A BABY TRAMP
by Ambrose Bierce
If you had seen little Jo standing at the street
corner in the rain, you would hardly have admired
him. It was apparently an ordinary autumn rainstorm,
but the water which fell upon Jo (who was hardly
old enough to be either just or unjust, and so
perhaps did not come under the law of impartial
distribution) appeared to have some property
peculiar to itself: one would have said it was
dark and adhesive--sticky. But that could hardly
be so, even in Blackburg, where things certainly
did occur that were a good deal out of the common.
For example, ten or twelve years before, a shower
of small frogs had fallen, as is credibly attested
by a contemporaneous chronicle, the record concluding
with a somewhat obscure statement to the effect that
the chronicler considered it good growing-weather
for Frenchmen.
Some years later Blackburg had a fall of crimson
snow; it is cold in Blackburg when winter is on,
and the snows are frequent and deep. There can be
no doubt of it--the snow in this instance was of
the color of blood and melted into water of the
same hue, if water it was, not blood. The phenomenon
had attracted wide attention, and science had as
many explanations as there were scientists who knew
nothing about it. But the men of Blackburg--men
who for many years had lived right there where
the red snow fell, and might be supposed to know
a good deal about the matter--shook their heads
and said something would come of it.
And something did, for the next summer was made
memorable by the prevalence of a mysterious
disease--epidemic, endemic, or the Lord knows
what, though the physicians didn't--which carried
away a full half of the population. Most of the
other half carried themselves away and were slow
to return, but finally came back, and were now
increasing and multiplying as before, but Blackburg
had not since been altogether the same.
Of quite another kind, though equally "out of
the common," was the incident of Hetty Parlow's
ghost. Hetty Parlow's maiden name had been Brownon,
and in Blackburg that meant more than one would
think.
The Brownons had from time immemorial--from the
very earliest of the old colonial days--been the
leading family of the town. It was the richest
and it was the best, and Blackburg would have
shed the last drop of its plebeian blood in
defense of the Brownon fair fame. As few of the
family's members had ever been known to live
permanently away from Blackburg, although most
of them were educated elsewhere and nearly all
had traveled, there was quite a number of them.
The men held most of the public offices, and
the women were foremost in all good works. Of
these latter, Hetty was most beloved by reason
of the sweetness of her disposition, the purity
of her character and her singular personal beauty.
She married in Boston a young scapegrace named
Parlow, and like a good Brownon brought him to
Blackburg forthwith and made a man and a town
councilman of him. They had a child which they
named Joseph and dearly loved, as was then the
fashion among parents in all that region. Then
they died of the mysterious disorder already
mentioned, and at the age of one whole year
Joseph set up as an orphan.
Unfortunately for Joseph the disease which had
cut off his parents did not stop at that; it
went on and extirpated nearly the whole Brownon
contingent and its allies by marriage; and those
who fled did not return. The tradition was broken,
the Brownon estates passed into alien hands and
the only Brownons remaining in that place were
underground in Oak Hill Cemetery, where, indeed,
was a colony of them powerful enough to resist
the encroachment of surrounding tribes and hold
the best part of the grounds. But about the ghost:
One night, about three years after the death of
Hetty Parlow, a number of the young people of
Blackburg were passing Oak Hill Cemetery in a
wagon--if you have been there you will remember
that the road to Greenton runs alongside it on
the south. They had been attending a May Day
festival at Greenton; and that serves to fix the
date. Altogether there may have been a dozen,
and a jolly party they were, considering the
legacy of gloom left by the town's recent somber
experiences. As they passed the cemetery the man
driving suddenly reined in his team with an
exclamation of surprise. It was sufficiently
surprising, no doubt, for just ahead, and almost
at the roadside, though inside the cemetery,
stood the ghost of Hetty Parlow. There could
be no doubt of it, for she had been personally
known to every youth and maiden in the party.
That established the thing's identity; its
character as ghost was signified by all the
customary signs--the shroud, the long, undone
hair, the "far-away look"--everything. This
disquieting apparition was stretching out its
arms toward the west, as if in supplication for
the evening star, which, certainly, was an
alluring object, though obviously out of reach.
As they all sat silent (so the story goes) every
member of that party of merrymakers--they had
merry-made on coffee and lemonade only--distinctly
heard that ghost call the name "Joey, Joey!" A
moment later nothing was there. Of course one
does not have to believe all that.
Now, at that moment, as was afterward ascertained,
Joey was wandering about in the sage-brush on
the opposite side of the continent, near Winnemucca,
in the State of Nevada. He had been taken to that
town by some good persons distantly related to his
dead father, and by them adopted and tenderly cared
for. But on that evening the poor child had strayed
from home and was lost in the desert.
His after history is involved in obscurity and
has gaps which conjecture alone can fill. It is
known that he was found by a family of Piute
Indians, who kept the little wretch with them
for a time and then sold him--actually sold him
for money to a woman on one of the east-bound
trains, at a station a long way from Winnemucca.
The woman professed to have made all manner of
inquiries, but all in vain: so, being childless
and a widow, she adopted him herself. At this
point of his career Jo seemed to be getting a
long way from the condition of orphanage; the
interposition of a multitude of parents between
himself and that woeful state promised him a long
immunity from its disadvantages.
Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleveland,
Ohio. But her adopted son did not long remain
with her. He was seen one afternoon by a policeman,
new to that beat, deliberately toddling away from
her house, and being questioned answered that he
was "a doin' home." He must have traveled by rail,
somehow, for three days later he was in the town
of Whiteville, which, as you know, is a long way
from Blackburg. His clothing was in pretty fair
condition, but he was sinfully dirty. Unable to
give any account of himself he was arrested as
a vagrant and sentenced to imprisonment in the
Infants' Sheltering Home--where he was washed.
Jo ran away from the Infants' Sheltering Home
at Whiteville--just took to the woods one day,
and the Home knew him no more forever.
We find him next, or rather get back to him,
standing forlorn in the cold autumn rain at a
suburban street corner in Blackburg; and it
seems right to explain now that the raindrops
falling upon him there were really not dark
and gummy; they only failed to make his face
and hands less so. Jo was indeed fearfully and
wonderfully besmirched, as by the hand of an
artist. And the forlorn little tramp had no
shoes; his feet were bare, red, and swollen,
and when he walked he limped with both legs.
As to clothing--ah, you would hardly have had
the skill to name any single garment that he
wore, or say by what magic he kept it upon him.
That he was cold all over and all through did
not admit of a doubt; he knew it himself.
Anyone would have been cold there that evening;
but, for that reason, no one else was there.
How Jo came to be there himself, he could not
for the flickering little life of him have
told, even if gifted with a vocabulary
exceeding a hundred words. From the way he
stared about him one could have seen that he
had not the faintest notion of where (nor why)
he was.
Yet he was not altogether a fool in his day and
generation; being cold and hungry, and still
able to walk a little by bending his knees very
much indeed and putting his feet down toes first,
he decided to enter one of the houses which
flanked the street at long intervals and looked
so bright and warm. But when he attempted to
act upon that very sensible decision a burly
dog came bowsing out and disputed his right.
Inexpressibly frightened and believing, no doubt
(with some reason, too) that brutes without
meant brutality within, he hobbled away from
all the houses, and with gray, wet fields to
right of him and gray, wet fields to left of
him--with the rain half blinding him and the
night coming in mist and darkness, held his
way along the road that leads to Greenton.
That is to say, the road leads those to Greenton
who succeed in passing the Oak Hill Cemetery.
A considerable number every year do not.
Jo did not.
They found him there the next morning, very
wet, very cold, but no longer hungry. He had
apparently entered the cemetery gate--hoping,
perhaps, that it led to a house where there
was no dog--and gone blundering about in the
darkness, falling over many a grave, no doubt,
until he had tired of it all and given up.
The little body lay upon one side, with one
soiled cheek upon one soiled hand, the other
hand tucked away among the rags to make it
warm, the other cheek washed clean and white
at last, as for a kiss from one of God's great
angels. It was observed--though nothing was
thought of it at the time, the body being as
yet unidentified--that the little fellow was
lying upon the grave of Hetty Parlow. The
grave, however, had not opened to receive him.
That is a circumstance which, without actual
irreverence, one may wish had been ordered
otherwise.
~~~~~~~ THE END ~~~~~~~
|
