 Section 10 of Chimes for Majester's Bells by Robert J. Burdett. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Chimes for Majester's Bells by Robert J. Burdett. Section 10. The Story of Rallo. 9. Learning to Learn. Many other useful things did Rallo learn from constant and loving association with that good and wise man, his father. Because however prigish and pompous, however shallow and stupid, Mr. Holiday might seem in the judgment of his neighbors. To Rallo, he was ever the wisest teacher, the best companion, the merriest playmate, the truest comrade to be found among men. And to this opinion, Rallo clung most loyally, long after other boys began to call him grandpa and tease him for stories about what he did when he was a boy. So Rallo and his father went to school together so long as they lived, and when Mr. Holiday was graduated from this old kindergarten and went up into the high school, and Rallo remained at his desk all the years as they came and went, found him at the same old lessons. There were a little harder after his father got his degree and went out. He missed the old teacher who studied by his side, who was disciplined for his faults as Rallo was, who smarted for his mistakes as Rallo did, who blundered over his books as Rallo did, and who cried over the hard places as Rallo did, and who, better than any other man in all this wide world, knew how to get under Rallo's burdens, who knew, as no other man in the world did, how to find a way through the thickets and out of the brambles, how to whitewash a path so that Rallo could see it in the dark, who knew in this tangled old wilderness just where to find the healing herb of grace that always grows not far away from the poison ivy, who knew that a gnat is more irritating than a tiger, and that mosquitoes worry more people, a million times told, than do the lions, that molehills just figure more lawns than mountains, and so understood how to enter into the little boy's big troubles. All these things are also good things for Rallo's father to bear in mind while he is forgetting them, because they mean so much to Rallo. So Rallo kept on learning so long as he lived, learning and unlearning, which is much the same thing only harder. A boy of eighteen or nineteen is liable to know a great deal more, and to know it more positively than a man of eighty. No hoary-headed sage, whose long and studious years have been passed in the study of books and things and men, ever knows so many things quite so positively as a boy. But if the boy lives long enough and keeps on learning, he has time to get rid of a great deal of his youthful knowledge. It hurts, so yes. Pulling eye teeth and triple-pronged molars is mirth-provoking pastime, summer-day ecstasy, compared with the pangs which accompany shredding off great solid slabs and layers of wisdom that sometimes press upon the young man like geological strata. And how does the youth get rid of all this superabundant knowledge? Oh, by a very simple process. He just keeps on airing it, and it disintegrates rapidly on exposure to the air. Time, says Ovid, is the best doctor. And that is true. He amputates everything that is not a healthy appurtenance to his patient, and last of all he amputates the patient. So Rallo, learning and unlearning all his days and some of his nights, soon learned that the sun got up early every day and went to bed late in the afternoon, just before twilight, and lasted longer than any man he ever knew who got up at noon and went to bed at 2 a.m. He learned it was best to ride when he couldn't fly, run when he couldn't ride, walk when he couldn't run, sit still when he couldn't get up, and saw wood or attend to his knitting all the time. He learned that there is the same pain in a broken toy and a broken heart with a difference in degree only. That we make a resolution to break it and break a record to make it. That it takes a hand to lay an egg and a fryer to lay a ghost. That the reason why this finks kept a secret for 3,000 years is because she never had one. While only superstitious people believe in signs, wise people believe also in cosigns and tangents. That the best two-foot rule is never to kick with both feet at once. That the safe side of the stock deal is the outside, and the man who gets taken in is left out. That the preacher who collects his own salary gets all the exercise he needs. That the most fatal error in diet is never to eat anything. That a fast life makes a torpid liver. And that it is never too late to mend because the older a man grows, the more repairs he needs. So many, many things Rallo learned in his three score years in ten at school that he never could have remembered one half of them if he hadn't forgotten two-thirds of them. And that which gave him the most study was what to forget. Because it seemed to the little boy, when his whiskers were gray, that the things he wanted to forget, which he tried the hardest and most faithfully to forget, remembered themselves. Whereas the things which he tried most faithfully to remember blotted themselves out like snowflakes in August. So hard it was for the little boy to learn how to remember so much harder it was to learn how to forget. So much harder. He learned how to remember by and by, but he never forgot. And the things he remembered came drifting across the way of his pilgrimage late in the afternoon, a mellow sunshine that glorified everything it touched with the tender beauty of yesterday. And the things he could not forget came floating across the sky like clouds and their shadows dropped into the sunshine of the memories. And the great love of the Heavenly Father made the picture beautiful with melting tenderness in spite of the shadows, maybe because of them. So much better God is to us than we are to ourselves. So Rallo learned at last that the deeds of the morning are the dreams of the afternoon. He learned that when he was a little boy and had learned to see and hear and play and work and rest, to believe to suffer and to love, he had learned all that anyone in this world could teach him. And that all his life long he was to go on learning these same things over and over and over. End of Section 10. Section 11 of Chimes for Majester's Bells by Robert J. Burdette. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Deborah Lynn. Chimes for Majester's Bells by Robert J. Burdette. Section 11, The Story of Rallo, Omega. Until at last, when he had learned all his lessons and school was out, somebody lifted him just as they had done at the first. Darkened was the room and quiet now as it had been then. Other people stood about him, very like the people who stood there on that other time. There was a doctor now as then only this doctor wore a graver look and carried a book in his hand. There was a man's voice, the doctor's, strong and reassuring. There was a woman's voice, low and comforting. The mother voice had passed into silence. But that was yet the one he could most distinctly hear. The others he heard as he heard voices like them years ago. He could not then understand what they said. He did not understand them now. He parted his lips again, but all his school acquired wealth of many syllableed eloquence. All his clear lucid phrasing had gone back to the old inarticulate cry. Somebody at his bedside wept, tears now as then, but now there were not tears from his eyes. Then someone bending over him had said, he came from heaven. Now someone stooping above him said, he has gone to heaven. The blessed unfaltering faith that welcomed him now bade him God's speed, just as loving and trusting as ever, one unchanging thing in this world of change. So the baby had walked in a little circle after all, as all men lost in a great trackless wilderness are said all way to do. As it was written thousands of years ago, the dove found no rest for the soul of her foot, and she returned unto him in the ark. He felt weary now as he was tired then, by and by, having then for the first time opened his eyes, now for the last time he closed them. So as one who in the gathering darkness retraces his steps by a half-remembered path, much in the same way as he had come into this world, he went out of it. Silence. Light. End of Rallo. End of Section 11. Section 12 of Chimes from a Jester's Bells by Robert J. Burdette. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, recording by Deborah Lynn. Chimes from a Jester's Bells by Robert J. Burdette. Section 12. Stories and Sketches. 10. The Battle of Ardmore. As I looked out of my prison window that afternoon, I wondered if the sun ever helped to make a lovelier day. All the land, the sky and the clouds formed a picture framed by the window that was glorified by the painting of June. The lanes were fringed with fragrant hedges, star-eyed daisies peeped out of the fallow fields, daintier wildflowers nestled in the woods, pearls in the beds of velvet moss. Down in the meadows the butter-cups gleamed like fallen stars. Over the low hills soft winds whispered to the rustling leaves of other summer days, long years gone by. Deep in the shadowy woods the little brook laughed and sung and babbled to itself like a child at play. Here and there a home-roof showed itself among the trees. The distant calls of children came rippling in at my window. The long road wound away yellow and quiet until it turned out of sight beyond the little church with its gray stone walls and white spire, slender and graceful. And over all the picture lay the sense of peace, not a harsh shadow, not a discordant note. Far away a brooding dove sobbed upon the silence, accenting the hush that lay upon the world with a touch of exquisite sorrow. A strain of song from a meadowlark heard once and no more. The mellow whistle of a robin at broken intervals, these with the laughter of the playing children blessed the tranquility of the afternoon. A beautiful world, a world at rest, the benediction of it all came even into my prison room. Clear mellow distant a ripple of bugle notes comes echoing into the quiet. My heart, as though it were a prisoner like myself, leaped and throbbed within the walls of my breast. I hasten to the window and look out with straining eyes. In the fluttering leaves that mask the hillside within my view I can discern no glitter of bayonets. I listen with eager intensity for the dull rumble of a battery wheeling into position. The notes of the bugle have fallen silent. No movement follows them. And yet it is not quiet enough. The sighing of the wind irritates me. The rustling of the maple under my window frets me. I want the leaves and the brook to heap still while I listen for a stealthy footstep. The crackling of a twig, the muffled tramp of a column of men stealing through the woods under leafy cover. I listen for the shrill nae of an excited horse for a rhythmic clatter of hoofbeats, a sharp carbine shot ringing out into the stillness. Looking to right and left, far as my narrow window will let me look, I listen, ever since I heard the bugle call wind through the silence, for sterner music than the robin's song in the murmur of the little brook. At last I can see nothing from this window of mine, this mere picture frame. The voice comes like an echo of the bugle, a boyish voice softened by the distance. I picture to myself the fair-haired lieutenant who commands the skirmishers. He has blue eyes, I doubt not, and nerves of steel. These blue-eyed soldiers are calm, self-possessed fellows, good shots, undismayed by defeat, not exhilarated by triumph. Ah, those days made men of striplings, the schoolboy fought beside the veteran. The adjutant of twenty rode with the Colonel of forty-five. Silence again. Will the line never come in sight? Where is the enemy? Where are my comrades? Halt. Again the silence. Now, once more the bugle thrills down the unseen line. I can hear the hurried tramp of feet, the terrible stealthiness of preparation. All about me the tide of battle will surge and beat, save where I might see it. I, penned in this cage, on such a day and at such a time, chain to the workbench, while shrilling bugle and clanking sabers, call in notes that burn into my heart like words of fire. So well do I understand them. And I am here. March. Away off the flam-flam-flam of a drum, cadencing the step of the moving column. Nearer it comes and nearer. Now it sweeps away, faints, drops faintly into silence again. Tramp, tramp, tramp. Muffled, distinct, stepping nearer with every footfall. There they come, shouts someone. I find it hard to breathe in this pent-up excitement. I press my hand on my heart and wait for the first shot on the skirmish line. Surely they must see each other soon. Ready! The click of a musket, sharp keen like a threat in cold blood, if the robin would only hush his song for a minute. I listen for the light clear voice again. I wonder if— Fire! How the cheers breaking up in waves of sound drown the volleying crash of musketry. Again the light voice calls, Fire! Again the shrill cheers rise on the air of June and yet again the bugle breaks into them with its musical command. I hear the rattling wheels as a battery is hurried forward into position. I hear a drum beating with excited haste. I hear the confusion of trampling feet rushing here and there. Someone is calling loudly for the flag. Once so close to my prison does the angry rush of the mele come. I hear a saver spring from its scabbard with an angry sweep. And all this time, listening to the fierce orchestra of war, I can see only the peaceful setting of the stage. The golden sunshine, the fluttering leaves, the restless shadows, tired of play, lengthening into the waning afternoon. While now and again floating into my window with the shouts and the bugle calls, drifts the mellow whistle of the robin. The cheering grows fainter as the shadows over meadow and hillside grow longer. The robin's besper music ceases. Sweet and beautifully imperious the bugle sounds again. It is the recall. A pall of silence falls upon the clamor of the battle. I try my prison door. There are no shields to my hand. I hasten down a stairway with swift and silent tread. I step through a curtain door and stand upon the field where the waves of contention had dashed and thundered. The level rays of the setting sun rest pityingly upon the helpless, motionless figures stretched at my feet. The evening blessing upon the dead. Here, just before me, is the overturned cannon with a shattered wheel. Stretched across its brazen muzzle is an artillery sergeant, his nervous hand still grasping a broken saber. Not far from the gun a group of infantry soldiers, lying as they fell in the charge. Never again will they stand before hostile gun or under friendly flag. I look down upon a trooper in brilliant uniform, dressed for a royal death. Headless he lies under the horse that has fallen upon him. A little drummer boy. How came he so far away from the mother's arms that will ache for the pressure of his head? Sleeps by his shattered drum his broken hand resting white and stiff upon its torn head. Gasly and horrible, here is a head, the blue cap with his bright pom-pom of white and scarlet, still jauntily crowning the pallid brow. Here is a saber bent and twisted in the fury and stress of the hand-to-hand struggle over the guns. I walk among the distorted bodies. Crippled horses lie prone on their sides or with the dumb, uncomplaining patience of their kind stand wearily waiting for weakness to cast them to the earth. I step carefully, for everywhere are the bodies of soldiers. Here is the flag, just as it dropped from the color sergeant's hand. Here an epaulette, glitters in crimson and gold. Here is a belt of a general, brave in its shining bullion. Here bent and dinted is the bugle, whose silvery voice called into play all the fierce passions, all the ardor of patriotism, all the ambitious hopes that joined in battle and wrought this ruin. And here, away on the edge of the field, where only the farthest spray from these waves of conflict could reach, my foot had well knife fallen upon a child, lying prostrate, half turned on her face. The daintily shod feet peep out of a cloud of silk and lace. The tangled hair of gold, a skein of sunshine, half hides the brow and cheek. There is no sign of life in the beautiful face and it bears no brand of a cruel blow from the rage of battle. I bend to lift the little figure gently. Deep in the golden hair at the back of the head I see the cleft in the skull. The child, the dainty little girl, whose curls should know no harsher touch than a kiss, the smile still lingering upon the lips, a lovely sacrifice to the hideous mollock of war. Robbie, I hear the voice of her little serene highness. Come, dear, gather up your toys. You've left your soldiers scattered over the floor so that Papa can scarcely walk across the room without getting into trouble. When somebody has stepped on poor little Bessie's head I'm afraid she'll have to go to the hospital. A patter of flying feet and the blue-eyed commander of both armies, aged six, comes charging into the parlor in undressed uniform. Snow-white kilts in his oave cap. He salutes her serenity in a military manner of his own which leaves her somewhat crushed as to ruffle and disordered as to hair. Then, resolving himself into an ambulance-core, he collects the dead and wounded with both hands, scoops them into a box, piles the ordinance on top of them, examines the dead dolly's head for sawdust, and appears to be surprised to discover that it is lined with a big hole. Papa, he inquires, did you hear the battle this afternoon? Yes, major, I heard the fighting. You appeared to be hotly pressed on both flanks and strongly assaulted in the center. We fight it awful, the warrior replied, tossing the artillery into the ambulance on top of a wounded cavalry colonel and the drummer boy. And I fall down on my drum and rope with my cannon, but Grandpa can't get me another one. Did my nose bother you? No, major, it helped me. And the blue eyes of the soldier darted a triumphant lap into the mother's eyes of softest brown as the conqueror called his grown-up bodyguard together for the evening story and the even song that sounded his nightly retreat. End of Section 12. Section 13 of Chimes from a Jester's Bells by Robert J. Burdette. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Deborah Lynn. Chimes from a Jester's Bells by Robert J. Burdette. Section 13. Stories and sketches. 11. A neighborly neighborhood. The rich ruleeth over the poor and the borrower is servant unto the lender. Proverbs 22.7. Dearly beloved, true it is that the words of the wise are as goads, but in using them it is well for us to be sure that we have hold of the whip handle. Captain Bunsby added a footnote to human wisdom and he said, the bearings of this observation lays in the application on it. True it is that the rich ruleeth over the poor that it takes a millionaire to get into the United States Senate and whoso runneth therefore must open a barrel. There is a law that comes cheap and the end thereof is the penitentiary and there is another law that comes high and the progress thereof is postponement and adjournment and appeal and temporary stay of proceedings and chronic stay of judgment and perpetual stay of execution and new trials and changes of venue and the end of it never has been reached. But these things are beyond the grasp of a man on a salary. A cattle king who byeth 50,000 acres of grazing lands calmly fenceeth in 175,000 acres with barbed wire and then grazeeth his herds outside the fence and nobody knoweth the difference because, say they, he owneth all the land from Jericho to Ashdod of the Philistines and who may say where the reservation line begins. But a poor man who buys a building lot with a 50-foot front has it measured for him with a Gunther's Rule, with a graduated straight edge and protractor measuring the thousandth part of an inch and it is graven with a pen of iron on the surveyor's granite corner and woe is he if his fence fall not within his line. Barely his neighbor who loveth no man as he loveth his land will make it warm for him if he encroach by a hair's breadth. The man about town looketh upon the wine when it is red and costly and sayeth to the sergeant, You know me, Johnny, and the sergeant sayeth he is good for it and sendeth him home in a hack. But the roundsmen bringeth in a plebeian who have a daily job on the dock and straightway they lock him up and he geteth ten days. The visiting merchant painteth the town red and the magistrate before whom he has brought sayeth, You ought to be ashamed of yourself and sendeth him home to blush unseen. But his porter cometh to town and assumeeth a jag and the same magistrate sayeth, You ought to be hanged and chaineth him upon the stone pile. Barely wealth is a reassuring comforting encumbrance. The easiest pew in the synagogue, the front seats at the ballgame, the high place on the reviewing stand, are the spoil of the rich. When the rich man lifteth up his head in the hack, he scorneth the wheel and its rider. With only the exception of the messenger boy and the servant girl, the rich ruleeth over the poor. As for her, she ruleeth the entire ranch with a rod of red-hot iron, and for him he calleth no man boss and time grovels at his feet asleep. But for the rest of us, we are slaves. Quote, slaves to a horde of petty tyrants, futile despots, lords rich in some dozen paltry villages, strong in some hundred spearmen, only great in that strange spell a G-N-A-I-G-H-M-E name. End quote. But is it always true that the borrower is servant to the lender? It was doubtless so in the time of Solomon, and in a general way it is true now. But a brighter day has dawned upon the world of borrowers, since Solomon owned everything in sight. The Coney are a feeble folk. But by building their houses in the rock they make strong their habitation, and the walking delegate to-day dictates terms to the millionaire that would have cost him his head had he whispered them into the crevice of a stone wall in the days of Hyrum and Solomon. There isn't a man in the world today outside of undiscovered Africa who can say, off with his head, without giving a reason for it, unless he wears a paste-board crown and carries a scepter which belongs to the property man. Times change and we change with them. Solomon wrote as a rich lender who had his whole kingdom on a cutthroat mortgage, and thus held the borrower where the hair was short, although the time was long. But all signs fail when you haven't the counter sign and it is a long lane that has no turning and the lane has turned. When I was a boy in the halls of my father's we had two halls front and back in the halls of my father's then. I had but one father, it is true, but as he was in no wise a singular man I put him in the plural. In that happy care-free time I remember a neighbor who moved out to Illinois shortly after us and located a claim alongside our own peaceful domain where we abode under our own morning glory vines and fig tree, where children clustered like olive plants round about the table three times a day and fluttered and swarmed like barn swallows all over the place the rest of the time. The new neighbor came on the morning of his arrival to borrow a hatchet. Theirs was nailed up in one of their box, as he said, and they wanted to unpack their things. That was all right, but I wondered greatly how they packed that hatchet. I had an idea that one of the boys must have got into the last box and nailed the lid on from the inside. However, I was mistaken. That wasn't the way of it at all. My brother John, to whom I confided my theory, said I might have known better, but I didn't. So we watched the new neighbors unpacking their things all that day with the most curious interest. Every time they opened a new box expecting to see the boy with the hatchet crawl out, a little rumpled and compressed by the long journey from Ohio, but with that certain air of newness that old things long packed are apt to have. I was sorely disappointed when the last box was emptied and no boy seemed to be missed. The had-bins, the man's name was O.E. Hadbin, were neighborly people. Mother said she thought we should like them, but then her gentle nature always thought we should like anybody. Of course, they had no time for cooking the first day, so they ate with us. That was the western idea in those days. Your house belonged to the new neighbor until he got settled. In that day, if anybody had to go hungry or sleep in the stable, it wasn't the people just off the steamboat or just unloaded from the creaking prairie schooner, for in those days railways were not. It was the old settler who put up with the makeshifts, and he, remembering how he had been welcomed and made comfortable in like manner, never complained, but rather acted as though the newcomer was conferring a favor upon him by accepting his hospitality. But the next day, after the had-bins were thoroughly shaken down and settled into place, they sent over and borrowed all the bread we had in the house. And mother, saying that something had evidently gone wrong with them, sent all the butter we had with it. I am not sure that the children rejoiced in this belated opportunity of doing good. As I chewed dry bread at supper that night, I ruefully thought of the had-bins spreading our good butter upon our soft bread thick as mortar, and I asked my blessing backward, for I hated dry bread, do yet, although I know it is good for me. I hate crust, too, always did. My mother used to chide me for sneaking my crusts out of sight without eating them. She said, ah, my boy, I am afraid you will want those good bread crusts one of these days. I said, so was I. That was why I didn't eat them at the time, because if I did them when I wanted them they would be gone. And when any well-meaning guest told me she thought the crust was the best part of the bread, I always politely offered to let her have mine. To this day people are sometimes surprised when they remove my plate to see a little circle of crusts hit around under its edge. I maintain that bread crust is not edible, that it is not nutritious, that it should no more be eaten by human beings than the rind of an orange. When I see a man eat bread crust willingly without compulsion I harbor dark suspicions of him. I believe him to be fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils, a designing and deceitful man. The next morning one of the children came over to borrow the scythe. It was late in November. There wasn't a thing in all Peoria County to mow, and there never had been any grass on their reservation anyhow. I suppose now that they wanted the scythe to cut with. The occasional study of the subject at intervals during all these years has evolved no better solution than that. We gave up the scythe and wondered. In the afternoon we saw two of the children coming home from Gregg's with a tub, and concluded that the hadbins were extending their lines to the left, and were reconnoitering all along their immediate front. This surmise was confirmed in the evening when Mr. Lloyd stopped in for a moment outside the door to say that neighbor Hadbin had borrowed all their lamps and he was going downtown to get some candles. What are candles? Oh, well, I don't know that I could tell you just exactly what they were. They are not anything. They were straight white things with a wick that we lit in the evening to see by. Something like gauze? Well, yes, dear, something like gauze, something like it, the bill was about ten times stronger than the bill. Well, the hadbins grew more familiar as you became more intimate with them and the better acquainted with them you were the more you knew of them. It is that way with some people. Two or three days after the scythe transaction Dick Hadbin came and borrowed Charlie's sled. We told him there wouldn't be any snow for nearly a month, but he said he could wait and went away patiently dragging the sled through the dust. I began to be a little scared at this indication of mystic spirit, and father said he understood why they borrowed the scythe. It was to have it ready against next summer's hanging. But my mother said we mustn't judge them before we knew them better, and went on to say what a sweet voice Mrs. Hadbin had. Why, when did you hear it? One of my sisters asked. And mother bent her face a little lower over her sewing. I can yet see the faint blush kindling on her cheeks as she confessed that she heard her pant for the loan of her quilting frame, and could she tell her where she could borrow some clothes, props and a couple of flat irons? The shout of applause that went up saved her from acknowledging that her own department had honored the full requisition for flat irons, and issued half-rations of clothes, props. The Hadbins were Baptists, and I suppose that is one reason why they raided my father's inheritance oftener than they did the borders of Edamon and the possibilities of the Diaconate. The first Sunday they came to church, Mr. Hadbin asked my father if he might sit in our pew until they could select one. Certainly brother Hadbin, and the deacon waved him into it as a prophet might gesture a nation into the Promised Land. And in Fylde, brother Hadbin, sister Hadbin, Ellen Hadbin, George Hadbin, Dick Hadbin, Gad Hadbin, Cynthia Hadbin, and Paul Hadbin's maid-servant and the Hadbin twins. They settled in our pew and spread out over the adjoining sections of the court of the Gentiles. We scattered as sheep without a shepherd that Sunday, and afterward camped out on an abandoned claim in the Amen Corner that nobody would think of borrowing. The next day passed quietly and none of our outposts were driven in, but the day after that George and I were hunting with. We loaned the dog rather sorrowfully, for we were very fond of him. But mothers said, You foolish boys, old Zach will come back himself. That sounded reasonable, but as I am relating a matter of history I cannot conscientiously suppress any part of the truth. Zachary Taylor never returned. He came home with the Hadbin boys all right. I forgot to mention that they got about a town before it occurred to them they had forgotten to borrow a gun and one of them came back and got it. We saw him coming and through the powder flask over the fence and said we had, Antony, so they borrowed powder and shot of Walter Colburn, but never restored himself to us. Old Zach reported at the fence sometimes and looked in at us so wistfully that it made our hearts ache. He would stick his head in between the boards to be petted, and he would go back and realize that he had been borrowed and went back to stay with the rest of our things until he should be formally returned. Once Mrs. Hadbin came in and in one of the softest, sweetest, coxiest voices you ever heard begged mother to save all the bones for the dog. She said they used theirs for making soap. Not long after that they heard a mouse in their pantry one night and came over and saw a cat does not belong to a family but to the house. The cat does not move when the family moves, it stays where it lives. But that cat knew from the moment Cynthia Hadbin went away with it, wrapped up in her apron, that it was a borrowed cat and it never came back to our ranch. In the silence of the night, once in a while, we could hear Cleopatra. He was really a Mark Antony cat, but my sisters named him Cleopatra when he was little with his name. Singing on the Hadbin woodshed in plenty of minor strains as though his heart was breaking with nostalgia. He was always inclined to nostalgia and even when he was quite young he would make Rome howl if he was locked out of the kitchen night. But he returned to the home of his childhood no more. He was borrowed. In all the world of borrowed things, I don't believe anything can be so completely lost however as a borrowed book. Now a book overboard, far out at sea. Or if I should let it fall into the crater of Vesuvius, or if some sudden tornado should come along and blow it off the earth before my astonished eyes, I am not sure that I would be in too great haste to replace it. I think I would wait in the faint hope that maybe, somehow or other, some way or other, some time or other, it might come back from the realms of space. It might return from the drifting smoke the sea might yield it up. But when a man comes along and borrows a book, then I go downtown and buy another copy for myself if I want to read it again. That book is gone, isn't it? Cries of yes, yes, and that's so. So things ran on, or rather ran off, and week by week our little home began to look more desolate as one thing after another went into the maelstrom until finally Mr. Hadbin, who seldom did any growing in person, struck my father for his autograph on a little 30-day note for a trifling amount. Father yielded. The note fell due, and the owner of the borrowed name had to pay it himself. Don't worry, Mr. Hadbin, about it. My mother pleaded gently he'll pay you some time. That's just when he will, my father replied grimly. I haven't said a word to him. He's enough of a businessman to know how these things go. That evening Mr. Hadbin called. He was very angry. Deacon, he said, I understand that you took up that note yourself today. Yes, father said he did. He didn't want it to go to protest, so he took it up. And Mr. Hadbin could pay him when times were a little easier, but Mr. Hadbin waved his hand with a gesture at once injured in sorrowful. Well, he said, I would never, I believed it of you, never. When I heard it, I said it wasn't true. His utterance faltered and he was gone. Mad was no name for what he was. He told people he had never been so deceived, never been treated so in all his life. He said he had heard of mean men in Ohio but he had to come to Illinois to find them and a brother in the church too. When he thought of that he could stand it no longer. He left the Baptist church after vainly trying to get a rebate on our pew rent for the time he had not occupied the pew and went right off and joined the children of light, a new sect that was running a sort of faith cure fake on commission in a Riverside Cooper shop. The week after that the Hadbins moved. The day they went away they sent us word that they would be beholden to us for nothing, so they sent back all our old things. They sent us, via the division fence, three tubs belonging to Greg, all of Lloyd's lamps except and lamp, which had exploded when they set it on the kitchen stove. Noughton's wheelbarrow, Weston's buggy harness, Mrs. Phillips's preserving kettle, John Shepherd's plow, Mrs. Tapping's quilting frames, there's a great variety of things belonging to everybody in the neighborhood except ourselves. We announced a reception. The neighbors came in, identified their property and took it away and we saw our own things and more. Since then often I have thought that when poor Richard wrote, he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing, he must have meant that one fellow went a borrowing and the other fellow went a sorrowing. Section 13 Section 14 Our country opera is like Wagner's music. The untutored mind cannot appreciate its beauties, its masterly use of the recitative, the strong simplicity of its motif, enriched by labyrinthine combinations and the beautiful accessories of the orchestra, each player a composer, a soloist, and a specialist. Last night the orchestra was unusually strong, treetowed in cricket, droning beetle, two whipper-wills, a solitary owl, two or three bane dogs just far enough away, a sheep bell that tinkled softly at broken intervals, now and then a sleepy twitter from the apple tree where the robins live, as though the birds could keep awake just long enough to sing one or two slumbrous bars falling asleep in the middle of a half note. The frogs, with their great double bases down in the sedgy pond, once a chanted clear fugue that drifted over the stage from east to west as Dominique and Leghorn caught their cue and all the time the wind whispering through the edges and giving the best imitation of the rustling of maple leaves at night that you never heard equaled by ventriloquist or violins on a lime-lighted stage. That is one specialty in which the orchestra on our pharma excels, the imitation of sounds from the forest. But as I said, you have to be educated up to it. My friend Streeton Alley spent a few days with me last week and one afternoon we were listening to a cat bird giving an imitation of the forest. Say, said Alley, you ought to keep a gun here on the piazza and blow that thing out of the tree when he comes shrieking around that way. That's enough to give a graven image to headache. The next day I went to the city with him. He took me to a concert and a whistling woman came out and said I will now give you an imitation of the song of the cat bird. Streeton Alley clapped his hands until he split his gloves. I said, I thought I had and he said he guessed I hadn't. Not out in Brynmar, you haven't, he said warmly. You haven't got money enough in your whole township to get that woman to go out there and whistle for you. Nevertheless I have never heard an imitation of the robin equal to the one given by another robin. The trouble with most people is that they don't stay out here long enough to learn the language. Now it may be that you can enjoy German opera without knowing nine from Ja. I once attended Italian opera in which everybody saying English except the tenor and soprano and I understood them better than I did any of the others although I don't know enough Italian to drive away an organ grinder. But to enjoy the opera on the farm you must understand the words. No librettos are printed but you listen to the music for a few years and then begin your interpretation. And of half a dozen people who listen in silence on the same evening no two will hear the same opera. If there is somebody blab, blab, blabbing all the time of course you can't understand a word. In the season we have music every night. The silence of a summer night in the country is a silence to which you can listen. Soft stillness and the night become the touches of sweet harmony. Come out and live in this musical silence for a while if you want to hear the old band play. Listen to it night after night until you have learned to love this melodious stillness. And then if you wish go back to brick walls and paved streets and lie down to be lulled to sleep by the varied pleasing of rattling hacks crashing trucks, thundering fire engines and jingling trolleybells. It is pleasant as we attend the opera night after night to note the advent of the old favorites. Our artists teach their children to sing and play so exactly like themselves that we scarcely realize we have a new cast every season. We think of it and speak of it perhaps in the closing days of the summer. The music I grant she was somewhat melancholy in the autumn time. There will come some sharp keen night when the orchestra is very meager. Only a few hardy little musicians appear and they do not play very long. They cut the opera in every scene and they play only long enough probably to save the box receipts. Then they pack up their instruments and hurry away to the warmest corners of Stackyard and Stubblefield. We observe on these nights that the voices of the soloists display no hoarseness, however. So long as they do sing they sing their best. But in spite of that the autumnal performance on the whole is pathetic, for they choose mournful themes. They sing of the golden summer that is gone and their music shudders with the dread of frosty nights and the cruel winter that is coming. They play dirges for their dead comrades. They sing of purple aster and royal goldenrod. The plumy lances of the iron weed in old meadows, the yellow primrose gleaming like stars in the gray twilight, the ghostly thistle down drifting over the reedy marshes where the fireflies died of grotesque shadows in the old meadows of cold winds creeping with eerie whispers across the fields where the corn stands in ragged shocks with stiffened blades of wheeling colonies of summer birds that fleck the fields with restless shadows as they gathered the clans together and sped away to the gaiety of the winter resorts of faded ferns in the glens of withered grasses in the fence corners and blighted flowers in the old fashioned gardens until at last the merry voices cease all the daughters of music are brought low the last little soloist sings his goodbye song with a brave little trill in his far-reaching voice and go with the way of all grasshoppers. Nevertheless, happy are he who lives to sing the fated glories and the joys of the summer gone than his ill-fated comrade who, with many a song unsung, was yanked off the sweet potato vine when July days were bright and high by relentless fate with a fantail and big red wattles. Brave and eventful and joyous have been the days of his life for the years of the grasshopper being but as a summer that is told resembles much our own. He plays, he sings, he suffers, he dies, his life is full, ur hat, geliept, un gelebet. From the boy in the farmhouse to the trout in the brook and the fowl in the barnyard he has enemies and like godlike man off times he saves his life by using his good-swipped legs. But last night just in the midst of the overture it was a spirited passage descriptive of the earthquake the tree-frogs with their picolos were showing how the ground trembled and the cricket was imitating a streaking woman who was afraid to stay in the house and didn't dare come out. Just as the orchestra made the rest to indicate the the Katie did, stage name, family name, suitofilum concavum made his appearance. He wore a green suit, same as last year with long over-wing covers of cutaway shape and as he struck the first notes on his taborets the whole house cried there's the Katie did! He did not sing very long he never does on a first night but his presence added strength to the opera. The ever-popular baritone was here and everybody was glad to hear him again. She does not sing. Katie herself is voiceless a dutiful, quiet, home-keeping little Katie hiding away with her master all day among the leaves when he is quiet as herself for he is a true foot-light artist he will not sing until the stars are lighted and then, when nightly he ascends to the higher branches of the trees and proclaims to the world that Katie did the mother of his little Katie's is silent with womanly wisdom never a word does she speak not a note does she sing in reply though all night long he should declare that she did if ever she should lose her patience and reply to his accusing song what thrilling domestic revelations might we not expect incrimination and recrimination in Bill and Cross-Bill rejoinder and sir rejoinder plea and replication it would all come out but calm and serene in her conscious innocence she answers not a word sometimes in a fit of masculine irritation at having his own way unopposed he flatly contradicts himself and sings Katie didn't she didn't she didn't manlike choosing to take issue with himself rather than have no one with whom to quarrel really after listening to him for many years I have no idea that she ever did anything so very dreadful they have never separated they live happily together and I think it is only some good-natured threat of his to tell some joke which he holds over her head but whatever it was he never tells it and I think it happened so long ago that he has forgotten it and sings his song just as most people sing of him without the slightest idea what it means maybe he doesn't sing the words of the original song anyhow there may be him tinkers among the Katie among humans and in that case investigation and research will never discover the original language of his song but whatever it is she never contradicts him she never sings with him even in good-natured duet for it is a cold unfeeling scalpel to thrust into the spinal column of miles of good poetry and sentiment but the icy steel blue fact is that my lady Katie did is voiceless but then he would not sing either she may not there to listen she may not voice the song she does a great deal better she inspires the singer and thus she creates the song so he sings for us in the lengthening nights and as he sings some there aren't his audience who hear as in a dream the songs he sung on yester eve songs of that happy past whose yesterdays look backward with a smile to them his strident solo that opens wide the doors to memory land with the old walks we only take when time is swifter than a thought and longer than eternity down winding paths beneath the whispering oaks through tangled grasses in the orchard glooms across the footbridge where the brook ghost singing softly all night long through forest vistas where the sun set loiters with its benediction to the day all the dear paths that only lovers know and love even by shadowed ways that lead through valleys where the damps are chill through desert paths of tears in rankling pain where merris waters darken in the solemn pools and all the way and all the time the clasp of a fluttering hand the gleam of starlight in the lovelet eyes until it lasts the song and the dream lead on to where the singing brook its laughter silenced and its music hushed deepens into the darkly flowing river and in the morning light that lights our sun the shadows pass away forever ah Katie did in other worlds than ours you must have sung and learned new melodies since all the days were gold and all the world was young for who in this bright world of ours this land of hope and song this sunlit world of happy hearts and summer skies could teach your tiny harp these minor chords where could you learn from all this laughing earth that joy and sorrow sisters born of love walk ever hand in hand where could you learn to sing of tears and loneliness End of Section 14 Section 15 of Chimes from a Jester's Bells by Robert J. Burdette this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Deborah Lynn Chimes from a Jester's Bells by Robert J. Burdette in Section 14 Stories and Sketches 13 the Old Roadshow Ladies and gentlemen one and all great and small rich and poor alike Bear in mind and remember that this is the first and last the best and the only opportunity this living generation will ever have to look upon these wonderful curiosities of Nature and Art gathered and garnered from every part and corner of the Bear in mind, too, that each and every performance, prodigy, freak and phenomenon represented and described in the bills is, in a like and exact manner, performed and exhibited within the canvas. The large lady, the wild man of Borneo, the bearded woman, the great snake in the live lion, and a quadavidala takes you in to see them all. Have your change ready, please, as you ask for tickets, and remember that if the show and performance does not give you full and entire satisfaction, as guaranteed, your money will be refunded at the ticket wagon. Here you are, ladies and gentlemen, the only genuine five-toed wizard of finance ever exhibited outside a cage, born in America but captured in Canada, with the bonds in his possession, striped around the body in both legs with horizontal bars, and his hair cut close to the other end like, if you creep under that canvas, my son, you will get yourself brained with a tent pin, and his cage surrounded by shorn lambs the same as it is saw in his native jungle. Yes, sir, and here you have the great American bird show, passing strange and beggaring description. The latest flyer from the stock exchange and the wonderful paradise bird which wears his bones in his talents and devours strangers from the country. A flock of lame ducks from Wall Street in the great American tariff bill, the only bird in the living world which has no wings, is born without feet, has no gizzard, and twelve pairs of lungs, with which it utters its mournful note thirteen months in the year, so piercing loud that it can be heard from sea to sea on a still night, and wherever it is heard it drives men mad. And the crow, the great black bitter river crow, Americanus had to take us. Carry that dollar bill back to the man who made it, my friend, and tell him he'll have to do better than that, or he can't never pass it on this show. Which is a favorite article of diet with many eminent statesmen. The vast proportion of brimstone contained in solution with gall, rendering it a most invaluable tonic in brain food, and you can pass into the tent and see it for a quarter of a dollar. Bear in mind, and remember, in no other country on the face of this globe can you behold this colossal aggregation of marvelous spectacles, the white elephant of America, a colossal colossus, the biggest beast that breathes, bearing on his dependious back the Venezuelan boundary, the Cuban revolution, the eastern question, the new woman, the flying machine in the dress reform, and nobody knows how to train him nor how to get off his load. A half interest in the show is offered to any man who can lead him safely once around the ring. Walk in and see the city robin who builds his nest in the state capital. The council chamber and other safe places, lines it with other bird's notes, and holds on to the combination with both claws while he broods his young with the other. When he raises his note a little pitch higher, it is the sign of spring, and it's the spring that lands him in Canada, where he becomes a rara avas, wakes with the dew in the morning, and sleeps with the mist at night, a cure-colored bird until he begins to sing-sing, when he turns gray, puts on stripes, and molts his plumage, retaining only the feathers which line his nest outside his cage. A most wonderful bird indeed, hard to catch, harder to keep, and hardest of all to let alone. He has five claws on each foot, and would have more if he thought there was anything more for him to grab. Keep that hand organ a-going, young fellow. Don't go to sleep with five thousand people standing around here dying for music. And one little quarter of a dollar takes you into each and every canvas, only a quarter of a dollar to go in and see the city robin. No, sir, you didn't carry no water for the elephant, which being light fingered can work in the dark, and it costs more to catch him than he is worth when he is caught, for you can't sell him, and while everybody wants to catch him, nobody wants to keep him, and you can see him inside the big tent for a quarter of a dollar and cheap at half the money. A quarter of a dollar. Remember, this exhibition positively closes with the final performance, and will not appear here again until its return. Pause at the first cage on the right as you go in, and view the justly celebrated American pelican, the lyarias are fulias of Linnaeus, with scales on its legs, wherewith it gets away with the fish it does not catch, and which comprises its food. That is correct, sir. Three tickets pass right in, yourself, wife and daughter, and the little boy hiding behind his mother's skirts will have to wait outside with me until you come back. Unless you can raise another quarter, sir. Yes, sir, we have to have eyes and our fingers, the back of our necks, the tips of our toes, and the heels of our boots. If we want to get four quarters of money out of a dollar's worth of patrons, sir. The great American pelican is fond of his early bitterns and takes a swallow before he goes to fish, and if one doesn't satisfy him, two can. And he can get it right in the bird's show. He's a hard bird to gull, for he carries a pocket pistol when he goes fishing, and knows how to cock a two. Nothing pleases him so much as a gozzling, because a soft answer turneth away wrath. He carries his bait in a jug in his trout rod and a pipe case. He can fish all day and never be within five miles of water, because he fishes with his mouth, and you can pass right in and see him fish and hear him lie for a quart of a dollar. And still they come, and still the crowd. For a thousand years may pass, and the sun will never shimmer and shine upon a show like this. Keep to the right as you go in and pass rapidly in front of the cages. Buy your tickets now, and you will have plenty of time to show the children the wild animals before the performance begins in the circus tent proper. Pause a moment before the cage with the glass front and contemplate the American Dodo, captured with incredible toil and at limitless expense in the wilds of New York and Y. This remarkable bird is found in its imperfect state nowhere else in the world. It is hatched in an unfurnished nest on the tenth floor back, one at a time, with one glass eye and no brains. Half fledged at birth and never grows another pin feather. Takes its nutriment from the head of a cane by suction and is never weaned, tamed, or brained. Sleeps under the bed instead of on it, remains out of doors during the rain, has no salary, and put one note which it utters at intervals saying, Ha! Ah! In a melancholy inflection which drives the ordinary loon of the lakes to idiocy with imbecile envy. The Dodo is a nestling fall until its twentieth year when it partially sheds its down and puts on an ass's skin, which fits it like the paper on the wall and in which it eats, sleeps, and would eventually die if it had sufficient energy to do anything so useful. Great care is taken to preserve it. There being deep-rooted fear among naturalists that if any means of killing this bird should be discovered, it would soon become extinct. When you see it, give it a cigarette, and hear it say, Ha! Ah! It has been known to utter that sound thrice within a single hour, but the effort is very exhausting. The singular bird is a hybrid and is supposed to be a cross between a gazling and a squab, inheriting the brains of the one and the softness of the other. Do not poke at it with your parasol, lady. It angers it, and when violently enraged, it becomes uncontrollable and fades. And you can buy a matinee ticket and see it for a quarter of a dollar. Roll up, tumble up. Bear in mind that the three great allied shows in one admit you to each and every exhibition under every canvas for the pitiful sum of one quarter of a dollar, including a chased and refined presentation of high-cast Afro-American minstrelsy at the conclusion of the performance in the ring. Pass around to the upholstered sty and gaze upon the man-faced bristled hog. This disgusting beast is born ugly and roots naturally. Occupies four seats in the railway car, smokes in the lady's cabin, takes three chairs on the steamer deck, one for its hams, one for its hoofs, and one for its wraps. It will lie and fight for the last lower berth in a sleeper, spits on the sidewalk, when awake it grunts, when asleep it snores, when eating it sucks and smacks. It dreads solitude and is never found alone, always seeking the crowds in the city and at summer hotels. It crackles peanuts and munches caramels at the theater, talks aloud at the opera and grunts the tunes at the concert. It is long-lived and can only be killed by shaving its bristles and compelling it to be decent for half an hour. It is only useful after death as a fertilizer. The violist cannibals refusing to partake of its flesh after having seen the living hog. And another goes in for a quart of a dollar. Four more pass in. Yourself, your wife, your son and your daughter, another home-made happy, another heart-made glad, and another ticket sold for the great Allied show, kindergarten and school of equestrian in natural history. Eulogized by Bench, Bar and Bishop, endorsed by the clergy, patronized by the crowned heads of Europe and visited by countless thousands of the people. The great moral mastodon of all great moral mastodons ever collected into one gigantic colossal and mesulous agglomeration of prodigy, wonder and miracle under one cluster of canvas canopies. Here you behold the omnivorous American office hunter, the howling wolf of the wilderness littered in a coke oven, lines his den with black stones and burrows in the coyote house. Haunts and pairs and never divides with the other wolf. Eats all the time, never gets enough, is always hungry, ravenous and lean. The more he gets, the more he expects. The louder he howls and the hungrier he is. He has a bill like a snipe, a tail like a comet, more claws than a tarantula, and more turns than a corkscrew. He has a bill like a duck to show that he's a quack, claws like a mole because his ways are dark and they're webbed like a loon for he's quick to take water, dives deep and holds his breath for an hour at a time. This animal is born in office and soon dies when removed from his native element. He is a labor reformer from the tip of his nose to the corners of his eyes and a bald monopolist from the eyebrows to the tip of his ears. One ear is protection and the other is free trade and his neck is anything to beat either of them. Democrat down the left leg and Republican up the right. One foot is sad you see and the other is Pharisee and he believes in Tom Payne and the Apostles Creed. Whichever way you stroke his fur it lies smooth as silk for if there is one thing the American politician is consistent in it is smooth lying. Have your change ready as soon as you come up to the ticket wagon please and look out as you go in for the jailbird and the brass cage near the door. He's very wary. How wary, sir? Has a wary to be sure, Mr. Smartweed and that entitles you to a free pass outside the canvas where you can look at the pictures for nothing while this gentleman goes inside and stays all afternoon for a quart of a dollar. Pass in rapidly now and gather around the ring and see the wild ass of the desert let in to browse on the nutritious cactus of his native wilds. Already he has bet a wheelbarrow ride and a potato race on the next election. He will go around the ring and take up presidential votes to show how little sense he ever had. He whistles aloud in the railway car and learns to read with the newspaper of the hotel. He wears a liver pad and an electric belt believes in the blue glass cure for everything endorses a patent medicine to get his picture in the papers. Touches a buzz saw to see if it is going and gets his hair cut on Saturday night. He thinks there is tobacco in cigarettes believes that Moses wrote the Gospel according to Luke and the other Isaiah wrote the Pentateuch. Doesn't believe the fish swallowed Jonah but will swallow anything himself that you offer him provided it is sufficiently unreasonable. Rejects the first chapter of Genesis but accepts Robinson Crusoe and believes that he is eating bread and butter when the waiter knows that he gave him alum and olio. Stand back a little and see him prance around the ring. It doesn't take much to start him and nothing can stop him. Lift the flap of the tent a little and you may see him snuff up the east wind on which he feeds. Bear in mind and remember then every day in the week and every week in the year this unrivaled alliance of colossal bequest curricular entertainments and museum of natural and living curiosities will give three exhibitions daily and one each evening with an entire change of program at each and every entertainment. Remember that we are daily adding to a collection already surpassing anything in the known world presenting to your view a spectacle that kings and emperors have longed to see and died without seeing. The lady with three sets of teeth one in her mouth and two on her dressing table the only living statesman who has gone out of politics without being kicked out the only living deaf and dumb pugilist a private night watchman standing wide awake on duty a church choir singing praise to the Prince of Peace without a row an imported actress with but one husband her own and only. Also we'll arrive on next steamer consigned to this show a mouse chased by a woman a walking delegate at work a fat poet an industrious labor reformer a government clerk refusing an increase of salary a minister getting one and these and a thousand other wonders to be seen nowhere else in all the wide creation in all for the little sum of a quarter of a dollar. End of section 15 section 16 of Chimes from a Jester's Bells by Robert J. Burdett the sliver of ox recording is in the public domain recording by Deborah Lynn Chimes from a Jester's Bells by Robert J. Burdett section 16 stories and sketches 14 the vacation of Mustafa I am by choice a dweller in the country you have guessed as much by the freckles on my grammar and the sunburn on my rhetoric I love people I admire the madding crowd but at a distance when I go to town it is high holiday with me I walk the unyielding pavement sideways staring in at the shop windows I read the signs and find in the much palatable intellectual pablum I carry my bundles under my arms not knowing that they may be sent to the station for me I stand with the giddy throng that hangs spellbound on the eloquence of the fakir selling patent glue or magic knife sharpeners or an all-round tool which will shave curl hair cut glass draw nails stretch carpets saw scroll work open cans and solder to go to town on the 4th of July is worth the waiting through a long winter but to go to town on circus day is not a joy it is an ecstasy and yet always I am glad to shake off the dust of the city and get back to the country with its peace and quiet after I have been shoved about and elbowed and jostled by people who are either busy or crazy I never can tell which after I have been assaulted by vigorous women ballasted with market baskets loaded apparently with stones and other hard articles after I have been scattered by other women with sharp elbows like Scythian chariots run down by wild eyed men chasing after trolley cars butted into the street to the show window by other frantic men rushing for trains and run over by yelping bicyclers and after I myself have run over or rather crawled over a few fleet-footed messenger boys glad am I to limp to the station and hunt for my lost railway ticket all the way back to the lanes and fields and quiet woods oh I have no set antipathy to the city I think that town is a good place to go to the country is only a place to live I know there are some good people who live in town town is no doubt the best place for some people so is jail I have the same compassionate feeling for people in the city that I have for people in jail because I have so often observed how glad they are to get out of it but people who see the country only in the summertime lose its most beautiful aspects the country is not very lovely in mid-summer that is the period of its greatest discomfort its most depressing monotony I love the stillness of the country's sunset when peace broods over the earth with cloud-tinted wings I love to watch the daylight fade into twilight and evening deep into dusky night to watch the stars come out over the plummy trees and march in resplendent battalions across the silent fields of the skies I would love to see the rosy-fingered hours draw aside the curtains of the dawn and hail Aurora as she comes dancing through the portals of the morning if I had time but at that early hour I am too busy thinking how comfortable I am to get up it is much better I think to meet Aurora with the face as smiling as her own at the breakfast table there is an atmosphere of silken rest in the country that is ever delightful to the care-worn children of the town like sleep after toil port after stormy seas most vividly do I remember as we are all prone to remember most vividly those things which never happened some of us perhaps being a little more prone than others a man who once upon a time flying out of the dust of the town of the king sought repose and recuperation in the odors of plowed field or flowery mead now what happened of this man whose name was Mustafa Mustafa rest that he had called under him his physician and said lo I am worried with much work care and worry have done me up the hand of exhaustion is upon me and I am even now at death's door I am not afraid to die but I don't want to and it was so that his physician looked at his tongue felt his pulse and cried two dollars for this was an oath by which all physicians in the reign of the good Caliph swore of a verity thou must have repose flee under the valley of rest close thine eyes in dreamy nothingness hold back the hands from toil and thy brain from care or thou wilt be laid by the heels and that without remedy Bismillah three dollars and when Mustafa heard him he arose and put his business into the hands of his confidential clerk who had already put his hands on the most of it and was even now getting ready to skip with the rest of it and Mustafa went away to the valley of rest where to abide with his uncle Ben whom he had not seen for low so many years now his uncle Ben was an husbandman he dwelt in the valley of rest the mountains of repose were round about him and the plains of comfort were the meadows of his tillage but his post office was get their Eli and he was rich and well-favored strong as an ox and healthy as plantain weed off times he rose up and boasted with a loud voice that there was not a lazy bone in his body and in every bedroom in his house there was hung up a chromo text in many colors and loud letters the lord hates a sluggard but Mustafa whisked not that it was so now when he reached his uncle Ben's they received him with great joy and came forth to meet him and shouted at him and cried out his name with an exceeding loud shout albeit they were close beside him and made him so nervous that he forgot his own name and they saluted him saying howdy cousin musty which is to say how do you do cousin Mustafa and he answered them and said hurry on Ben which by interpretation is how are you uncle Benjamin and when even was come they sat down to supper and they placed before him a supper of homely vegans well cooked and piled up on his plate like the wreck of a freight car and when he could not eat all and ask for more they lacked him to scorn and after supper they sat up with him and talked with him concerning relatives of whom he knew not and of whom he had never before so much as heard and he spake at random and lied unto them for he had been a politician in his youth and governed not his tongue moreover he was ashamed because of his ignorance wherefore he told them that he had a letter from uncle Izzacar last week and he was well and liked the country now they all knew that uncle Izzacar had been shot in another man's sheep pen out in Colorado three years ago when the moon was in the dark but Mustafa whisked not that it was so and he said that uncle Ezra died in California last winter but uncle Ezra was alive and was even then in the house of uncle Ben bedridden and stricken in years but Mustafa knew it not for he was dead for sleep and talked only to keep himself awake and when they had all the fun they wanted on family affairs they talked politics now Mustafa had been an old-line wig and an abolitionist when such things were and he was now a Republican of the deepest dye such as would get up in the night at any time to kill a mugwell but uncle Ben was a hickory Democrat and had owned slaves before the war when he lived in Maryland and he was postmaster at the town of Get There Eli until such time as he was fired out and they spent a very pleasant evening and about one o'clock of the morning they went to bed and it was so that four boys slept with Mustafa for the bed was wide and they slumbered crosswise in the bed and kicked Mustafa black and blue all the night in so much that he closed not his eyes and slumber neither slope he awinked and it was so and at the fourth hour after midnight his uncle Ben smote upon his back and cried unto him saying Awake! Arise! Russell out of this and wash your face for the liver and bacon is fried and breakfast is ready you will find the soap and towel on the bench by the smokehouse door and the toroff is down by the horse well at the end of the cow lot and when they had eaten uncle Ben spake unto him and said Come! Let us take a stroll around the farm and they walked that morning as it were the space of eleven miles and Mustafa wore tight boots such as are made in town and it was their half to light upon some men's servants that work in the hay field and they set Mustafa upon an exceeding high and topply wagon and his uncle Ben taught him how to build a load of hay then they drove to the barn where he taught him how to unload it then they girded up their loins and walked four miles into the forest and uncle Ben taught him how to chop wood and his hands were soft and they blistered like new paint in August and the morning and the evening were the first day and Mustafa wished that he were dead and after supper his uncle Ben said Come! Let us go out and have some fun and they hooked up a team and drove nine miles over in timber township where the boys had a dance and they danced until the second hour in the morning and when the next day was come which was not long for the night was spent when they got home uncle Ben took him out in the blazing sun and taught him how to build a rail fence and when even was come Mustafa was so full of slivers that the hedgehog seeing him cried Behold my brother and the porcupine called after him and said Thou art my father and mother and sister and brother and all my relatives by marriage and it was so and that night there was a wedding over in Houshaw and they all went and made merry and ate slabs of cake nine inches thick and weighing thirty two ounces to the half pound nevertheless when they went to bed at three o'clock in the morning Mustafa was asleep when he got out of the wagon and he walked upstairs with his eyes shut and he undressed not but lay down to sleep across the four boys with his boots on but the four lads wept and besought him that he would get up and he might sleep on the outside whereupon he answered them roughly and smote the nearest one and prayed that he himself might die before breakfast time but breakfast had an early start and got there first after breakfast his uncle Ben took him down to the creek and taught him how to shear sheep and when even was come they hooked up after supper and drove to spelling school out in district number three and they got home the first watch after midnight and uncle Ben marveled that it was yet so early and he lighted a cob pipe and sat up and told Mustafa all about the forty acres he bought of Moses Stringer last fall to join on his south eighty so as to finish out that half and when Mustafa went to bed that night he bethought him of a dose of strictening he had in his trunk so he said his prayers twice and took it but the youngest boy was restless that night and kicked all the poison out of Mustafa's system in ten minutes and the next morning while it was yet night uncle Ben took him out into a field that was nigh into the house and taught him how to dig potatoes and the sun was hot and it was so that when he bent over the blood rushed to his head and set his eyes on fire and when he rose up his back break and after supper was eaten uncle Ben remembered that there was a revival at Bethesda Church so they hitched up the bay colt and went now there were present three preachers beside the pastor an evangelist and a theological student and one lay preacher and they all improved at the time and when they got home about midnight they sat up and talked about the meeting until bedtime now when Mustafa was home it was his rule to go to bed the third hour after his dinner and he rose not the next day until the sun was high so the day after the meeting when his uncle Ben would take him out to the boundary of his farm and show him how to build an exceeding long line fence of post and rail Mustafa beguiled him into the forest saying lo here is the boss tree for a gate post and when his uncle Ben came to look at it Mustafa smote him thrice across the neck with a dogwood mall and fled and got himself home and Mustafa sent for his position and called him names and he said he was tired to death and he turned his face to the wall and died so Mustafa sojourned no longer in the valley of rest for he was gathered to his father's but his uncle Ben who came to the funeral and had to do all his weeping with one eye because that Mustafa had knocked out the other one said that Mustafa was too lazy to breathe and he had no get up and get about him but Mustafa wished not what they said for he was dead and they divided up his property amongst themselves and made Mary and they bought no tombstone for him for they said they had no time and if he wanted one he should have attended to it himself while he was yet alive and it was so end of section 16 section 17 of chimes from adjusters bells by Robert J. Burdett this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Debra Lynn chimes from adjusters bells by Robert J. Burdett section 17 stories and sketches 15 the breakman at church one bright winter morning the 29th day of December Anno Domini 1879 I was journeying from Lebanon, Indiana where I had sojourned Sunday to Indianapolis I did not see the famous cedars and I suppose they had been used up for lead pencils and moth-proof chests and relics and souvenirs for Lebanon is right in the heart of the Holy Land that part of Indiana was settled by second adventists and they have sprinkled goodly names all over their heritage as the train clattered along stopping at every station to trade off some people who were tired of traveling for some other people who were tired of staying at home I got out my writing pad, pointed a pencil, and wondered what manner of breakfast I would be able to serve for the ever-hundry Hawkeye next morning I was beginning to think I would have to disguise some leftovers under a new name as the thrifty housekeeper knows how to do when my colleague, my faithful yoke fellow who has many a time found for me a spring of water in the desert place, the breakman, came down the aisle of the car he glanced at the tablet and pencil as I would look at his lantern put my right hand into a cordial compress that abode with my fingers for ten minutes after he went away and seating himself easily on the arm of the seat put the semaphore all right for me by saying say I went to church yesterday good boy I said and what church did you attend guess was his reply some union mission chapel I ventured no he said I don't care to run on these branch roads very much I don't get a chance to go to church every Sunday and when I can go I like to run on the main line where your trip is regular and you make schedule time and don't have to wait on connections I don't care to run on a branch good enough I reckon but I don't like it Episcopal, I guessed limited express, he said all parlor cars, vestibule and two dollars extra for a seat fast time and only stop at the big stations elegant line but too rich for a breakman all the trainmen in uniform conductors punch in lantern silver plated train boys fenced up by themselves and not allowed to offer anything but music passengers talk back at the conductor trips scheduled through the whole year so when you get aboard you know just where you're going and how long it will take you most systematic road in the country and has a mighty nice class of travel never hear of a receiver appointed on that line but I didn't ride in the parlor car yesterday universalist I suggested broad gauge the breakman chuckled does too much complimentary business to be prosperous everybody travels on a pass conductor doesn't get a cash fare once in 50 miles stops at all way stations and won't run into anything but a union depot no smoking car allowed on the train because the company doesn't own enough brimstone to head a match train orders are rather vague though and I've noticed the trainmen don't get along very well with the passengers no I didn't go on the broad gauge though I have some good friends on that road who are the best people in the world been running on it all their lives Presbyterian I hinted narrow gauge a said the breakman pretty track straight as a rule tunnel right through the heart of a mountain rather than go around it spirit level grade strict rules too passengers have to show their tickets before they get on the train cars a little bit narrow for sleepers have to sit one in a seat and no room in the aisle to dance no stopover tickets allowed passenger must go straight through to the station he's ticketed for or stay off the car when the car is full gates are shut cars built at the shops to hold just so many and no more allowed on that road is run right up to the rules and you don't often hear of an accident on it had a head-on collision that's connected the union station and run over a weak bridge at Cincinnati not many years ago but nobody hurt and no passengers lost great road maybe you rode with the agnostics I tried the breakman shook his head emphatically scrub road he said dirt road better no ballast no time card and no train dispatcher all trains run wild and every engineer makes his own time just as he pleases a sort of smoke if you want to road too many sidetracks every switch wide open all the time switchman sound asleep and the target lamp dead out get on where you please and get off when you want don't have to show your tickets and the conductor has no authority to collect fare no sir I was offered a pass but I don't like the line I don't care to travel over a road that has no terminus do you know I asked a division superintendent where his road run to and he said he hoped to die if he knew I asked him if the general superintendent could tell me and he said he didn't believe they had a general superintendent and if they had he didn't know any more about the road than the passengers did I asked him who he reported to and he said nobody I asked the conductor who he got his orders from and he said he didn't take no orders from any living man or dead ghost and when I asked the engineer who gave him orders he said he'd just like to see any man on this planet try to give him orders black and white or verbal he said he'd run that train to suit himself or he'd run it into the ditch now you see I'm not much of a theologian but I'm a good deal of a railroad man and I don't want to run on a road that has no schedule makes no time has no connections starts anywhere and runs nowhere and has neither signal man train dispatcher or superintendent might be all right but I've railroaded too long to understand it did you try the Methodist now you're shouting he cried with enthusiasm that's the Hummer fast time and crowds of passengers engines carry a power of steam and don't you forget it steam gauge shows a hundred and enough all the time lively train crews too when the conductor shouts all aboard you can hear him to the next hallelujah station every train lamp shines like a headlight stopover privileges on all tickets passenger can drop off the train anytime he pleases do the station a couple of days and hop onto the next revival train that comes thundering along with an evangelist at the throttle good whole sold companionable conductors in a road on earth that makes the passengers feel more at home no pass is issued on any account everybody pays full traffic rate for his own ticket safe road to well equipped Wesley and house air brakes on every train it's a road I'm fond of but I didn't begin this week's run with it I began to feel that I was running a shore I tried one more lead maybe you went with the Baptists haha he shouted now you're on the shoreline river road a beautiful curves lines of grace at every bend and sweep of the river all steel rail and rock ballast single track and not a sighting from the roundhouse to the terminus takes a heap of water to run it though double tanks at every station and there isn't an engine in the shops that can run a mile or pull a pound with less than two gauges runs through a lovely country river on one side and the hills on the other and it's a steady climb upgrade all the way until the run ends where the river begins at the fountainhead yes sir I'll take the river road every time for a safe trip sure connections good time and no dust blowing in when you open a window and yesterday morning when the conductor came around taking up fares with a little basket punch I didn't ask him to pass me I paid my fare like a little Jonah 25 cents for a 90 minute run with a concert by the passengers thrown in I tell you what it is pilgrim never mind your baggage you just secure your passage on the river road if you want to go to but here the long whistle announced the station and the breakman hurried to the door shouting Zionsville Zionsville all out for Zionsville this train makes no stops between here in Indianapolis end of section 17 section 18 of chimes from adjusters bells by Robert J. Burdette this LibriVox recording is in the public domain recording by Debra Lynn chimes from adjusters bells by Robert J. Burdette section 18 stories and sketches 16 Laurel and Cyprus as a recruit in the 47th Illinois Regiment and one of the rawest recruits that ever marched against the insolent foe I had suffered no humiliation from his domineering assurance I knew that pride is bound in the heart of the foe and insolence is inherent in him this arrogance as a free man I resented I had not been free a very great while I was but six months out of the Peoria High School where I had been an abject slave to a horde of tyrants of both sexes whom I love unto this day for their gentle tyranny and loving despotism but now that I was free I speedily learned that freedom is not quote as the poet's dream a fair young girl with light and delicate limbs and wavy tresses gushing from the cat with which the Roman master crowned his slaves when he took off the jives a bearded man armed to the teeth and quote was he and we called him Colonel for short and whatsoever he commanded us to do we did and did it with bewildering alacrity weeks added themselves up in the months and I saw no indication of the presence of the remorseless enemy I greatly deplored the masterly inactivity of the army much to the amusement of the old soldiers who appeared to like it I feared the war might close before I got into a battle and I would go home with no man's blood upon my hands disgraced forever I took the usual studies in the school of the soldier all compulsory and thought of the pleasant discipline of the high school as I wrestled with a musket longer than myself and all the time waking or dreaming I longed for war grim visaged war with arms on armor clashing and all his dogs in full cry I yearned for battle I mocked at fear I prayed for the thunder of the captains and the shouting and wanted to go on all by myself and meet the armed men there came a rainy day in May a way back in 63 when the bugles sang revelry at three o'clock and we marched out of camp in unseemly haste splash splash splash all day in the rain in Mississippi mud much did I envy the boundless liberty of speech which prevailed among xenophons immortal ten thousand wrangling with the generals on every new order and xenophon himself not above wrangling with privates of the line but I knew that my colonel was not xenophon I also knew that if I had any criticisms concerning the conduct of the war I had better make them in classic Greek wherefore I kept silence though my bones waxed old with my inward roaring it was about midday I think dinner was omitted from the bill of fare that day when we observed certain signs of restlessness luminously intelligible to my comrades and with the pleasantly exciting interest of a new problem to myself the leading company suddenly left the column threw down a score of panels in the rail fence deployed across the field and disappeared in the woods on the double quick the silence and the soaking patient ranks was broken by a little murmur of expectation that rippled into a sparkle of jest and laughter as filing into the field we were aligned facing the woods that had so mysteriously swallowed up the skirmishers we waited somewhere out of sight a way down the line a cannon was booming at sullen intervals accenting the irregular recitative of scattering rifle shots the colonel shouted a command that startled me by its explosiveness our muskets rattled to right shoulder shift and we marched into the woods here we were ordered to load and lie down to me this smacked of caution so excessive that it seemed tainted with cowardice but as that was impossible in such a regiment with such a colonel I reserved my decision and asked the sergeant what is it we are going to have a shindy he replied do you dance before I could reply that I did feel a little supple in the knee joints another man said he didn't believe there would be much of a fight I observed that only recruits like myself spoke of battles I was not afraid indeed there was nothing to be afraid of but there was a little catch in my breath I could neither understand nor control it was rather hard to draw a deep lung-filling inhalation there was a continuous chatter of all manner of nonsense along the line a great deal of ill-timed levity a painful amount of unnecessary profanity jarring back and forth all this frivolity rasped across my feelings I was nervously irritated by it it appeared to me from all I could gather that we were on the eve of a very solemn occasion and a brief season of prayer would be more appropriate than all this flippant not to say irreverent bad nudge and repartee while thus communing with myself a staff officer drew rain in our front and in a few ill-chosen words delivered the most irreligious exhortation to which I had ever listened a few minutes after he disappeared however the general himself wrote along the line in his preferred denunciation of the enemy and extravagant laudation of our single-handed ability to whip all creation made lurid by picturesque and polysyllabic profanity convinced me that the officer whom I had mistaken for a godless aide was only a cavalry chaplain off duty being a recruit and not knowing very much about battles I was determined to see this one scorning to shelter myself I stood up when sternly ordered to lie down I merely half obeyed and sat up stretching my short neck to its utmost tension and straining my eyes to see what was going on there was nothing on earth to make one afraid I was painfully disappointed fearing that after all this was a false alarm and there would be no battle certainly it did not start out like the battles in the books and the war stories what there was to see I could see every faculty was abnormally alert I saw the skirmish lines down in the valley that spread out below us I heard Worthington say haven't those fellows got a splendid line and indeed the men in gray were doing a beautiful skirmish drill puff puff puff the little clouds of smoke broke out from the gray line in the mist and the muffled shots came bluntly through the non-resident air I saw a soldier fall on his face as the blue blouse skirmish line moved steadily forward but not until I observed that he did not rise to his feet and go on with his comrades did I realize that he had not merely stumbled even then he was so far away it seemed as though I was looking at a picture or that I had read about all this in some old history I saw the skirmishers suddenly rushed together in little groups and again deploy as quickly I saw them run forward and dart back I saw an orderly riding hard to the front with a box of cartridges on his saddlebow I wondered why they didn't begin the battle I was waiting to see the long line of gleaming bayonets with the Colonel in the lead sweep across the open field impaling the writhing enemy on the glittering points of steel I waited a long long time before I saw anything like that a tall man in gray uniform wearing a Spanish beard came over the brow of the wooded hill and half halted as he came suddenly inside of our line a chorus of jeers and taunts greeted him he gravely saluted the Colonel and smilingly replied to a general inquiry from the soldiers as to the health of his command I reckon you all will find some that's harder to catch than me before you all get into Jackson then a soldier rose up and discarded him through our ranks to the rear we had taken a prisoner anyhow an officer at that it was beginning to look a little bit like war my soaking uniform was uncomfortable I eased the chaff and crossbelt there was grit in one of my shoes that annoyed me but when I bent to untie the shoestring the soggy leather was so clammy and muddy that it discouraged me and I decided to wait till we went into camp I was hungry I felt in my haversack it was empty someone laughed at my rueful face as I shook the crumbs from my flabby commissariat I had eaten my breakfast dinner and supper on the march just at our left the waterhouse battery went into position the guns without loss of time began thundering away at the enemy with cheery energy that was like sure enough war and roused me from my momentary listlessness for I must confess that even the prisoner had disappointed me a little because he didn't seem to mind it very much I stood up to watch the gunners at work a spent bullet came whining along and angrily knocked a handful of bark from the tree against which I leaned see that said a sergeant better lie down and let the tree stop the next one too it'll do it as well as your head maybe better I sat down again but not very profoundly impressed by and by the battery ceased firing they are letting the guns cool a soldier said they are going to let us get out of this at someone else I turned again to look at the battery half seated on the hub of a cannon wheel lounged a young fellow not much older than myself but much taller nineteen or twenty he may have been his jacket with its red trimming was closely buttoned he laid his arm on a spoke of the wheel and rested his cheek on the palm of his hand he was tired but his breathing was deep and even as he sat there a handsome boy looking out through the rain and mist the faraway look in his eyes seemed to be resting on something a thousand miles away from those shifting skirmish lines playing tag with each other on the rain-soaked meadow a sound such as I had never heard in all my life struck upon my ear and heart with a horror that turned me faint the artillery man through his right hand quickly to his breast and swayed slowly forward clinging to the wheel with his left hand while his sudden cry quivering with pain thrilled down the line like an arrow murder oh murder boys murder one of his comrades sprang to catch him but his weak grasp on the wheel relaxed his hand slipped away and he lay on the trampled grass the soft rain beating in his face a red stain widening under his wet hand and oozing out between those clutching fingers his cry was not repeated it faded away into weak gasping moans that made me wince as though they were knife thrusts some musicians with the white badges on their sleeves came hurrying up with the stretcher I watched them lift the moaning canineer upon it and start back with him to where the yellow flag hung limp above the field hospital fear before unknown came leaping into my heart with that hissing spiteful bullet that which I had wanted to see which I had longed to see which I had dreaded lest I might miss seeing had sprung into the light before my eyes and I was sick and faint nervous with glass and muscles relaxed I shrank down to the ground fairly burrowing my face in the grass to shut out these things that had so suddenly taken on new and terrible meaning hideous things unseen and deadly a destruction that wasted at noonday viewless as the pestilence that walketh in darkness with all the fortitude and strength of will I could rally I nerved myself to keep from trembling mechanically I laid my hand upon the rifle at my side and shuddered at the chilling touch of the steel barrel now that I knew so well what lay sleeping in its dark chamber I wondered if I could have the courage the very daring to awaken the cruel force I had so eagerly thrust into it when Lieutenant Law said load at will did the Lieutenant know what he was saying by and by Captain McClure would say fire and then came back like an answer to the question the thrilling cry of the wounded gunner murder murder I did not know maybe it was another boy a schoolboy to who not seeing the federal artillerymen had killed him the boy who fired that shot while the war was scarce a year old his mother's kisses were yet warm on his cheek and lip his sister's arms but yesterday unwound their caressing class from his neck such a warm hearted loving boy they would tell you tender hearted as a girl he had never done a cruel deed in his life from the days when first he lisped his prayers at his mother's knees morning and evening he had knelt to the prince of peace and prayed that his heart might be kept pure and gentle free from the taint of sin and now see what he had done with no reason for hating him he had killed this boy from the north land he had committed a sin so far away from all his boyish thought that it may be he had never prayed against it he had dipped the hand that his mother loved to feel on her face into the blood of his brother and this boy whom he had killed he too was a good boy loving and kind hearted his mother had kissed him goodbye in that far away illinois home with her tears raining through her kisses just as the rain of may fell upon the white pain drawn face of her boy a little minute ago his sister had sobbed her goodbye in his arms holding him close against the heart that had loved him from babyhood and now would break for him a quiet gentle loving boy always they would tell you there was laughter in his eyes always his voice was soft and sweet as a woman's they never heard him cry out as i did just now and he too morning and evening knelt down with bowed head and clasped hands in his petitions ascending to the throne of infinite love mingled there with the prayers of that boy in alabama what friends what loyal true hearted friends those boys had been had they met sometime other than that gray sunless day in may and yet not an hour ago the boy from illinois was working at that murderous gun like a black smith at his forge when with fierce breath of flame it roared out its horrid message of pitiless defiance how that white-handed boy sprang with his sponge step to wipe the black powder stains from its grim lips and cool the rifled throat hot with hate how proudly he padded its sides of bronze when it landed a screaming shell into a group of men and boys on the farther side of the meadow and then sitting there on the hub of the wheel the rage of battle in his heart subsiding even as the gun cooled at his side that home longing look came into his eyes his soul drifted away to a home on the shore of lake michigan his mother and sister were in his thought and a boy not unlike himself standing in a little clump of blossoming bushes that fringed the meadowbrook slowly raised his rifle to his shoulder aimed at a cloud of white smoke drifting away from the last shot of that terrible gun and without seeing who was sitting behind that beautiful screen fired and killed a boy to whom his soul might have knitted itself as the soul of jonathan clave unto david murder oh murder boys well for the boy in the southland that he could not hear that cry and well for our boys in all our land if they shall never hear it better still if they shall never call it into shrill condemning life from blood flecked lips a bugle call dropping into the momentary silence that punctuated the skirmishing the clatter of hoof beats on the sod and turf a phantom of mounted men sweeping past the colors in the mist the guns are hurriedly limbering up the colonel's voice translates the bugle song in a ringing shout a rush of men leaping to their feet a quick march forward for a few hundred paces then the step quickens into a run a mad wild rush down the wooded hillside a confronting line of gray waiting for us in the valley cheer after cheer breaking into the storm of the charge like the combing waves on a rocky shore the guns thundering over our heads volleys of musketry that roll away to the right and left rattling back to repeat themselves again the gray line breaking before our onset flying like scattering clouds before a swift north wind splashing down into the yellow stream rain swollen and muddy climbing up the slippery banks scrambling over the breastworks every man a hero in the madness and tempest of the charge while fear legs far behind in the confusion at the rear cheering and more cheering laughter and shouting wounded men waving their caps from the stretchers or feebly lifting their heads as they lie on the ground raising their pain broken voices to cheer with us hurrah hurrah and again hurrah every jubilant sound that exaltation can invent and make hurrah then we catch breath from our shouting and hurry away to hunt out the refugees and corral our prisoners midnight and we were bivouacked in the square of the state house in Jackson the rainy day the muddy marching and the hard fighting were things of the past my brain was in a whirl over my first battle i opened my eyes and vainly tried to recall it all in detail then i resolutely closed them and tried to sleep i thought over a letter i would write home wild with a sense of victory and proud oh so immeasurably proud that i had some little part in it sighing at last in the very excess of pride and delight and again closing my eyes tight tight as a child will do and earnestly saying now i will go to sleep and then i whispered a prayer i had forgotten all through the peril and fear of the day and looked my good night up at the stars calm silent tranquil undimmed by all the smoke and blood of the battlefield unshaken by the tumult of thundering guns and charging battalions each in its place the unchanged and unchanging constellations looked down upon the little world in which men lived and slept loved and hated fought and died the quiet peaceful blessed starlight my thoughts went northward over southern meadows and rushing streams to a little home by peoria lake where a mother and sisters waited for me slowly they came back again to the battery and action on the brow of the wooded hill with a troubled mind i wondered how long mother and sister might wait i laid my arm across my eyes to shut out something that dimmed the starlight and the victory with the stain that marred the first altar of prayer and sacrifice i tried to shut out all the muffled sounds of the guarded bibwak and by and by i fell asleep and still in the flush of triumph in the radiant hope of victories yet to come and honors to be won on other fields dropped into my restless sleep and troubled dreams that fainting cry under the wheels of the gun murder oh murder boys murder end of section 18 section 19 of chimes from a jester's bells by robert j. brudette this liberal box recording is in the public domain recording by deborah lin chimes from a jester's bells by robert j. brudette section 19 stories and sketches 17 the legend of the good drama now it was in the rain of the good caliph may his memory be sweet when all the land was blooming and fruitful when every man was a daisy and every girl a peach when ten buyers laid hold of one seller and to be a drummer was greater than a king when the bull bull sang in the meadows and made it lively for the picnic from the city when it camped upon his claim when the caravans went up and down the trail and the sideshow blower grasped the echoes of rubenville with his strident voice that abal been everywhere came to the city of in the land of oh ho straightway he hired himself to the caravansery which is called the phoenix house because that daily it is new risen from its hashes he flung his grip upon the counter wrote his name all over the register spake unto the clark imperiously and said a sample room on the parlor floor put in a fire send my trunks up right away order me a livery rig get me a messenger and see that they'll call me for the six thirty eight a.m. east without fail but see me take monica the clark looked not at him neither answered him ought but walked slowly to the mirror and gazed upon himself for he was well favored and fair to look upon and he himself knew it and abal been everywhere get him forth from the caravansry for he was in hustler and he went into the booths and bazaars of the merchants and them that sell and he laid hold upon them and held them up and he filled them to overflowing with new stories and marvelous incidents by flood and field and he wrote down orders which they gave not while they laughed and got upon them the cinch of the good salesman and then that were obstinate and ticed he unto his room and spread out his samples before them until that they were bewildered and knew not what they lacked nor what they wanted and to these he sold the biggest bills for abal been everywhere had sand which was also salted with gall he strapped his razor on his cheek and shaved the other man with it moreover he slept not in the daytime neither was he dormant during business hours likewise he was exceeding broad between the eyes and from his front a bone to his oxyput it was a long way for a slow man and because that his head was his capital he carried it level for he said a drinking man can't even sell whiskey and when even was come he got him to bed and slept for he said it is a dead town and there is no place to go and before the second watch of the night rumble em up the porter smote on the panels of his door and cried aloud oh abal been everywhere arise and dress the days stayeth not and thy train is on time and coming right along and abal been everywhere arose and girt his raiment about him blindly and he marveled that he was so sleepy for he knew that he went to bed exceeding early even with the fouls of the barnyard and when they reached the station lo it was the male train west and it was ten twenty five p.m. and abal been everywhere reached for rumble em up the porter and caught him a half armed jab in the neck and he said unto him carry me back to my room and pay thou the bus man both ways for I will not and see the thou call me at six thirty eight a.m. or thou shalt die the death and he get himself up into his bed which was even a corn cob mattress laid on basswood slats but erect not for his busy day made his sleep sweet and at the midnight watch it was so that rumble em up the porter beat again upon his door and shouted so that all the corridor might hear awake abal been everywhere thou of the long reach and short temper for the time wayneth and the train stayeth for no man awake and haste for slumber overtook thy servant the hour is late the way is long and the bus runneth not for this train and abal been everywhere arose and cast on his garments his one loteth hay and girded up his loins and get forth with great speed for his heart was anxious nevertheless he gave rumble em up a shekel of silver and made him carry his two grips and railed upon him for a driveling laggard and when they were come to the station behold it was eleven forty six p.m. and the train was a way freight going south and abal been everywhere fell upon rumble em up the porter and outclassed him though he was under his weight and he smote him sore and didn't treat him roughly and said oh pale gray ass of all asses the prophet pity thee if thou call me once more before six thirty eight a.m. and he walked back to his inn and get him to bed and sleep fell upon him heavily for he was sore discouraged and he said within himself is this a business trip or a six days walking match and when he was in the soundest of his slumber it was so that rumble em up the porter kicked fiercely against his door with a noise that would call the seven of Ephesus and he cried through the transom oh abal been everywhere prince of drummers may thy sleep be sweet awake and dressed with speed it is night in the valleys but the day star shines upon the mountains truly thy train is even now do with the station but the bus is indeed gone and abal been everywhere the drama frightened himself awake for he said if I lose that train I am out a good customer and he stayed not to tie his shoes but put on his garments as he ran to the station while rumble em up the porter splashed ahead with one grip and a lantern for it was pitch dark knee deep and raining like a house a fire and when they reached the station rumble em up the porter cried aloud and said may the prophet prosper thy samples oh abal been everywhere favorite of fate for verily I am a hustler thou art a lucky man and thy train still waiteth for thee and lo it was a gravel train going west the next morning and the clock in the steeple told two a.m. and abal been everywhere stood up before rumble em up the porter and he caught him by the beard and fanned him with his boots and beat him and pelted him with mud and words all the way back to the con and he seized his lantern from him and smashed it over the head of the wooden indian in front of cabbage leaf the tobacconists and he wept with rage and said would that I owned the phoenix house for then would I slay the entire this graven image in thy place oh thou that art swift to blunder only art thou fit to stand in the post office and hold out thy tongue for men to lick stamps thereon and he was red hot so that when the watchman of the night made him hold his peace abal been everywhere was rejoiced to be sassed for he ate to relieve himself and he lifted up his voice still louder and he blessed the watchman with the left-handed blessing of the tribe of the gammons and he called him a cop and pushed him out from the shelter of the awning even into the rain and wet his new uniform for abal been everywhere of the tribe a roundabout town had seen watchmen of many cities and he feared nothing in all the world save a slick customer and when they reached the caravansary he repeated his order and get him to bed once more now when abal been everywhere awoke the next time he called himself and the sun was high and shone in at his windows and the noise of the trolley and the chariots of the merchant rattled in the street and his heart sank within him for his watch had stopped wherefore he girded his garments on him and went softly downstairs for he was dumb with fear and see me take monica the clerk which was behind the counter greeted him and said oh abal been everywhere live in peace it is too late for breakfast and too early for dinner nevertheless it shall not make any difference in the bill but abal been everywhere could not speak for he was voiceless with wrath and when he had pulled himself together he sought out rumble him up the porter and he said unto him oh chuck el edded pup which is thou that sleepest at train time wherefore has thou forgotten to call me and rumble him up was for the first time angry and he spread out his hands and cried oh abal been everywhere the drummer quickened speech and hasty to slug without cause wherefore shouldest thou get up at daybreak when there is another train go with the same way at the same hour tomorrow morning wilt thou also join thyself unto the tribe of kikkas for the kikkas are a people abhorred of them who dwell in the cons and abal been everywhere tore his hair and rent his garments and cried woe is me for am I not stuck in this dead town another day but rumble him up the porter mocked him and said manana for he had learned to swear in new mexico and abal been everywhere would not harken unto the people of the con but he paid his bill and hired a man and a team to take him to the next town which was the village of way back on the dead branch of the dry fork of lost creek neither did any merchant dwell therein and abal been everywhere mocked see me take monica the clark neither would he further patronize the house but he hired his team from a livery stable down the street now the livery stable belonged to the house all the same but abal been everywhere which was the son of know about everything wist not that it was so for of a truth no man can know everything unless he had settled on this planet before the surveyors stakes were set and hath never been away from it since end of sec