Omaha Daily Bee Newspaper, June 21, 1903, Page 33

An Alabama Hermit | (Copyright, 1903, by Cutcliffe Hyne.) CHAPTER L 8 A MATTER of accuracy my yacht mate was far more guilty than I. He had gone a-fishing one day with his trousers rolled to hia knees, and had spent elght hours sandwiched in between wind and water, and had naturally returned with his calves bitten red raw by the sun. He developed a temper in consequence that would have made him shunned in the Pit, and 1T was driven into a deed of tempo- rary separation, But first, as I am standing here on my defense, let it be clearly understood that I found Atcheson before 1 knew Miss Wilcoxn wns yachting with the Van Sclaks in Mobile bay. I had seen her last in a I'Ifth avenue drawing room, and (if the complete truth be told), had slipped her from wmy thoughts with a perfunctory handehake, Being Ignorant of Atcheson's exlstence, 1 naturally d!d not seek for him speeially. He Hved two days deep in swampy coun- try, which I8 not yet charted in the United States maps. Our yacht was then in the bayou of Bon Becours (which opens off Vaobile bay), and the Man with the Bun- burnt Calves said, with many adjectives, that movement for him was out of the question, He remarked that he would stay on the sloop and fish for gafftops'ls (as they call the ecatfish), and cavallos, and sheapheads, and indeed whatever else he could get. He also stated that our crew (of one colored man) would make a suitable butt for his future remarks, and put forward the suggestion that I should take myself off’ “Cio and hunt alligators up the lagoons, and live llke a savage in the swamps, and catch fever if there's any throwing about,” gald the Man with the Sunburnt Calves; “that'll be ubout your form.” So 1 pitied the crew and went off—in pale pink pyjamas, and the ten:foot yawl boat, The sail to the head of the bayou was simple. Then there were two miies to be punted to the long, narrow sliver of lagoon which lles inside the sand-dunes of the Mexlean Gulf. The cypresses, and the black pines, and the mugnolias arched above the cut, and fronds of palmetto, which grew on clumps of soll, slashed at one like knives. The atmesphere was a hot, molst stew. Also there were fies . in all abundance, which fancied themselves masterless dogs, and bit accordingly. The subsequent sall down the tagoon cameae as one of the seven pleasures of life. There was a great wall of trees on the landward side. To southward, from over the rambling lne of dunes, came the dim bellow of the surf as 1t creamed and crumbled on the white gulf sand And down the sllver ripples of tne lagoon there WBew an wir faintly salt, which chilled the wet cotton against one's apine, and pushed the yvawl-boat on with the twinkle of fountains under her stem. The lagoon bayed to an end, and there opened ont another channel to be punted through—a narrow, winding canal of twirls and branches through quaking marsh land, a waterway ablaze witn yellow lilles. Crerdiral blrds peered at one from the bushes, and purple herons thrust out curi- ous heaks from the grass clumps. Then there came a lake with islands, a lake of water called by courtesy fresh which was lemon-yellow to look through, and black to look upon. It swarmed with fish, which took the hook, and were supped upon for their sins; and because there was no whisky In the yawl-boat for dilution, it served as a beverage in all its sulphurous nastiness. Then the sun dipped behind the forests at the back, and night followed like the shutting down of a box. One mounted a1 bull'seye lantern on the hat band, which would shine down a rifle's sight, and put cut again In the boat, paddling stealthily. It is not always easy to distinguish between a firefly and the gleam from an alligator's eye, and shots are apt to be wasted and@ the neighhor hood red But on that night fortune hely nd the lead went home six several times. Then their slayer lald him to sleep on the boat's floor, with his head beside the centor-board trunk So passed my first night aws v from the sloop The morning was occupied in the process of skinning, and then once more on toward the east There were more lakes and more canals, all full of their own new wonders, and ever away in the dis- tance on the starboard hand was the noise of the surf. In late afternoon I came to a lagoon with a wooded is’and in it, and among the trees of the island, where they grew distinet from one another, 1 saw u man, I bore down to him under sail (for there was a spanking breeze coming in from the ®#ea), and when we were within hailing dis- tance the boat grourded “Do you want to land here?’ he shouted “1 dom’t mind If 1 do.” ““Then shove off again and drop down to the tail of the island, and luff up sharp where you see a barked tree on the beach There's no deep water till you come to there 1 did as he told me, put the boal's nose on ‘a small beach of pebbles, and walted, smoking. I waited half an hour maybe, and then he strolled up very leisurely with his thumbs in the walstbelt of his trou- sers. I can't say he seemed overpleased to see me. He asked with point what I had come for. “Oh, I'm not hunting a'ligators profes- sionally. I'm here for amusement.” I concluded that he was there because he had got into trouble with the law of the land or elsewhere, but 1 did not suggest this, because 1t is considered rude to touch upon family matters uninvited. But after a minute he broached the topic himself, “I'm here for amusement myself,” he sald. “I'm here permancntly.” By this time we had got Into a bit of a clearing inside tne wall of trees—a patch of sorghum, another of sweot potiatoes, another of corn with stalks that stood ten feet high, and a goodly planting of green tobacco plants, with a shambling palmetto shuck at the back, the other interests of the outer world; but presently the talk died out of us altogether, We lay there, hung in silenc sensuously drinking in what the night gave up. Then Atcheson spoke. “That i8 my usual concert,” he sald. “One gets to like | A I did not answer at once. I could not. A sort of mesmeric doze pinned me down. When I managed to rouse I felt angry with myself for weakness, and spoke with a sneer. “You must find it mighty monoto- nous,” I said. “A mistake, an utter mistake. It is full of infinite variety; it never repeats jtself; and I know, because I have listened to it now for three years, in calm, in cyclone, in every kind of night.” Another pause. Then, “Are you going to write about this Walden Pond of yours?" I asked. “I am no Thoreau with a pen. Besides, I am selfish, and if 1 could set this down I would not. One man in ten thousand A A Short Story by Cutcliffe Hyne - “The Van S8claks have come in with their schooner,” he sald, “and they've a girl on board who says she knows you—a Miss Wilcoxn."” “Ah,” I said. “I know her well enough. We used to see a goodish deal of one an- other once.” ‘If you mean that you were spoons on the lady,” said the Man with the Sunburnt Calves, “I guess you'd better forget that. She's engaged to a man from Massachu- now, a person with culture and dol- ~-heaps of dollars—about ten millions 'm, so 1 believe. And being 28, she knows what is a soft thing and is not like to chuck it up. Put on something respectable and we'll have the crew scull us across.’ 't now. Al present I am going to turn in to sleep.” “Did you,” said the Man with the Sun- burnt Calves, *“in the course of your wan- derings find a place where they sold corn whiskey? 1 hope it's merely mountain SHE DIDN'T STAY TALKING TO THE FELLOW FOR MORE THAN TEN MINUTES. faith,” 1 sald, ‘you've queer notions of a pleasure resort.” “I'm a man,” he said, “with an imagina- tion. Consequently I make a most com- fortable hermit. Come in and take a ham- mock."" He was a Harvard man. "It was wonder- ful what a lot of people we knew in com- mon when we began to talk things over, and it turned out that we had rowed against one another on the Hudson, “Of course,” he broke out, at snce, “you are the MacHinnie who swam down in your clothes the last night of the races because you sald you hadn’'t been allowed a decent dip all through the training.” Whereat we both laughed, and knew one another extremely well. After this I asked him if he ever ate “Why, vyes,” he said, “I'd forgotten. There's some boiled fish and some sweet spuds and molasses. The fish Is on the floor In the far corner there and the rest is mixed ready in the saucepan. There are no plates, Help yourself." ‘“Candles?" T suggested “Haven't such a thing. Can't you feed in the dark. There will be a moon atove the tree tops directly if you want a light.’ 1 say, am 1 to ladle up this stuff with my fingers?"’ He laughed “I'm not go'ng to lend you mine Why, what a lJuxurious sybarite you must by Climb back, MacHinnie, down the centuries and enjoy yourself as primitive man. Feast and te filled. There's a tin down there somewhere with some water in it, or coffee, 1 forget which, Drink when you're dry I began to have a strong idea that the man was mad, but 1 stopped my hunger on his victuals for all that, and then re- lit my pipe and went on with the tilk From the other side of the clearing came the noises of night—the chatter of katydids and the rustle of jarflies, the love song of tree crickets and toads, the deep reed notes of frogs in their patches of marsh, and through all mingled the heavy diapason of the surf I am the most practical creature in the world, as a general thing, but the influ ence of it was too heavy for me I started to chat again about the boats, and about women, and yachts, and books, and might understand. The others would either yawn or deride, and I take it this is no matter to be profaned. Listen to the gulf surfl rumbling on those beaches." “It is like the roar of the Prater, or the Strand, the Rambla, or Broadway, as it comes to an upper window." “You can hear that; I can make out more, because iny ear is trained. I can hear the voices and what they say-—-the tales of love and hope and hate. I can revel in it all without being mixed in the dirt and the paing and the squalor. And it 18 very beautiful also. What picture did vou ever see like that?" He waved his hand to where the red moon and a patch of purple sky hung framed in a black arch of the pines. In the fore- ground the lake lay twinkling beyond a great fan of palms. On the flank was spread a thick magnolia tree, full of scented blossoms. I raised myself with an effort, and swore for relief. “Atcheson,” I said, “I believe ¥ou are either the devil or Circe, with a changed sex. Be merciful and speak no more. If T listen 1 shall forget the place from whence I come, and stay here, and become us one of the swine.” “I am sorry,” Atcheson said, *“and be- cause 1 do not want converts or compan- fons 1T will say no more. Therefore sleep you CHAPTER 11 The miasma of the 1otus was in my veins, and I knew it and feared. 1 awoke with the first lift of the day, and 1 got to my boat Atcheson came after and cried a pleasant auf wiedersehen, and 1 answered with a scowl and threw out the sculls. [ was very angry with myself I had been in that kind of temptation before, and knew what it was to wish afterward that 1 had fallen Consequently T made up my mind to get back to the yacht without a halt, and so put in a day of savage toil 1 when 1 made out the sloop riding light dancing on its forestay 1 knew there was an anti dote lose it hand The i with the Sunburnt Calves was a v carnal and practical sort of perso He received me affably, dew that's troubling you, my =0n, because otherwise you've come back very dotty."” CHAPTER 111. Miss Wilcoxn was a young woman with a great notion of having her way. She wanted to know what there was to be seen in the lagoons and lakes, and I t:ld her, with one reservation, but my tale did not quite hold water. She guessed that there was something left out and de- manded to hear what it was. Whereupon 1 shrugged my shoulders, helplessly, and told her about. Atcheson, chapter, commas and verse, merely lying in the solitary in- stance of a personal name, “You said that he is a Harvard man?" she ruminated, when I had finished. “You mentioned also that he rowed against you at Poughkeepsie. That fixes him. If you had done me the compliment to remem- ber, I was up there that year. His name isn't Foote at all.” “Perhaps it's got changed,” I admitted weakly “Men's names do, you Kknow, when they climb down the scale as he's done.” “Hum," she said, and putied down a chart of the Northern Gulf eoast m its cleat in the cabin roof. *“Now show me exactly where this hermit lives."” “That chart’'s all wrong.” “Precisely But you've been there, and you know the lay of it Here's a peneil, Fill it in accurately, and tell me the land- marks from the Gulf jo." “If you go up tl and sleep one night in the this fellc e Swa ) catch fever and di What more do you want to know about that man? Stay here and T will tell you.” My exeellent Mae, 1 have pumped you dry For the rest T must see him myself, And 1 shall not die of fever, because 1 ghall gt this yacht to take me around to the outside, and go from there, and s=o not have to e a night ashore at all Well sald 1 If vou wilt do this thing, at all events you shall do it da cently, There's a small creck on beyond, up which we will invite the Van Sciaks to take the yacht I'll bring our sluun We will go in with the pretense of alligator-hunting.* (Continued on Page Fifteen.) -