. Her fishy orbs lighted up at the sight of the money, which she definitely deposited in her stocking after modestly turning her back to the crowd. She'll shaper on that cash to the day of the resurrection if somebody don't keep tab on it, said Hyatt in an undertone, as the proceeds disappeared among the mysteries of Sophie's apparel. We're gonna put rollers under that old girl someday, but we can't do it till we can get somebody else willing to do the work. Posey and Hyatt were provided with firearms, and Pop Wilkins had brought an old-fashioned muzzle-loading rifle with a long barrel, which he handled with much tenderness. I used to shoot ladybugs off in the edges of the leaves on the tops of trees with this old iron when I was younger and spry, and maybe I'll hit something with it today, he declared as he ambled over towards the shooting stand. I didn't bring no gun, and I won't do no shooting, remarked Bill. It wouldn't be dignified for me as head of the club, and it wouldn't be fair for the rest for me to shoot. It'd be like swiping candy from little boys. As Bill had not been known to kill anything with a gun for over twenty years, his explanation was accepted without comment. Mr. Joshua T. Varney appeared at this stage of the proceedings and offered to take two dollars worth of chances and pay three dollars premium if he could have the first trial and twenty successive shots. As it usually took a great many shots to hit a turkey's head at fifty yards, his proposition was accepted after some discussion. Josh Varney was a traveling salesman who for several years had periodically visited Posey's store on his rounds through the county and sold supplies adapted to the general country trade. He was a smooth-faced man of about forty, with keen gray eyes, a good storyteller, and from him radiated the assurance and suavity of his kind. He had always been a good mixer and was considered an all-around good fellow. He had joined the club two years before but had never attended a shoot. He went to his buggy that stood near the roadside among numerous other vehicles and returned with a small repeating rifle. He then stepped over to the rope and began shooting at the bobbing heads above the boxes. In this way hundreds of venerable goblers and dignified hen turkeys had lost their lives in past years through innocent curiosity as to the doings of the outside world. The birds were all dead when Mr. Varney had fired fourteen times. Quiet but well-chosen profanity troubled the air when the tenth bird succumbed and the performance was ended. Bill again belabored the board and announced the end of the contest. Gentlemen, you've probably noticed that the shooting's all over, something's been done unto us, and somebody has had an elegant pastime. This ain't been no turkey shoot, it's been a horrible massacre, and after this all deadwood dicks'll be barred unless they get a mile away when they shoot at anything around here. We'd better kill our turkeys with axes after this and only sell the chance of one wop. We ain't got but one booby prize and I guess you all better take turns blowing on it. This ain't been no kind of day and it's come to a sad end. The club will now proceed to its annual business, and as the day is nice and warm, we might as well do it outdoors instead of going in and mussin' up the church. Sophie, whatcha got on the fire that asked to be tended to? They ain't no business that I can't tend to myself, replied Sophie grimly. The treasurer's report been left at home by accident, and they ain't nothin' else to come up, lest somebody wants to pay dues, or you want to elect some new members. With this she favored me with a stealthy side-long glance, and I was there upon proposed for membership by Rat Hyatt, who added that I seemed to be the only outsider present from a distance that hadn't horn-swoggled the club during the past hour. Sophie's talon-like fingers closed quickly on the two-dollar bill that I handed her as the first year's dues, after my election and the formal adjournment of the meeting. While I was entirely out of sympathy with the turkey-shoots, I was glad for several reasons to become a member. After most of the crowd had dispersed, I was solemnly conducted into the church, and informed that, in order to become a full-fledged member, certain things must be imparted to me to complete my initiation. I was then told that all turkeys knew each other by certain grips and cabalistic words. The grip consisted of shaking hands with three fingers only, representing the three front toes of a turkey. The counter-sign was pop-pop signifying rifle firing at the annual shoot. The counter-sign, loudly uttered, with three fingers held aloft, constituted the grand high sign, and I was told that I must always relieve any brother turkey who hungered or thirsted and made such a sign. With my promise to remember all this, this ceremony, which my instructors, Bill and Rat, considered very humorous, was ended. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Reverend Butters had been a sourful spectator of the proceedings of the afternoon, but his furrowed face brightened when Josh Varney gracefully presented him with one of the big, dripping birds that he was carrying to his buggy. In prayer before his congregation on the following Sunday, he expressed humble gratitude, with the words, Out of the iniquities of the world, O Lord, has sustenance come to the body of thy servant, and beneath a cloak of sin have thy blessings been transmitted unto thine anointed one. The relations between the old preacher and Rat Hyatt had been slightly embarrassing since Rat's conversion and sudden backsliding of the year before, and they had little to say to each other when they met. Rat was now regarded as a hopeless loss and a minute part of Hell's future fuel supply. He considered his former spiritual comforter a busted windbag, so there seemed little left to say on either side. On the way back to the boats, I reflected on the degrading entertainment of the afternoon. Outside of what Pop Wilkins called the horning in of that turkey pirate, the day was considered a success. The well-aimed bullets had thrilled the spectators with savage joy, for somewhere in the heart of nearly every average human abides the primitive lust for blood. The marksmanship might just as well have been exhibited on inanimate and un-suffering targets. The helpless turkeys in the boxes gratified the baser instincts to the extent of their limitations, and when they were all dead, the crowd went home as happy as if it had been to a bullfight, a prize ring, or to any other brutal spectacle disguised by pretended admiration of scientific ability. On the way back down the river, our boats kept close together and there was much discussion over the day's vents. Pop Wilkins delivered a long tirade against Varney and wound up by modestly admitting that probably he would have beheaded all of the birds with his squirrel rifle if he had had the opportunity, so after all it was merely a question as to who shot first. That fella could probably thread needles with that damn rifle, observed Bill, have read of fellas that had telescope eyes and a sixth sense that somehow couldn't miss nothing they ever shot at. They could plunk holes wherever they wanted to, like they was using a gimlet. I wonder what he wasted them for extra cartridges for. Probably sows to make a nice sociable feeling all round and make them think it wasn't quite so raw. He probably goes to shoots all over the country and sells the plunder in the market. The chill winds of a desolate winter had swept through the naked woods along the river and a balmy may had come, with its tender unfolding leaves of hope and perfumed blossoms, when Josh Varney again appeared on the scene. Well, well, how's everybody? He shouted genially as he drove up in front of Posey's store one four noon with a roan horse and a smart new buggy. We're slowly getting well. Say, Professor, ain't you got no gun with you, have you, queried Bill, as the pair of shokans, because if you have, there's a lot of us that's gonna hide some poultry. Now, look here, Bill, you don't want to be sore about that little shooting last fall. I gave all them turkeys to some poor folk, and they'd done a lot of good. I'd just happened to hit them, and I couldn't repeat that performance in a hundred years. You bet you couldn't round here if we'd seen you first, replied Bill. I'd hate to furnish turkeys for you to shoot it for a hundred years, and I'd hate to be the poor people waiting for you to feed them birds to them. Say, what you got up your sleeve this trip? Something still funnier, I suppose. Posey was busy with the customer, and Barney remained with us on the platform. He produced some murky and doubtful cigars that Bill declared looked like genuine L-hemp bows, and we smoked and talked for some time. Pop Wilkins joined us, and Sophie Perkins arrived at the store to purchase some calico. She bestowed a reserved nod in a feline glance on Barney, and greeted the rest of the party with scant politeness. She stood just inside, near the entrance, and utilized the time Posey was spending with his other customer in listening to our conversation. She soon became so absorbed in it that she forgot all about her calico and remained riveted to her point of vantage. Posey respected her preoccupation and busied himself with other things after his first visitor had left through the side door. The chairs outside were tipped against the long windowsill, and the party was making itself comfortable in the spring sunshine. Barney was relating a wondrous tale, and was fully aware of the acute eavesdropping within. Many of the romantic touches in his discourse were apparently for Sophie's benefit. I got a long letter from a friend of mine, said Josh as he felt through his inside pockets, and I wish I had it with me, but I guess I left it somewhere. He's making a trip round the world, and he writes me that in India he ran across a marvelous breed of turkeys. You know, turkeys originated India, and they come from their first about five hundred years ago. These strange birds, he writes about, live a way up in the Himalayan mountains in our pure white. They're much larger than ordinary turkeys, and their color adapts them to the snowy peaks, and protects them from the natives when they pursue them out of the valleys, where they go to eat frogs along the water courses. They live almost entirely on frogs when they can get them. When they're disturbed, they wing back to the frozen heights, and sometimes don't come down for a year. When they're hunted up there, they fly from crag to crag, and then they're almost invisible. And it's a funny thing, but their meats all white too. They ain't no dark meat on them like there is on common turkeys. They lay enormous eggs, and the eggs generally have two yolks. Sometimes twins hatch out of them. The double yolks give an extra amount of vitality to the young turkeys, which is necessary up among the coal rocks where they're hatched. The eggs have a delicious, spicy flavor that comes from the spearmint and other pungent plants that the frogs nibble on along the streams. The eggs are highly prized by epicures, and there's a Frenchman living in Bombay that pays two rupees apiece for all he can get of them. He makes what he calls onlets to frog second-air, or something like that with them, and he says there's nothing like them. With him it's hen eggs no more. There's a sacred caste in India called the Brahmins, and they believe that these white turkeys are what they call re-incarnations of a supernatural race of beings that ruled the earth before man existed. Somebody ought to import some of them turkeys and breed them in this country. Along a river like this they'd find plenty to eat, and they wouldn't be no expense at all. My friend writes that he hopes to bring two or three back with him when he comes home, and I'm anxious to see him. Oh yes, come to think of it, I put a photograph in my pocketbook that was in the letter. Barney thereupon produced a Kodak print of a stately white bird. Some figures in Oriental costume, somewhat out of focus and indistinct, were grouped back of it in the picture. Barney explained that these were the Brahmins and native hunters. Sophie peeked over the pile of straw hats in the window, and had a good look at the photograph as Barney deftly held it so that it could be seen from that direction without appearing to do so. We were greatly entertained by the story. Say, Professor, asked Bill. What do them fouls in their youngens' feet on when they don't get often the snow and go down for frogs? Do they have to have the frogs for their complexions? That's the strange part of it, replied Barney. You see, they sort of lead double lives. Nature is wonderful in all her works. In the Himalayas there's a small red mosquito that has never been found except way up above the timber line. They have them out west in this country, too. They sometimes cover the snow so thick that it looks like blood. In the little turks patter round on the drifts and eat them with veracity. And the big ones do, too. Veracity? What's that? Something they're mixed with? Asked Bill. No, it means their awful appetite. I'd suppose them skeets would make the turkey meat taste kind of like nippy and prickly, sort of red pepper-like, observed Bill, winking solemnly in our direction. It ought to be hot stuff. The insects make the finest kind of food for them, continued Barney, ignoring Bill's gentle rarerly and the incredulous smiles of the rest of us. When the mosquito crops extra good they get so fat they can't fly or run very far, and they are easily caught. When they lean they can run like a racehorse. The bird that's in the picture weighed nearly seventy pounds when he was captured. He couldn't fly and he was chased into a cleft in the big rock and a net was slipped over him. The man that caught him was named Bungush Swamy, and he was a famous hunter. You see everybody has funny names in India. What was that Bungush feller doing up there with a net, asked Pop Wilkins. Did he specta fine fish? No, he took it up there for that very purpose. He wanted to catch his birds alive without injury, so he could sell them to the museums and menageries. One year he caught seven and shipped them to the zoo in Bombay. That's how that Frenchman I just spoke of happened to try the eggs. They laid them in the zoo and the keeper to zoo was a friend of his. You asking about specta-defined fish up there reminds me that my friend said in his letter that another way they had a catch in the birds was to lay out set lines over the snow with big fish hooks on them. They fastened them to the jagged rocks and left them out there three or four days. They baited the hooks with frogs they'd brought up from down below. The frogs, of course, froze, but the turkeys would swallow them, and when the frogs thawed out inside their crops they'd be stuck with the hooks. My friend wrote that one man got three on one line once and had a terrible time pulling them in over the rough ice and snow. They have some awful snow storms up in them mountains. Sometimes it snows for years without letting up, and the snow gets to be half a mile deep, so you see there's lots of uncertainties. At this point Bill removed his tattered hat and bowed reverently to Varney. Pop Wilkins remarked that he had often caught turkeys on fish lines, but his custom had been to troll for them through the open fields with spoon hooks, or use a pole in line with a casting bait when the birds were in the trees. Although he had never tried set lines on snow, he had no doubt it would work. This subject was changed, and Sophie, after making her purchase, departed without looking in our direction. That fellow is the oiliest liar I ever heard, declared Bill, after Varney had transacted his business and gone. And he tells interesting lies, too. He beats me how he does them. It's a sort of natural gift, like singing and drawing pictures, and I love to hear him throw it. Most liars had stopped when they seen it wasn't soaking in and people was getting weak, but the professor keeps right on till the goose flesh comes. Say Pop, you and me don't have to ferment something to drown him with when he blows around here again. Let's tell him one that'll put him out of business for six months. All right, Bill, you be thinking of it. You're something of a past master yourself. I'm going home to rest. I got enough for one day. Varney chuckled quietly to himself as he crossed the bridge, for with his story he had woven a web of many meshes, and to it he hoped time would bring valuable spoil. He knew that he could rely on Sophie's cupidity and insatiable curiosity to start something, and when he came again it was his intention to amplify and strengthen the groundwork he had laid. A week later the firm by whom Josh was employed received a mysterious letter asking all about him. It came from the county seat and was afterwards ascertained to have been written by one of Sophie's acquaintances, undoubtedly at her instigation. This was a characteristic and favorite form of strategy with Sophie, and was quite recognizable to Josh when the letter was shown to him. The reply that he suggested was sent by his obliging employers. It contained the assurance that Mr. Varney was a gentleman of high repute. He had sold their goods for several years, and they considered his honesty and ability above question. In due course of time Sophie began to agitate the idea of getting some of those wonderful white foreign turkeys that she had accidentally heard about into the neighborhood. She thought that the club ought to take the matter up. Bill assured her that the professor was handing out bunk the day that things was being accidentally overheard inside, and anything from him would be about like what he put over at the Thanksgiving shoot. This spirit of opposition only stimulated Sophie, and the subtle Josh had calculated on it to a nicety. He knew that the seed was now in fertile soil, and he calmly awaited the harvest. In a month he came again and incidentally mentioned that his friend who wrote him about the Himalayan white turkeys had arrived in New York. He had started home with three birds, but two of them had been sickened by the roll of the ship on the way over, and had died just before getting into port. The one that survived the voyage was the remarkable gobbler that was in the picture he had shown on his last trip to the store. This bird will cause a lot of excitement in this country, he declared. They call him Hyder Alley, and he's named after a famous Mohammedan general that fought in Asia a good many years ago. This man, Hyder Alley, pretty nearly cleaned the English out of India once, and they had a hot time getting them canned. There's been ships and perfumery and race horses and bans of cigars and lots of other things named after him. He was one of the most famous men that ever lived in that part of the world. By degrees the imaginative and romantic Josh succeeded in creating an atmosphere of avid interest in everything related to Hyder Alley, the marvelous fall from beyond the briny seas, and he intended to intensify this atmosphere to the point of precipitation at the proper time. A couple of weeks later Varney told Posey that he had bought the Himalayan gobbler from his friends, but did not know what to do with him for a week or ten days, as the man that was going to take care of it for him was away. It was arranged that the gobbler was to be brought to the store and temporarily installed in the chicken-yard near the barn. On the following Saturday afternoon, when Josh well knew that there would be a full attendance at Poseys, that gay and debonair gentleman came in a light spring wagon. He was accompanied by a young man with a thick American accent who drove the rig and whom he introduced as Mr. Flaherty. Interest immediately centered on the big box, perforated with many auger holes that stood in the wagon back of the seat. The vehicle was followed by the agitated and curious crowd as it was driven back to the chicken-yard. The box was tenderly removed and placed inside the wire netting enclosure by Varney and Flaherty. The appearance of Hyder Alley had been skillfully timed. The composite effect of Varney's discourses on the subject of this wondrous bird had been to produce psychological conditions that he considered quite perfect for his dark purposes. He knew that the halo of prestige and romance that had been patiently made to glow around Hyder Alley would become still brighter when that peerless bird burst dramatically upon the rustic stage. Out of the opened door of the box there came with delicate mincing steps and regal mane, what, to that crowd, was almost a celestial vision. He was an enormous bird. With the exception of his eyes he was pure white, even to his caronculated neck-waddle and comb. The eyes were of a deep pink and gleamed like iridescent opals in their snowy setting. The slender comb dangled and hung jauntily on one side, like the tassel on a Turkish bez, and it imparted a rakeish oriental air. The head was crowned with a dainty wisp of airy feathers that would have fluttered the heart of the most obdurate of hen turkeys. The shifting light revealed pearly half-tones in the snowy raiment. He was immaculate and would hardly have seemed out of place on a pedestal. Many strange and queer things have stood on pedestals in this world, both in fact and fancy, and Hyder Alley would have ranked very far from the lower end of the scale. He paused on being released from what to him must have been a humiliating confinement, looked disdainfully at his surroundings, and nonchalantly acquired a fat-green tomato worm that decorated a nearby leaf. He walked slowly and with lordly dignity about the enclosure, apparently conscious of the wonder and admiration he was attracting. He seemed like some rare exotic, entirely foreign to the strange environment into which an indiscriminate fate had thrust him. "'Let joy be unconfined, we've got Hyder Alley,' shouted Bill, half sarcastically, as he joined the awe-stricken crowd. He had arrived too late to witness the unloading, but he was impressed with the fact that Varney had, at least in some measure, made good. However the demon of distrust still lingered in his heart. He had never seen or heard of anything that looked like Hyder Alley before, but was disposed to restrain his enthusiasm in a wait further developments. Sophie Perkins came late in the afternoon and was in a highly flustered state. She spent a long time at the chicken-yard, with her wistful eyes riveted on the distinguished guest. To own that bird would crown her futile and disappointed life with bliss. She longed for its possession as one who beseeches fate for the unattainable. Seemingly in response to her fervent gaze, Hyder Alley spread his tail feathers into vast, fan-like forms over his downy back. His pink eyes glistened with alluring and changing beams from amid the fluffy white array of distended plumage, as he turned slowly round and round, posed and strutted, quite human-like, before Sophie's bewildered vision. His prolonged gobbles, as he majestically patrolled the chicken-pen, had for her an ineffable musical charm. She had once read a syndicated story in a newspaper magazine supplement in which reincarnation and transmigration of souls figured in a supernatural and flesh-creepy plot. After she had heard Josh Varney's allusion to reincarnation in his first talk with us at the store, she had hunted it up and re-read it carefully. In the woeful and sobby tale, a beautiful princess and her affinity discovered that they had once loved as shellfish. And through countless ages had periodically met in other strange forms, which did not happen to be identical until the time of the story, when they met in a phosphorescent light in the dusty tomb of a Manchu ancestor.