登陆注册
5471800000044

第44章 THREE VAGABONDS OF TRINIDAD(2)

The Editor turned quickly. His foreman was standing behind him, and had evidently noticed the whole incident.

"It's what I allus said," continued the man. "That boy and that Injin are thick as thieves. Ye can't see one without the other--and they've got their little tricks and signals by which they follow each other. T'other day when you was kalkilatin' Li Tee was doin' your errands I tracked him out on the marsh, just by followin' that ornery, pizenous dog o' Jim's. There was the whole caboodle of 'em--including Jim--campin' out, and eatin' raw fish that Jim had ketched, and green stuff they had both sneaked outer Johnson's garden. Mrs. Martin may TAKE him, but she won't keep him long while Jim's round. What makes Li foller that blamed old Injin soaker, and what makes Jim, who, at least, is a 'Merican, take up with a furrin' heathen, just gets me."

The Editor did not reply. He had heard something of this before.

Yet, after all, why should not these equal outcasts of civilization cling together!

. . . . . .

Li Tee's stay with Mrs. Martin was brief. His departure was hastened by an untoward event--apparently ushered in, as in the case of other great calamities, by a mysterious portent in the sky.

One morning an extraordinary bird of enormous dimensions was seen approaching from the horizon, and eventually began to hover over the devoted town. Careful scrutiny of this ominous fowl, however, revealed the fact that it was a monstrous Chinese kite, in the shape of a flying dragon. The spectacle imparted considerable liveliness to the community, which, however, presently changed to some concern and indignation. It appeared that the kite was secretly constructed by Li Tee in a secluded part of Mrs. Martin's clearing, but when it was first tried by him he found that through some error of design it required a tail of unusual proportions.

This he hurriedly supplied by the first means he found--Mrs.

Martin's clothes-line, with part of the weekly wash depending from it. This fact was not at first noticed by the ordinary sightseer, although the tail seemed peculiar--yet, perhaps, not more peculiar than a dragon's tail ought to be. But when the actual theft was discovered and reported through the town, a vivacious interest was created, and spy-glasses were used to identify the various articles of apparel still hanging on that ravished clothes-line. These garments, in the course of their slow disengagement from the clothes-pins through the gyrations of the kite, impartially distributed themselves over the town--one of Mrs. Martin's stockings falling upon the veranda of the Polka Saloon, and the other being afterwards discovered on the belfry of the First Methodist Church--to the scandal of the congregation. It would have been well if the result of Li Tee's invention had ended here.

Alas! the kite-flyer and his accomplice, "Injin Jim," were tracked by means of the kite's tell-tale cord to a lonely part of the marsh and rudely dispossessed of their charge by Deacon Hornblower and a constable. Unfortunately, the captors overlooked the fact that the kite-flyers had taken the precaution of making a "half-turn" of the stout cord around a log to ease the tremendous pull of the kite--whose power the captors had not reckoned upon--and the Deacon incautiously substituted his own body for the log. A singular spectacle is said to have then presented itself to the on-lookers.

The Deacon was seen to be running wildly by leaps and bounds over the marsh after the kite, closely followed by the constable in equally wild efforts to restrain him by tugging at the end of the line. The extraordinary race continued to the town until the constable fell, losing his hold of the line. This seemed to impart a singular specific levity to the Deacon, who, to the astonishment of everybody, incontinently sailed up into a tree! When he was succored and cut down from the demoniac kite, he was found to have sustained a dislocation of the shoulder, and the constable was severely shaken. By that one infelicitous stroke the two outcasts made an enemy of the Law and the Gospel as represented in Trinidad County. It is to be feared also that the ordinary emotional instinct of a frontier community, to which they were now simply abandoned, was as little to be trusted. In this dilemma they disappeared from the town the next day--no one knew where. A pale blue smoke rising from a lonely island in the bay for some days afterwards suggested their possible refuge. But nobody greatly cared. The sympathetic mediation of the Editor was characteristically opposed by Mr. Parkin Skinner, a prominent citizen:--

"It's all very well for you to talk sentiment about niggers, Chinamen, and Injins, and you fellers can laugh about the Deacon being snatched up to heaven like Elijah in that blamed Chinese chariot of a kite--but I kin tell you, gentlemen, that this is a white man's country! Yes, sir, you can't get over it! The nigger of every description--yeller, brown, or black, call him 'Chinese,'

'Injin,' or 'Kanaka,' or what you like--hez to clar off of God's footstool when the Anglo-Saxon gets started! It stands to reason that they can't live alongside o' printin' presses, M'Cormick's reapers, and the Bible! Yes, sir! the Bible; and Deacon Hornblower kin prove it to you. It's our manifest destiny to clar them out--that's what we was put here for--and it's just the work we've got to do!"

I have ventured to quote Mr. Skinner's stirring remarks to show that probably Jim and Li Tee ran away only in anticipation of a possible lynching, and to prove that advanced sentiments of this high and ennobling nature really obtained forty years ago in an ordinary American frontier town which did not then dream of Expansion and Empire!

Howbeit, Mr. Skinner did not make allowance for mere human nature.

同类推荐
  • 佛说佛十力经

    佛说佛十力经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 新世说

    新世说

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 贤首五教仪开蒙

    贤首五教仪开蒙

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 近光集

    近光集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • A Footnote to History

    A Footnote to History

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 在作死的边缘疯狂走位

    在作死的边缘疯狂走位

    钛合金直男也修真,手撕女神,脚踏御姐,怒肛妖孽,小萝莉能吃不,什么口味。话,我只说一遍,我不是针对谁,我是说在座的各位都是垃圾。
  • 我把异界玩成了游戏

    我把异界玩成了游戏

    在下的新书《带着怨气重生》玄幻首发,舔着脸求大家支持一下,谢谢!
  • 预计光年遇见你

    预计光年遇见你

    最后一次给你践踏我的人生,玻璃碎片的心,会破镜重圆吗?我走了,希望来世我们不分离。忘掉我,却从没感到过缺失,曾经的诺言,也不过是一张白纸,经不起风雨的击打。司谦是我的白月光没想到有一天会成为黑塔。我爱了你整整十五年,可你呢?永远把我当你哥,没办法我只能毁掉。安若玥我晨程荫得不到你也别想要。充满恶意的世界,我真的还要留恋吗?感谢世界有你让我显得不那么孤单,不过我要走了。安若玥你懦弱了……是,我懦弱了,给我两年等我蜕变。
  • 黑夜中我说了算

    黑夜中我说了算

    人知妖恐怖妖晓人心毒人怕妖三分妖怕人七分万里深海终有底人心五寸摸不清。少年泽辰因魂魄缺失,无法精进本门仙法秘术。遂经种种磨难,爱恨情仇不断成长。
  • 两卷无量寿经宗要

    两卷无量寿经宗要

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 风平浪静的塘村

    风平浪静的塘村

    风平浪静的生活因为一次迷路引起阵阵涟漪,正在为自己懵懂的小心思发愁的少年少女们不得不面对生死时,会做出什么选择?是为自己,还是为喜欢的那个人争取亦或者牺牲。主宰者的游戏,棋子的挣扎,当命运被决定,谁还会选择风平浪静?她还记得那年夏天,大家最后的欢声笑语。
  • 诸天幕后魔王

    诸天幕后魔王

    王尚魂穿异界,发现自己成了游戏、动漫、影视作品里众多反派的王。为了过上罪域那只骨的好日子,他必须先找回走失的反派宝宝们。随着王尚扯了几个多线,卖了点骚操作,却发现改变的不只是小世界,还有现实!
  • 独家幸孕:私养小妻100天

    独家幸孕:私养小妻100天

    “嫁给我吧!”男人一脸的沉迷。“要我嫁给你,你家里的那个黄脸婆,怎么办呢?”她笑得花枝乱颤。“我会跟她离婚!”他毅然坚决。第二天,他就将离婚协议书砸在了她的头上:“我们离婚!”“老公,你别不要我!”她泪眼模糊的挽留,心里却乐开了花,拿着离婚协议逃之夭夭。他是英俊多金的总裁,偏偏对她这个正牌妻子不屑一顾。殊不知,她同时扮演两个角色,在他身边玩的不亦乐乎。本以为时间一到,她便会全身而退,再也不见。“女人,你休想一走了之!”这个男人她惹不起也躲不掉!!
  • 双世魔妃天天见

    双世魔妃天天见

    落惜一睁眼,便发现自己竟然重生了!前世,她为了救自己心爱之人,不惜去魔界向魔君求取仙草,却不知自己同父异母的妹妹和自己的未婚驸马搞在了一起。所以亲人全部被杀,呵,很好,你们上辈子给我的痛,我会以千万倍还给你们!想他墨北沉,堂堂魔界尊主,竟然会败在一个女人手里?不惜损失千年灵力,换来心爱之人重活一世,可你告诉我为什么,她不记得我了!没事,以我的魅力,勾勾手她就来了。“哦?是吗?那是谁……”某魔尊连忙蒙住她的嘴:“我没有,不是我。”双洁1v1放心看
  • 女校之噬梦诡歌

    女校之噬梦诡歌

    四年前,一场招灵游戏风靡校园,却为一所大学招来了一场场的诡异事件;四年后,几个新生卷入其中,一次鬼楼的历险,一封神秘的来信,究竟把他们引到何方?而他们最终又能否解开这一团团的迷雾,找到最后的真相?