登陆注册
15492400000044

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
  • 僧伽吒经

    僧伽吒经

    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。
  • 佛说天王太子辟罗经

    佛说天王太子辟罗经

    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。
  • 士容论

    士容论

    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。
  • 揆度

    揆度

    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。
  • The Garden Of Allah

    The Garden Of Allah

    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。
热门推荐
  • 幻刃传说

    幻刃传说

    书萧,万天阁杀手,年轻有为,是个百年不遇的超级天才。——至少在他落魄前是如此。那天,书萧莫名其妙被阁主列入黑名单,惨遭万天阁不死不灭的追杀,一身修为尽毁,险些丧命深林。走投无路之时,他意外获得了将美女变成专属兵器的能力!为了揭开事情的真相,也为了和最爱的师傅重逢,他踏上了一条满是花朵与鲜血的传奇之路。“滚开,别碰我!”妹子抹了抹湿润的嘴唇,愤怒地骂道。“敌人就要来了,快给我亲一口,这样我才有武器啊!”说罢,书萧朝妹子扑了过去。
  • 兽灵:失落的荣耀

    兽灵:失落的荣耀

    血与泪的漫长历史中兽灵迷失于天地之间迷失了铁血的辉煌和荣耀成为哈里兰人统治的奴隶雪狮能否在悲歌中救赎兽灵的迷茫
  • 修真大叔天道萝莉

    修真大叔天道萝莉

    铁面之下是黑发黑瞳的中年人,他的眼光是来自深渊最底层的黑暗,他身上有着最邪恶的诅咒,最叛逆的思想,最恶劣的品德……老者倚靠在壁炉旁,给子孙轻轻讲述那个男人的传说……
  • 铜铃诡谈

    铜铃诡谈

    自古有“招魂铃”一说,偶然得一铜铃,开启了一场见鬼之旅!每每铃声响起,接二连三的死者现身,恶鬼索命。血色扳指,噬魂砚台,活死人,陪葬物的诅咒之谜,一连串诡异的事情相继发生,这一切指向古棺洞的神秘女尸。以为学技能防身保命,却步入一个“换命”的阴谋!铜铃声响,是招魂,还是索命?在阴鬼路上挣扎求生,究竟谁能存活着回到人间……
  • 无相冥神

    无相冥神

    天才与废物,只在捏花一笑之间。他本有天纵体质,却被一颗魔心毁得一塌糊涂。他重新站起来,凭借着自己实力,不断改造体质。使他拥有了最强的天灭霸体,神秘强大的冰封神瞳。天才、妖孽、天纵奇才,绝世老者,通通一拳轰下!论肉身,他,傲视天下。论仙术,他,唯我独尊!
  • 吾,汝

    吾,汝

    她曾经是权倾天下的曜日庄庄主,如今是某皇的怀中碧玉;她也曾经驰骋沙场,纵观天下风起云涌,如今是某皇的蜜;她也曾经精于算计,明争暗斗,如今是某皇心头肉,细心呵护。且看下了凡的她如何于九重天之上的“皇君”斗智斗勇,花式秀恩爱。又且看下了凡的她隐匿身份在凡间多式装?,再次翻天覆地,叱咤风云。“向前走,雉儿。”“一切尽在掌握之中,看好了,湫。”“在那之前,去飞吧。”
  • 你若安好

    你若安好

    你登竹楼听春雨,若有所思望西都,安能拨得云烟开,好让艳阳映明湖,便道新草掩湿泥,是日廊檐燕踌躇,晴雨自有天道定,天地之间唯太虚。你若安好,便是晴天……“好久不见。”男主:叶珂、杙(yi)丞、男配:朴宥飞、柯亦轩女主:卞(bian)漪洢、卞橙澄、女配:萧依阳、白婍雯、戚蕊、
  • 月夜下的魔女杀手

    月夜下的魔女杀手

    现代杀手“浴血玫瑰”因任务失败而穿越到一个历史上没有记载的架空王朝,再一次成为杀手。但命运的捉弄,令女主的爱情屡屡受阻,身世的之谜的召开,爱情的利用。看女主如何一一破解。
  • 快穿之HHY系统

    快穿之HHY系统

    有一天,有人忽然告诉你,世界上是存在后悔药的,你信不信?罗茜,一位Z国著名女科学家,因被陷害身亡,后被宇宙安全部门救下,绑定HHY001系统,进行多次穿越后完成任务要求,最终获得后悔药,穿越重生,强势虐渣
  • 纯正蒙求

    纯正蒙求

    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。