The Mysterious Stranger Manuscripts (Literature) (37 page)

THINGS were against that poor waif. He had maintained silence
when he had had an opportunity to deny that he was a Jail-Bird,
and that was bad for him. It got him that name, and he was likely
to keep it. The men considered him a milksop because he spared Ernest Wasserman when it was evident that he could have
whipped him. Privately my heart bled for the boy, and I wanted to
be his friend, and longed to tell him so, but I had not the courage,
for I was made as most people are made, and was afraid to follow
my own instincts when they ran counter to other people's. The best
of us would rather be popular than right. I found that out a good
while ago. Katrina remained the boy's fearless friend, but she was
alone in this. The master used him kindly, and protected him when
he saw him ill treated, but further than this it was not in his nature
to go except when he was roused, the current being so strong
against him.

' As to the clothes, Katrina kept her word. She sat up late, that
very first night, and made him a coarse and cheap, but neat and
serviceable doublet and hose with her own old hands; and she
properly shod him, too. And she had her reward, for he was a
graceful and beautiful creature, with the most wonderful eyes, and
these facts all showed up, now, and filled her with pride. Daily he
grew in her favor. Her old hungry heart was fed, she was a mother
at last, with a child to love,-a child who returned her love in full
measure, and to whom she was the salt of the earth.

As the days went along, everybody talked about 44, everybody
observed him, everybody puzzled over him and his ways; but it was
not discoverable that he ever concerned himself in the least degree
about this or was in any way interested in what people thought of
him or said about him. This indifference irritated the herd, but the
boy did not seem aware of it.

The most ingenious and promising attempts to ruffle his temper
and break up his calm went for nothing. Things flung at him struck
him on the head or the back, and fell at his feet unnoticed; now and
then a leg was shoved out and he tripped over it and went heavily
down amid delighted laughter, but he picked himself up and went
on without remark; often when he had brought a couple of twentypound cans of water up two long flights of stairs from the well in
the court, they were seized and their winter-cold contents poured
over him, but he went back unmurmuring for more; more than
once, when the master was not present, Frau Stein made him share the dog's dinner in the corner, but he was content and offered no
protest. The most of these persecutions were devised by Moses and
Katzenyammer, but as a rule were carried out by that shabby poor
coward, Ernest.

You see, now, how I was situated. I should have been despised if
I had befriended him; and I should have been treated as he was,
too. It is not everybody that can be as brave as Katrina was. More
than once she caught Moses devising those tricks and Ernest carrying them out, and gave both of them an awful hiding; and once
when Hans Katzenyammer interfered she beat that big ruffian till
he went on his knees and begged.

What a devil to work the boy was! The earliest person up found
him at it by lantern-light, the latest person up found him still at it
long past midnight. It was the heaviest manual labor, but if he was
ever tired it was not perceptible. He always moved with energy,
and seemed to find a high joy in putting forth his strange and
enduring strength.

He made reputation for the magician right along; no matter what
unusual thing he did, the magician got the credit of it; at first the
magician was cautious, when accused, and contented himself with
silences which rather confessed than denied the soft impeachment,
but he soon felt safe to throw that policy aside and frankly take the
credit, and he did it. One day 44 unchained the dog and said "Now
behave yourself, Felix, and don't hurt any one," and turned him
loose, to the consternation of the herd, but the magician sweetly
smiled and said,

"Do not fear. It is a little caprice of mine. My spirit is upon him,
he cannot hurt you."

They were filled with adoring wonder and admiration, those
people. They kissed the hem of the magician's robe, and beamed
unutterable things upon him. Then the boy said to the dog,

"Go and thank your master for this great favor which he has
granted you."

Well, it was an astonishing thing that happened, then. That
ignorant and malignant vast animal, which had never been taught
language or manners or religion or any other valuable thing, and could not be expected to understand a dandy speech like that, went
and stood straight up on its hind feet before the magician, with its
nose on a level with his face, and curved its paws and ducked its
head piously, and said

"Yap-yap!-yap-yap!-yap-yap!" most reverently, and just as a
Christian might at prayers.

Then it got down on all fours, and the boy said,

"Salute the master, and retire as from the presence of royalty."

The dog bowed very solemnly, then backed away stern-first to his
corner-not with grace it is true, but well enough for a dog that
hadn't had any practice of that kind and had never heard of royalty
before nor its customs and etiquettes.

Did that episode take those people's breath away? You will not
doubt it. They actually went on their knees to the magician, Frau
Stein leading, the rest following. I know, for I was there and saw it.
I was amazed at such degraded idolatry and hypocrisy-at least
servility-but I knelt, too, to avert remark.

Life was become very interesting. Every few days there was a
fresh novelty, some strange new thing done by the boy, something
to wonder at; and so the magician's reputation was augmenting all
the time. To be envied is the secret longing of pretty much all
human beings-let us say all; to be envied makes them happy.
The magician was happy, for never was a man so envied; he lived
in the clouds.

I passionately longed to know 44, now. The truth is, he was
being envied himself! Spite of all his shames and insults and
persecutions. For, there is no denying it, it was an enviable conspicuousness and glory to be the instrument of such a dreaded and
extraordinary magician as that and have people staring at you and
holding their breath with awe while you did the miracles he devised. It is not for me to deny that I was one of 44's enviers. If I
hadn't been, I should have been no natural boy. But I was a natural
boy, and I longed to be conspicuous, and wondered at and talked
about. Of course the case was the same with Ernest and Barty,
though they did as I did-concealed it. I was always throwing
myself in the magician's way whenever I could, in the hope that he %ould do miracles through me, too, but I could not get his attention. He never seemed to see me when he was preparing a prodigy.

At last I thought of a plan that I hoped might work. I would seek
44 privately and tell him how I was feeling and see if he would
help me attain my desire. So I hunted up his room, and slipped up
there clandestinely one night after the herd were in bed, and
waited. After midnight an hour or two he came, and when the light
of his lantern fell upon me he set it quickly down, and took me by
both of my hands and beamed his gladness from his eyes, and there
was no need to say a word.

HE CLOSED the door, and we sat down and began to talk, and
he said it was good and generous of me to come and see him, and he
hoped I would be his friend, for he was lonely and so wanted
companionship. His words made me ashamed-so ashamed, and I
felt so shabby and mean, that I almost had courage enough to come
out and tell him how ignoble my errand was and how selfish. He
smiled most kindly and winningly, and put out his hand and patted
me on the knee, and said,

"Don't mind it."

I did not know what he was referring to, but the remark puzzled
me, and so, in order not to let on, I thought I would throw out an
observation-anything that came into my head; but nothing came
but the weather, so I was dumb. He said,

"Do you care for it?"

"Care for what?"

"The weather."

I was puzzled again; in fact astonished; and said to myself "This
is uncanny; I'm afraid of him."

He said cheerfully,

"Oh, you needn't be. Don't you be uneasy on my account."

I got up trembling, and said,

"I-I am not feeling well, and if you don't mind, I think I will
excuse myself, and-"

"Oh, don't," he said, appealingly, "don't go. Stay with me a little.
Let me do something to relieve you-I shall be so glad."

"You are so kind, so good," I said, "and I wish I could stay, but I
will come another time. I-well, I-you see, it is cold, and I seem to
have caught a little chill, and I think it will soon pass if I go down
and cover up warm in bed-"

"Oh, a hot drink is a hundred times better, a hundred times!that is what you really want. Now isn't it so?"

"Why yes; but in the circumstances-"

"Name it!" he said, all eager to help me. "Mulled claret, blazing
hot-isn't that it?"

"Yes, indeed; but as we haven't any way to-"

"Here-take it as hot as you can bear it. You'll soon be all right."

He was holding a tumbler to me-fine, heavy cut-glass, and the
steam was rising from it. I took it, and dropped into my chair again,
for I was faint with fright, and the glass trembled in my hand. I
drank. It was delicious; yes, and a surprise to my ignorant palate.

"Drink!" he said. "Go on-drain it. It will set you right, never
fear. But this is-unsociable;-I'll drink with you."

A smoking glass was in his hand; I was not quick enough to see
where it came from. Before my glass was empty he gave me a full
one in its place and said heartily,

"Go right on, it will do you good. You are feeling better already,
now aren't you?"

"Better?" said I to myself; "as to temperature, yes, but I'm scared
to rags."

He laughed a pleasant little laugh and said,

"Oh, I give you my word there's no occasion for that. You
couldn't be safer in my good old Mother Katrina's protection.
Come, drink another."

I couldn't resist; it was nectar. I indulged myself. But I was
miserably frightened and uneasy, and I couldn't stay; I didn't know
what might happen next. So I said I must go. He wanted me to
sleep in his bed, and said he didn't need it, he should be going to work pretty soon; but I shuddered at the idea, and got out of it by
saying I should rest better in my own, because I was accustomed to
it. So then he stepped outside the door with me, earnestly thanking
me over and over again for coming to see him, and generously
forbearing to notice how pale I was and how I was quaking; and he
made me promise to come again the next night, I saying to myself
that I should break that promise if I died for it. Then he said
good-bye, with a most cordial shake of the hand, and I stepped
feebly into the black gloom-and found myself in my own bed,
with my door closed, my candle blinking on the table, and a
welcome great fire flaming up the throat of the chimney!

It made me gasp! But no matter, I presently sank deliciously off
to sleep, with that noble wine weltering in my head, and my last
expiring effort at cerebration hit me with a cold shock:

"Did he overhear that thought when it passed through my mind
-when I said I would break that promise if I died for it?"

To MY astonishment I got up thoroughly refreshed when called
at sunrise. There was not a suggestion of wine or its effects in my
head.

"It was all a dream," I said, gratefully. "I can get along without
the mate to it."

By and by, on a stairway I met 44 coming up with a great load of
wood, and he said, beseechingly,

"You will come again to-night, won't you?"

"Lord! I thought it was a dream," I said, startled.

"Oh, no, it was not a dream. I should be sorry, for it was a
pleasant night for me, and I was so grateful."

There was something so pathetic in his way of saying it that a
great pity rose up in me and I said impulsively,

"I'll come if I die for it!"

He looked as pleased as a child, and said,

"It's the same phrase, but I like it better this time." Then he said,
with delicate consideration for me, "Treat me just as usual when
others are around; it would injure you to befriend me in public, and
I shall understand and not feel hurt."

"You are just lovely!" I said, "and I honor you, and would brave
them all if I had been born with any spirit-which I wasn't."

He opened his big wondering eyes upon me and said,

'Why do you reproach yourself? You did not make yourself; how
then are you to blame?"

How perfectly sane and sensible that was-yet I had never
thought of it before, nor had ever heard even the wisest of the
professionally wise people say it-nor anything half so intelligent
and unassailable, for that matter. It seemed an odd thing to get it
from a boy, and he a vagabond landstreicher at that. At this juncture a proposition framed itself in my head, but I suppressed it,
judging that there could be no impropriety in my acting upon it
without permission if I chose. He gave me a bright glance and said,

"Ah, you couldn't if you tried!"

"Couldn't what?"

"Tell what happened last night."

"Couldn't I?"

"No. Because I don't wish it. What I don't wish, doesn't happen.
I'm going to tell you various secrets by and by, one of these days.
You'll keep them."

"I'm sure I'll try to."

"Oh, tell them if you think you can! Mind, I don't say you shan't,
I only say you can't."

"Well, then, I shan't try."

Then Ernest came whistling gaily along, and when he saw 44 he
cried out,

"Come, hump yourself with that wood, you lazy beggar!"

I opened my mouth to call him the hardest name in my stock,
but nothing would come. I said to myself, jokingly, "Maybe it's
because 44 disapproves."