Part 27 (1/2)
[FOOTNOTE 86: rift . . . loot--Tennyson, _Idylls of the King: Merlin and Vivien_: ”It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And ever widening slowly silence all.”]
”One day folks seen Redruth and Miss Alice standing talking at the gate. Then he lifts his hat and walks away, and that was the last anybody in that town seen of him, as far as this man knew.”
”What about the young lady?” asked the young man who had an Agency.
”Never heard,” answered Bildad. ”Right there is where my lode of information turns to an old spavined crowbait [87], and folds its wings, for I've pumped it dry.”
[FOOTNOTE 87: spavined crowbait--a lame, emaciated horse (from spavin, an inflammation of the tarsal or ankle joint of a horse, causing lameness, and an appearance that causes carrion birds to think a meal is in the offing)]
”A very sad--” began Judge Menefee, but his remark was curtailed by a higher authority.
”What a charming story!” said the lady pa.s.senger, in flute-like tones.
A little silence followed, except for the wind and the crackling of the fire.
The men were seated upon the floor, having slightly mitigated its inhospitable surface with wraps and stray pieces of boards. The man who was placing Little Goliath windmills arose and walked about to ease his cramped muscles.
Suddenly a triumphant shout came from him. He hurried back from a dusky corner of the room, bearing aloft something in his hand. It was an apple--a large, red-mottled, firm pippin, pleasing to behold. In a paper bag on a high shelf in that corner he had found it. It could have been no relic of the lovewrecked Redruth, for its glorious soundness repudiated the theory that it had lain on that musty shelf since August. No doubt some recent bivouackers, lunching in the deserted house, had left it there.
Dunwoody--again his exploits demand for him the honours of nomenclature--flaunted his apple in the faces of his fellow-marooners.
”See what I found, Mrs. McFarland!” he cried, vaingloriously. He held the apple high up in the light of the fire, where it glowed a still richer red. The lady pa.s.senger smiled calmly--always calmly.
”What a charming apple!” she murmured, clearly.
For a brief s.p.a.ce Judge Menefee felt crushed, humiliated, relegated.
Second place galled him. Why had this blatant, obtrusive, unpolished man of windmills been selected by Fate instead of himself to discover the sensational apple? He could have made of the act a scene, a function, a setting for some impromptu, fanciful discourse or piece of comedy--and have retained the role of cynosure. Actually, the lady pa.s.senger was regarding this ridiculous Dunboddy or Woodbundy with an admiring smile, as if the fellow had performed a feat! And the windmill man swelled and gyrated like a sample of his own goods, puffed up with the wind that ever blows from the chorus land toward the domain of the star.
While the transported Dunwoody, with his Aladdin's apple, was receiving the fickle attentions of all, the resourceful jurist formed a plan to recover his own laurels.
With his courtliest smile upon his heavy but cla.s.sic features, Judge Menefee advanced, and took the apple, as if to examine it, from the hand of Dunwoody. In his hand it became Exhibit A.
”A fine apple,” he said, approvingly. ”Really, my dear Mr. Dudwindy, you have eclipsed all of us as a forager. But I have an idea. This apple shall become an emblem, a token, a symbol, a prize bestowed by the mind and heart of beauty upon the most deserving.”
The audience, except one, applauded. ”Good on the stump, ain't he?”
commented the pa.s.senger who was n.o.body in particular to the young man who had an Agency.
The unresponsive one was the windmill man. He saw himself reduced to the ranks. Never would the thought have occurred to him to declare his apple an emblem. He had intended, after it had been divided and eaten, to create diversion by sticking the seeds against his forehead and naming them for young ladies of his acquaintance. One he was going to name Mrs. McFarland. The seed that fell off first would be--but 'twas too late now.
”The apple,” continued Judge Menefee, charging his jury, ”in modern days occupies, though undeservedly, a lowly place in our esteem.
Indeed, it is so constantly a.s.sociated with the culinary and the commercial that it is hardly to be cla.s.sed among the polite fruits.
But in ancient times this was not so. Biblical, historical, and mythological lore abounds with evidences that the apple was the aristocrat of fruits. We still say 'the apple of the eye' when we wish to describe something superlatively precious. We find in Proverbs the comparison to 'apples of silver [88].' No other product of tree or vine has been so utilised in figurative speech. Who has not heard of and longed for the 'apples of the Hesperides [89]'? I need not call your attention to the most tremendous and significant instance of the apple's ancient prestige when its consumption by our first parents occasioned the fall of man from his state of goodness and perfection.”
[FOOTNOTE 88: apples of silver--_Proverbs_ XXV: ”A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.”]
[FOOTNOTE 89: apples of the Hesperides--the eleventh labor of Hercules was to retrieve the golden apples of Zeus, which were guarded by a hundred-headed dragon and by the Hesperides, daughters of Atlas]
”Apples like them,” said the windmill man, lingering with the objective article, ”are worth $3.50 a barrel in the Chicago market.”
”Now, what I have to propose,” said Judge Menefee, conceding an indulgent smile to his interrupter, ”is this: We must remain here, perforce, until morning. We have wood in plenty to keep us warm. Our next need is to entertain ourselves as best we can, in order that the time shall not pa.s.s too slowly. I propose that we place this apple in the hands of Miss Garland. It is no longer a fruit, but, as I said, a prize, in award, representing a great human idea. Miss Garland, herself, shall cease to be an individual--but only temporarily, I am happy to add”--(a low bow, full of the old-time grace). ”She shall represent her s.e.x; she shall be the embodiment, the epitome of womankind--the heart and brain, I may say, of G.o.d's masterpiece of creation. In this guise she shall judge and decide the question which follows: