COLLIER "MEMORIAL EDITION"
"JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY COMPLETE WORKS"
Vol 9, Part 4
TALE OF A SPIDER...............................................................................2446
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NE week ago this Christmas day, in the little back office that adjoins the counting-room of the "Daily Journal," I sat in genial conversation with two friends. I do not now recall the theme of our discussion, but the general trend of it—suggested, doubtless, by the busy scene upon the streets —I remember most distinctly savored of the mellowing influences of the coming holidays, with perhaps an acrid tang of irony as we dwelt upon the great needs of the poor at such a time, and the chariness with which the hand of opulence was wont to dole out alms. But for all that we were merry, and as from time to time our glances fell upon the ever-shifting scene outside, our hearts grew warmer, and within the eyes the old dreams glimmered into fuller dawn. It was during a lull of conversation, and while the philanthropic mind, perchance, was wandering amid the outer throng, and doubtless quoting to itself
"Whene'er I take my walks abroad,"
that our privacy was abruptly broken into by
the grimy apparition of a boy of ten ;
a ragged
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JAMESY 2413
little fellow—not the stereotyped edition of the street waif, but a cross between the bootblack and the infantine Italian with the violin. Where he had entered, and how, would have puzzled us to answer ; but there he stood before us, as it were, in a majesty of insignificance. I have never had the features of a boy impress me as did his, and as I stole a covert glance at my companions I was pleased to find the evidence of more than ordinary interest in their faces. They gazed in attentive silence on the little fellow, as, with uncovered, frowzy head, he stepped forward boldly, yet with an air of deference as unlooked for as becoming.
"I don't want to bother you gentlemens," he began, in a frank but hesitating tone that rippled hurriedly along as he marked a general nod of indulgence for the interruption. "I don't want to bother nobody, but if I can raise fifty cents—and I've got a nickel—and if I can raise the rest—and it ain't much, you know—on'y forty-five—and if I can raise the rest—I tell you, gentlemens," he broke off abruptly, and speaking with italicized sincerity, "I want jist fifty cents, 'cause I can git a blackin'- box fer that, and brush and ever'thing, and you can bet if I had that I wouldn't haf to ast nobody fer nothin' I And I ain't got no father ner mother, ner brother ner—ner—no sisters, neether ; but that don't make no difference, 'cause I'll work—at anything—yes, sir—when I can git anything to do—and I sleep jist any place—and I ain't had no breakfast—and, honest, gentlemens, I'm a good boy—I don't
2414 JAMES?
swear ner smoke ner chew—but that's all righton'y if you'll—jist make up forty-five between you —and that's on'y fifteen cents apiece—I'll thank you, I will, and I'll jist do anything—and it's coming Christmas, and I'll roll in the nickels, don't you fergit—if I on'y got a box—'cause I throw up a 'bad' shine I—and I can git the box fer fifty cents if you gentlemens'll on'y make up forty-five between you." At the conclusion of this long and rambling appeal, the little fellow stood waiting with an eager face for a response.
A look of stoical deliberation played about the features of the oldest member of the group, as with an air of seriousness, which, I think, even the boy recognized as affected, he asked :
"And you couldn't get a box like that for—say forty cents? Fifty cents looks like a lot of money to lay out in the purchase of a blacking-box."
The boy smiled wisely as he answered :
"Yes, it might look big to a feller that ain't up on prices, but I think it's cheap, 'cause it's a secondhand box, and a new one would cost seventy-five cents anyhow—'thout no brushes ner nothin' I"
In the meantime I had dropped into the little fellow's palm the only coin I had in my possession, and we all laughed as he closed his thanks with: "Oh, come, Cap, go the other nickel, er I won't git out o' here with half enough!" and at that he turned to the former speaker.
"Well, really," said that gentleman, fumbling in
JAMESY 2415
his pockets, "I don't believe I've got a dime with me."
"A dime," said the little fellow, with a look of feigned compassion. "Ain't got a dime? Maybe I'd loan you this one!" And we all laughed again.
"Tell you what do now," said the boy, taking advantage of the moment, and looking coaxingly into the smiling eyes of the gentleman still fumbling vainly in his pockets.—"Tell you what do: you borry twenty cents of the man that stays behind the counter there, and then we'll go the other fifteen, and that'll make it, and I'll skip out o' here a little the flyest boy you ever see! What do ye soy ?" And the little fellow struck a Pat Rooney attitude that would have driven the original inventor mad with envy.
"Give him a quarter !" laughed the gentleman appealed to.
"And here's the other dime," and as the little fellow clutched the money eagerly, he turned ; and in a tone of curious gravity,pe said :
"Now, honest, gentlemens, ain't a-givin' you no game about the box—'cause a new one costs seventy-five cents, and the one I've got—I mean the one I'm a-goin' to git—is jist as good as a new one, on'y it's second-hand; and I'm much oblige, gentlemens—honest, I am—and if ever I give you a shine you can jist bet it don't cost you nothin' I"
And with this expression of his gratitude, the little fellow vanished as mysteriously as he had at first appeared.
2416 JAMESY
"That boy hasn't a bad face," said the first speaker—"wide between the eyes—full forehead—good mouth, denoting firmness—altogether, a good, square face."
"And a noble one," said I, perhaps inspired to that rather lofty assertion by the rehearsal of the good points noted by my more observant companion.
"Yes, and an honest, straightforward way of talking, I would say," continued that gentleman. "I only noted one thing to shake my faith in that particular, and that was in his latest reference to the box. You'll remember his saying he was 'giving us no game' about it, whereas he had not been accused of such a thing."
"Oh, he meant about the price, don't you remember ?" said I.
"No," said the gentleman at the counter, "you're both wrong. He only threw in that remark because he thought I suspected him, for he recognized me just the instant before that speech, and it confused him, and with some reason, as you will see :—On my way to supper only last night, I overtook that same little fellow in charge of an old man who was in a deplorable state of drunkenness; and you know how slippery the streets were. I think if that old man fell a single time he fell a dozen, and once so violently that I ran to his assistance and helped him to his feet. I thought him badly hurt at first, for he gashed his forehead as he fell, and I helped the little fellow to take him into a drug-store, where the
MMESY 2417
wound, upon examination, proved to be nothing more serious than to require a strip of plaster. I got a good look at the boy, there, however, and questioned him a little; and he said the man was his father, and he was taking him home ; and I gathered further from his talk that the man was a confirmed inebriate. Now you'll remember the boy told us here a while ago he had no father, and when he recognized me a moment since and found himself caught in one 'yarn,' at least, he very naturally supposed I would think his entire story a fabrication, hence the suspicious nature of his last remarks, and the sudden transition of his manner from that of real delight to gravity, which change, in my opinion, rather denotes lying to be a new thing to him. I can't be mistaken in the boy, for I noticed, as he turned to go, a bald place on the back of his head, the left side, a 'trade-mark,' first discovered last evening, as he bent over the prostrate form of his father."
"I noticed a thin spot in his hair," said I, "and wondered at the time what caused it."
"And don't you know ?"
I shook my head.
"Coal-bins and entry floors.—That little fellow hasn't slept within a bed for years, perhaps."
"But he told you, as you say, last night, he was taking the old man home?"
"Yes, home I I can imagine that boy's home. There are myriads like it in the city here—a cellar or a
2418 JAMES?
shed—a box-car or a loft in some old shop, with a father to chase him from it in his sober interludes, and to hold him from it in unconscious shame when helplessly drunk. `Home, Sweet Home!' That boy has heard it on the hand-organ, perhaps, but never in his heart—you couldn't grind it out of there with a thousand cranks."
The remainder of that day eluded me somehow ; I don't know how or where it passed. I suppose it just dropped into a comatose condition, and so slipped away "unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."
But one clear memory survives—an experience so vividly imprinted on my mind that I now recall its every detail : Entering the Union Depot that evening to meet the train that was to carry me away at six o'clock, muffled closely in my overcoat, yet more closely muffled in my gloomy thoughts, I was rather abruptly stopped by a small boy with a cry of : "Here, you man with the cigar ; don't you want them boots blacked? Shine 'em fer ten cents! Shine 'em fer a nickel—on'y you mustn't give me away on that," he added, dropping on his knees near the entrance, and motioning me to set my foot upon the box.
It was then too dark for me to see his fate clearly, but I had recognized the voice the instant he had spoken, and had paused and looked around.
"Oh, you'll have plenty o' time," he urged, guessing at the cause of my apparent hesitation. "None o' the trains on time to-night—on'y the Panhandle, and she's jist a-backin' in—won't start fer thirty
JAMESY 2419
minutes," and he again beckoned, and rattled a seductive tattoo on the side of his box.
"Well," said I, with a compromising air, "come inside, then, out of the cold."
"'G'inst the rules—cops won't have it. They jist fired me out o' there not ten minutes ago. Oh, come, Cap ; step out here; it won't take two minutes," and the little fellow spat professionally upon his brush, with a covert glance of pleasure as he noted the apparent success of the maneuver. "You don't live here, I'll bet," said the boy, setting the first boot on the box, and pausing to blow his hands.
"How do you know that? Did you never see me here before?"
"No, I never see you here before, but that ain't no reason. I can tell you don't live here by them shoes—'cause they've been put up in some little pennyroyal shop,—that's how. When you want a fly shoe you want to git her put up som'er's where they know somepin' about style. They's good enough metal in that shoe, on'y she's about two years off in style."
"You're posted, then, in shoes," said I, with a laugh.
"I ort to be," he went on, pantingly, a brush in either hand gyrating with a velocity that jostled his hat over his eyes, leaving most plainly exposed to my investigative eye the trade-mark before alluded to; "I ort to be posted in shoes, 'cause I ain't done nothin' but black 'em fer five years."
"You're an old hand, then, at the business," said
2420 fAMESY
I. "I didn't know but maybe you were just starting out. What's an outfit like that worth?"
"Thinkin' o startin' up?" he asked, facetiously.
"Oh, no," said I, good-humoredly. "I just asked out of idle curiosity. That's a new box, ain't it?"
"Newt' he repeated with a laugh. "Put up that other hoof. Newt W'y, if that box had ever had eyes like a human it would 'a' been a-wearin' specs by this time ; that's a old, bald-headed box, with one foot in the grave."
"And what did the old fellow cost you ?" I asked, highly amused at the quaint expressions of the boy.
"Cost ? Cost nothin'—on'y about a' hour's work. I made that box myse'f, 'bout four year ago."
"Ah I" said L
"Yes," he went on, "they don't cost nothin' ; the boys makes 'em out o' other boxes, you know. Some of 'em gits 'em made, but they ain't no good—ain't no better'n thin kind."
"So that didn't cost you anything?" said I, "though I suspect you wouldn't like to part with it for less than—well, I don't know how much money to say—seventy-five cents maybe—would anything less than seventy-five cents buy it?" I craftily interrogated.
"Seventy-five cents! W'y, what's the matter with you, man ? I could git a cart-load of 'em fer seventy-five cents. I'll take yer measure fer one like it fer fifteen, too quick!" and the little fellow leaned back from his work and laughed up in my face with absolute derision.
IAMESY 2421
I pulled my hat more closely down for fear of recognition, but was reassured a moment later as he went on :
"Wisht you lived here ; you'd be old fruit fer us fellows. I can see you now a-takin' wind—and we'd give it to you mighty slick now, don't you fergit I" and as the boy renewed his work, I think his little, ragged body shook less with industry than mirth.
"Wisht I'd struck you 'bout ten o'clock this morning!" and, as he spoke, he paused again and looked up in my face with real regret. "Oh, you'd 'a' been the loveliest sucker of 'em all! W'y, you'd 'a' went the whole pot yerse'f I"
"How do you mean?" said I, dropping the cigar I held.
"How do I mean? Oh, you don't want to smoke this thing again after its a-rollin' round in the dirt!"
"Why, you don't smoke," said I, reaching for the cigar he held behind him.
"Met Oh, what you givin' me?"
"Come, let me have it," I said, sharply, drawing a case from my pocket and taking out another cigar.
"Oh, you want a light," he said, handing me the stub and watching me wistfully. "Couldn't give us a fresh cigar, could you, Cap?"
"I don't know," said I, as though deliberating on the matter. "What was that you were going to tell me just now? You started to tell me what a 'lovely sucker' I'd have been had you met me this morning. How did you mean r
2422 JAMESY
"Give me a cigar and I'll tell you. Oh, come, now, Cap ; give me a smoker and I'll give you the whole game. I will, now, honest I"
I held out the open case.
"Nothin' mean about you, is they?" he said, eagerly taking a fresh cigar in one hand and the stub in the other. "A ten-center, too—oh, I guess not!' But, to my surprise, he took the stub between his lips, and began opening his coat. "Guess I'll jist fat this daisy, and save 'er up for Christmas. No, I won't either," he broke in suddenly, with a bright, keen flash of second thought. "Tell you what I'll do," holding up the cigar and gazing at it admiringly; "she's a ten-center all right, ain't she?"
I nodded.
"And worth every cent of it, too, ain't she?" "Every cent of it," I repeated.
"Then give me a nickel, and she's yourn—'cause if you can afford to give this to me fer nothin', looks like I oft to let you have it fer half-price"; and as I laughingly dropped the nickel in his hand he concluded, "And they's nothin' mean about me, neither l" •
"Now, go on with your story," said I. "How about that 'game' you were 'giving,' this morning?"
"Well, I'll tell you, Cap. Us fellers has got to lay fer ever' nickel, 'cause none of us is bondholders; and they's days and days together when we don't make enough to even starve on.—What I mean is, we on'y make enough to pay fer aggervatin' our ap‑
JAMESY 2423
petites with jist about enough chuck to keep us storyin'-hungry. So, you see, when a feller ain't got nothin' else to do, and his appetite won't sleep in the same bunk with him, he's bound to git on to somepin' crooked and git up all sorts o' dodges to git along. Some gives 'em one thing, and some another, but you bet they got to be mighty slick now, 'cause people won't have 'orphans,' and 'fits,' and cripples,' and 'drunk fathers,' and 'mothers that eats morphine,' and 'white-swellin',' and 'consumption,' and all that sort o' taffy! Got to git 'er down finer'n that! But I been a-gittin' in my work all the same, don't you fergit! You won't ever blow, now ?"
"How could I 'blow,' and what if I did ?—I don't live here," I replied.
"Well, you better never blow, anyhow ; 'cause if ever us duffers would git on to it you'd be a sp'iled oyster I"
"Go on," said I, with an assuring tone.
"The lay I'm on jist now," he continued, dropping his voice and looking cautiously around, "is a-hidin' my box and a-rushin' in, suddent-like, where they's a crowd o' nobs a-talkin' politics er somepin', and a-jist startin' in, and 'fore they know what's a-comin' I'm a-flashin' up a nickel er a dime, and a-tellin"em if I on'y had enough more to make fifty cents I could buy a blackin'-box, and wouldn't have to ast no boot o' my grandmother! And two minutes chinnin' does it, don't you see, cause they don't know nothin' 'bout blackin'-boxes; they're jist
2424 JAMESY
as soft as you air. They got an idy, maybe, that blackin'-boxes comes all the way from Chiny, with cokeynut whiskers packed 'round 'em ; and I make it solid by a-sayin' I'm on'y goin' to git a secondhand box—see? But that ain't the p'int—it's the Mr. Nickel I' already got. Oh! it'll paralyze 'em ever' time! Sometimes fellers'll make up seventy-five cents er a dollar, and tell me to 'git a new box, and go into the business right.' That's a thing that always rattles me. Now, if they'd on'y growl a little and look like they was jist a-puttin' up 'cause the first one did, I can stand it ; but when they go to pattin' me on the head, and a-tellin' me 'that's right,' and 'not to be afeard o' work,' and I'll 'come out all right,' and a-tellin' me to `git a good substantial box while I'm a-gittins,' and a-ponyin' up handsome, there's where I weaken—I do, honest!" And never so plainly as at that moment did I see within his face and in his eyes the light of true nobility.
"You see," he went on, in a tone of voice half courage, half apology, "I' got a family on my hands, and I' jist got to git along somehow I I could git along on the square deal as long as mother was alive—'cause she'd work—but ever sence she died —and that was winter 'fore last—I've kind o' had to double on the old thing all sorts o' ways. But Sis don't know it. Sis, she thinks I'm the squarest muldoon in the business," and even side by side with the homely utterance a great sigh faltered from his lips.
JAMES? 2425
"And who is Sis?" I inquired with new interest.
"Sis ?" he repeated, knocking my foot from the box, and leaning back, still in the old position, his hat now lying on the ground beside him, and his frowzy hair tossed backward from the full, broad brow—"Who's Sis ?" he repeated with an upward smile that almost dazzled me—"W'y, Sis is—is-- w'y, Sis is the boss girl—and don't you fergit it I"
No need had he to tell me more than this. I knew who "Sis" was by the light of pride in the uplifted eyes; I knew who "Sis" was by the exultation in the broken voice, and the half-defiant tossing of the frowzy head; I knew who "Sis" was by the little, naked hands thrown upward openly; I knew who "Sis" was by the tear that dared to trickle through the dirt upon her ragged brother's face. And don't you forget it
0 that boy down there upon his knees I—there in the cinders and the dirt—so far, far down beneath us that we trample on his breast and grind our heels into his very heart; 0 that boy there, with his lifted eyes, and God's own glory shining in his face, has taught me, with an eloquence beyond the trick of mellow-sounding words and metaphor, that love may find a purer home beneath the rags of poverty and vice than in all the great warm heart of Charity.
I hardly knew what impulse prompted me, but as the boy rose to his feet and held his hand out for the compensation for his work, I caught the little dingy palm close, close within my own, and
ix -13
2426 JAMESY
wrung it as I would have wrung the hand of some great conqueror.
The little fellow stared at me in wonderment, and although his lips were silent, I can but believe that had they parted with the utterance within his heart my feelings had received no higher recognition than the old contemptuous phrase, "Oh, what you givin' me?"
"And so you've got a family on your hands?" I inquired, recovering an air of simple curiosity, and toying in my pocket with some bits of change. "How much of a family?"
"On'y three of us now."
"Only three of you, eh? Yourself, and Sis, and —and—"
"The old man," said the boy, uneasily ; and after a pause, in which he seemed to swallow an utterance more bitter, he added, "And he ain't no good on earth I"
"Can't work ?" I queried.
"Won't work," said the boy, bitterly. "He won't work—he won't do nothin'—on'y budge! And I haf to steer him in ever' night, 'cause the cops won't pull him any more—they won't let him in the station-house more'n they'd let him in a parler, 'cause he's a plum' goner now, and liable to croak any minute."
"Liable to what ?" said I.
"Liable to jist keel over—wink out, you know—'cause he has fits—kind o' jimjams, I guess. Had a fearful old matinee with him last night! You
JAMESY 2427
see he comes all sorts o' games on me, and I haf to put up fer him—'cause he's got to have whisky, and if we can on'y keep him about so full he's a regular lamb; but he don't stand no monkeyin' when he wants whisky, now you bet ! Sis can handle him better'n me, but she's been a-losin' her grip on him lately—you see Sis ain't stout any more, and been kind o' sick-like so long she humors him, you know, more'n she'd ort. And he couldn't git on his pins at all yisterday morning, and Sis sent fer me, and I took him down a pint, and that set him a-runnin' so that when I left he made Sis give up a quarter he saw me slip her; and it jist happened I run into him that evening and got him in, or he'd 'a' froze to death. I guess he must 'a' kind o' had 'em last night, 'cause he was the wildest man you ever see—saw grasshoppers with paper-collars on, and old sows with feather-duster tails—the durndest program you ever heard of! And he got so bad onc't he was a-goin' to belt Sis, and did try it: and—and I had to chug him one or he'd 'a' done it. And then he cried, and Sis cried, and 1 cri—, I— Dern him! you can bet yer life / didn't cry!" And as the boy spoke, the lips quivered into stern compression, the little hands gripped closer at his side, but for all that the flashing eye grew blurred and the lids dropped downward.
"That's a boss shine on them shoes."
I was mechanically telling over in my hand the three small coins I had drawn from my pocket. "That is a nice job!" said I, gazing with an un‑
2428 JAMESY
usual show of admiration at the work ; "and I thought," continued I, with real regret, "that I had two dimes and a nickel here, and was thinking that, as these were Christmas times, I'd just give you a quarter for your work."
"Honest, Cap?'
"Honest!" I repeated, "but the fact is the two dimes, as I thought they were, are only two three-cent pieces, so I have only eleven cents in change, after all."
"Spect they'd change a bill fer you 'crost there at the lunch-counter," he suggested, with charming artlessness.
"Won't have time—there's my train just coupling.—But take this—I'll see you again sometime, perhaps."
"How big a bill is it you want changed?" asked the little fellow, with a most acquisitive expression, and a swift glance at our then lonely surroundings.
"I only have one bill with me," said I, nervously, "and that's a five."
"Well, here then," said the boy, hurriedly, with another and more scrutinizing glance about him—"guess I can 'commodate you." And as I turned in wonder, he drew from some mysterious recess in the lining of his coat a roll of bills, from which he hastily detached four in number, then returned the roll; and before I had recovered from my surprise, he had whisked the note from my fingers and left in my hand instead the proper change.
"This is on the dead, now, Cap. Don't you ever
JAMESY 2429
cheep about me havin' wealth, you know ; 'cause it ain't mine—that is, it is mine, but I'm a— There goes yer train. Ta-ta I"
"The day before Christmas," said I, snatching his hand, and speaking hurriedly—"the day before Christmas I'm coming back, and if you'll be here when the five-thirty train rolls in you'll find a man that wants his boots blacked—maybe to get married in, or something—anyway he'll want a shine like this, and he'll come prepared to pay the highest market price—do you understand?"
"You jist tell that feller fer me," said the boy, eclipsing the twinkle of one eye, and dropping his voice to an inflection of strictest confidence—"you jist tell that feller fer me that I'm his oyster l"
"And you'll meet him, sure?" said I.
"I will," said the boy. And he kept his word.
My ride home was an incoherent fluttering of the wings of time, in which travail one fretful hour was born, to gasp its first few minutes helplessly ; then moan, roll over and kick out its legs and sprawl about; then crawl a little—stagger to its feet and totter on; then tumble down a time or two and knock its empty head against the floor and howl ; then loom up awkwardly on gangling legs, too much in their own way to comprehend that they were in the way of everybody else; then limp a little as it worried on—drop down exhausted—moan again—toss up its hands—shriek out, and die in violent convulsions.
2430 JAMEST
We have all had that experience of the carwheels—had them enter into conversation with us as we gaily embarked upon some pleasant trip, perhaps; had them rattle off in scraps of song, or lightly twit us with some dear one's name, or even go so far as to laugh at us and mock us for some real or fancied dereliction of car-etiquette. I shall ever have good reason to remember how once upon a time a boy of fourteen, though greatly undersized, told the conductor he was only ten, and although the unsuspecting official accepted the statement as a truth, with the proper reduction in the fare, the car-wheels called that boy a "liar" for twenty miles—and twenty miles as long and tedious as he has ever compassed in his journey through this vale of tears.
The car-wheels on this bitter winter evening were not at all communicative. They were sullen and morose. They didn't feel like singing, and they wouldn't laugh. They had no jokes, and if there was one peculiar quality of tone they possessed in any marked degree it was that of sneering. They had a harsh, discordant snarl, as it seemed, and were spiteful and insinuating.
The topic they had chosen for that night's consideration was evidently of a very complex and mysterious nature, and they gnawed and mumbled at it with such fierceness, and, withal, such selfishness, I could only catch a flying fragment of it now and then, and that, I noticed, was of the coarsest fiber of intelligence, and of slangy flavor. Listen‑
JAMESY 2431
ing with the most painful interest, I at last made out the fact that the inflection seemed to be in the interrogative, and, with anxiety the most intense, I slowly came to comprehend that they were desirous of ascertaining the exact distance between two given points, but the proposition seemed determined not to round into fuller significance than to query mockingly, "How fur is it? How fur is it? How fur, how fur, how fur is it?" and so on to a most exasperating limit. As this senseless phrase was repeated and reiterated in its growing harshness and unchanging intonation, the relentless pertinacity of the query grew simply agonizing, and when at times the car door opened to admit a brakeman, or the train-boy, who had everything to sell but what I wanted, the emphasized refrain would lift me from my seat and drag me up and down the aisle. When the phrase did eventually writhe round into form and shade more tangible, my relief was such that I sat down, and in my fancy framed a grim, unlovely tune that suited it, and hummed with it, in an undertone of dismal satisfaction:
"How fur—how fur
Is it from here
From here to Happiness?"
When I returned, that same refrain rode back into the city with me I All the gay metropolis was robing for the banquet and the ball. All the windows of the crowded thoroughfares were kindling
2432 JAMES?
into splendor. Along the streets rode lordly carriages, so weighted down with costly silks, and furs, and twinkling gems, and unknown treasures in unnumbered packages, that one lone ounce of needed charity would have snapped their axles, and a feather's weight of pure benevolence would have splintered every spoke.
And the old refrain rode with me through it alias stoical, relentless and unchangeable as fate—and in the same depraved and slangy tone in which it seemed to find an especial pride, it sang, and sang again:
"How fur—how fur
Is it from here
From here to Happiness!"
The train, that for five minutes had been lessening in speed, toiled painfully along, and as I arose impatiently and reached behind me for my overcoat, a cheery voice cried, "Hello, Cap ! Want a lift ? I'll he'p you with that benjamin"; and as I looked around I saw the grimy features of my little hero of the brush and box.
"Hello !" said I, as much delighted as surprised. "Where did you drop from?"
"Oh, I collared this old hearse a mile er so back yonder," said the little fellow, gaily, standing on the seat behind me and holding up the coat. "Been a-doin' circus-business on the steps out there fer half an hour. You bet I had my eye on you, all the same, though!"
JAMES? 2433
"You had, eh?" I exclaimed, gladly, although I instinctively surmised his highest interest in me was centered in my pocketbook. "You had, eh ?" I repeated with more earnestness—"Well, I'm glad of that, Charlie—or, what is your name ?"
"Squatty," said the boy. Then noticing the look of surprise upon my face, he added soberly: "That ain't my sure-enough name, you know ; that's what the boys calls me. Sis calls me Jamesy."
"Well, Jamesy," I continued, buttoning my collar and drawing on my gloves, "I'm mighty glad to see you, and if you don't believe it, just go down in that right-hand overcoat-pocket and you'll find out."
The little fellow needed no second invitation, and as he drew forth a closely folded package the look of curiosity upon his face deepened to one of blank bewilderment.
"Open it," said I, smiling at the puzzled little face; "open it—it's for you."
"Oh, here, Cap," said the boy, dropping the package on the seat, and holding up a rigid finger, "you're a-givin' me this, ain't you?"
"I'm giving you the package, certainly," said I, somewhat bewildered. "Open it—it's a Christmas present for you—open it!"
"What's your idy o' layin' fer me ?" asked the boy, with a troubled and uneasy air. "I've been a-givin' you square business right along, ain't I ?"
"Why, Jamesy," said I, as I vaguely comprehended the real drift of his thought, "the package is for you, and if you won't open it, I will," and as I
2434 JAMESY
spoke I began unfolding it. "Here," said I, "is a pair of gloves a little girl about your size told me to give to you, because I was telling her about you, over where I live, and it's 'a clear case,' " and I laughed lightly to myself as I noticed a slow flush creeping to his face. "And here," said I, "is a bang-up pair of good old-fashioned socks, and, if they'll fit you, there's an old woman that wears specs and a mole on her nose, told me to tell you, for her, that she knit them for your Christmas present, and if you don't wear them she'll never forgive you. And here;' I continued, "is a cap, as fuzzy as a woolly-worm, and as warm a cap, I reckon, as you ever stood on your head in ; it's a cheap cap, but I bought it with my own money, and money that I worked mighty hard to get, because I ain't rich ; now, if I was rich, I'd buy you a plug; but I've got an idea that this little, old, woolly cap, with earbobs to it, and a snapper to go under your chin, don't you see, won't be a bad cap to knock around in, such weather as this. What do you say now! Try her on once," and as I spoke I turned to place it on his head.
"Oomh-ooh I" he negatively murmured, putting out his hand, his closed lips quivering—the little frowzy head drooping forward, and the ragged shoes shuffling on the floor.
"Come," said I, my own voice growing curiously changed ; "won't you take these presents? They are yours ; you must accept them, Jamesy, not because they're worth so very much, or because they're very
JAMESY 2435
fine," I continued, bending down and folding up the parcel, "but because, you know, I want you to, and—and—you must take them ; you must!" and as I concluded, I thrust the tightly folded parcel beneath his arm, and pressed the little tattered elbow firmly over it.
"There you are," said I.—"Freeze on to it, and we'll skip off here at the avenue. Come."
I hardly dared to look behind me till I found myself upon the street, but as I threw an eager glance over my shoulder I saw the little fellow following, not bounding joyfully, but with a solemn step, the little parcel hugged closely to his side, and his eyes bent soberly upon the frozen ground.
"And how's Sis by this time?" I asked cheerily, flinging the question backward, and walking on more briskly.
"'Bout the same," said the boy, brightening a little, and skipping into a livelier pace.
"About the same, eh? and how's that?" I asked.
"Oh, she can't git around much like she used to, you know ; but she's a-gittin' better all the time. She set up mighty nigh all day yisterday"; and as the boy spoke the eyes lifted with the old flash, and the little frowzy head tossed with the old defiance.
"Why, she's not down sick?" said I, a sudden ache of sorrow smiting me.
"Yes," replied the boy, "she's been bad a long lime. You see," he broke in by way of explanation, "she didn't have no shoes ner nothin' when winter
2436 JAMESY
come, and kind o' took cold, you know, and that give her the whoopin'-cough so's she couldn't git around much. You jist ort to see her now l- Oh, she's a-gittin' all right now, you can bet! and she said yisterday she'd be plum well Christmas, and that's on'y to-morry.--Guess not(" and as the little fellow concluded this exultant speech, he circled round me, and then shot forward like a rocket.
"Hi! Jamesyl" I called after him, pausing at a stairway and stepping in the door.
The little fellow joined me in an instant. "Want that shine now ?" he inquired with panting eagerness.
"Not now, Janiesy," said I, "for I'm going to be quite busy for a while. This is my stopping-place here—the second door on the right, up-stairs, remember—and I work there when I'm in the city, and I sometimes sleep there, when I work late. And now I want to ask a very special favor of you," I continued, taking a little sealed packet from my pocket : "here's a little box that you're to take to Sis, with my compliments—the compliments of the season, you understand,—and tell her I sent it, with particular directions that she shouldn't break it open till Christmas morning—not till Christmas morning, understand! Then you tell her that I would like very much to come and see her, and if she says all right,—and you must give me a good `send-off,' and she'll say all right if `Jamesy' says all right,—then come back here, say two hours from now, or three
JAMESY 2437
hours, or to-night, anyway, and we'll go down and see Sis together—what do you say?"
The boy nodded dubiously. "Honest—must I do all that, sure enough?"
"Will you?" said I; "that's what I want to know"; and I pushed back the dusky little face and looked into the bewildered eyes.
"Solid?' he queried, gravely.
"Solid," I repeated, handing him the box. "Will you come?"
"W'y, 'course I will, on'y I was jist a-thinkin'—"
"Just thinking what ?" said I, as the little fellow paused abruptly and shook the box suspiciously at his ear. "Just thinking what?" I repeated; "for I must go now ; good-by.—Just thinking what ?"
"Oh, nothin'7 said the boy, backing off and staring at me in a phase of wonder akin to awe.— "Nothin', on'y I was jist a-thinkin' that you was a little the curiousest rooster I ever see."
Three hours later, as I sat alone, he came in upon me timidly to say he had not been home yet, having "run acrost the old man jist a-bilin', and had to git him corralled 'fore he dropped down som'er's in the snow ; but I'm a-gittin 'long bully with him now," he added with a deep sigh of relief, "'cause he's so full he'll haf to let go purty soon. Say you'll be here?"
I nodded silently, and he was gone.
The merry peals of laughter rang up from the streets like mockery. The jingling of bells, the clat•
2438 JAMES?
ter and confusion of the swarming thoroughfares, flung up to me not one glad murmur of delight ; the faint and far-off blaring of a dreamy waltz, blown breeze-like over the drowsy ear of night, had sounded sweeter to me had I stood amidst the band, with every bellowing horn about my ears, and the drums and clashing cymbals howling mad.
I couldn't work, I couldn't read, .I couldn't rest; I could only pace about. I heard the clock strike ten, and strike it hard ; I heard it strike eleven, viciously; and twelve it held out at arm's length, and struck it full between the eyes, and let it drop—. stone dead. 0 I saw the blood ooze from its ears, and saw the white foam freeze upon its lips! I was alone—alone I
It was three o'clock before the boy returned.
"Been a long while," he began, "but I had a fearful time with the old man, and he went on so when I did git him in I was 'most afeard to leave him; but he kind o' went to sleep at last, and Molly she come over to see how Sis was a-gittin' ; and Sis said she'd like to see you if you'd come now, you know, while they ain't no racket goin' on."
"Come, then," said I, buttoning my coat closely at the throat, "I am ready"; and a moment later we had stepped into the frosty night. We moved along in silence, the little fellow half running, half sliding along the frozen pavement in the lead; and I noted, with a pleasurable thrill, that he had donned the little fuzzy cap and mittens, and from time to
JAMESY 2439
time was flinging, as he ran, admiring glances at his shadow on the snow.
Our way veered but a little from the very center of the city, but led mainly along through narrow streets and alley-ways, where the rear ends of massive business blocks had dwindled down to insignificant proportions to leer grimly at us as we passed little grated windows and low, scowling doors. Occasionally we passed a clump of empty boxes, barrels, and such debris and merchandise as had been crowded pell-mell from some inner storage by their newer and more dignified companions ; and now and then we passed an empty bus, bulging up in the darkness like a behemoth of the olden times ; or, jutting from still narrower passages, the sloping ends of drays and carts innumerable. And along even as forbidding a defile as this we groped until we came upon a low, square brick building that might have served at one time as a wash-house, or, less probably, perhaps, a dairy. There was but one window in the front, and that but little larger than an ordinary pane of glass. In the sides, however, and higher up, was a row of gratings, evidently designed more to serve as ventilation than as openings for light. There was but one opening, an upright doorway, half above ground, half below, with little narrow side-steps leading down to it. A light shone dimly from the little window, and as the boy motioned me to pause and listen, a sound of female voices talking in undertones was audible,
2440 JAMES?
mingled with a sound like that of some one snoring heavily.
"Hear the old man a-gittin' in his work ?" whispered the boy.
I nodded. "He's asleep?"
"You bet he's asleep!" said the boy, still in a whisper; "and he'll jist about stay with it thataway fer five hours, anyhow. What time you got now, Cap?"
"A quarter now till four," I replied, peering at my watch.
"W'y, it's Christmas, then!" he cried in muffled rapture of delight ; but abruptly checking his emotion, he beckoned me a little farther from the door, and spoke in a confidential whisper.
"Cap, look here, now ; 'fore we go in I want you to promise me one thing—'cause you can fix it and she'll never drop! Now, here, I want to put up a job on Sis, you understand!"
"What!" I exclaimed, starting back and staring at the boy in amazement. "Put up a job on Sis?"
"Oh, look here, now, Cap; you ain't a-goin' back on a feller like that I" broke in the little fellow, in a mingled tone of pleading and reproof ; "and if you don't help a feller I'll haf to wait till broad daylight, 'cause we ain't got no clock."
"No clock!" I repeated with increased bewilderment
"Oh, come, Cap, what do you say? It ain't no lie, you know ; all you got to dot be to jist tell Sis it's Christmas—as though you didn't want me to
rem,—."7”...77717'
JAMESY 244!
hear, you know ; and then she'll git my 'Christmas gift!' first, you know ;—and, oh, lordy ! won't she think she's played it fine!" And as I slowly comprehended the meaning of the little fellow's plot I nodded my willingness to assist in "putting up the job."
"Now, hold on a second!" continued the little fellow, in the wildest glee, darting through an opening in a high board fence a dozen steps away, and in an instant reappearing with a bulky parcel, which, as he neared me, I discovered was a paper flour-sack half filled, the other half lapped down and fastened with a large twine string. "Now this stuff," he went on excitedly, "you must juggle in without Sis seein' it—here, shove it under your 'ben,' here—therethat's business! Now when you go in, you're to set down with the other side to'rds the bed, you see, and when Sis hollers 'Christmas gift,' you know, you jist kind o' let it slide down to the floor like, and I'll nail it slick enough—though I'll p'tend, you know, it ain't Christmas yet, and look sold out, and say it wasn't fair fer you to tell her, and all that ; and then I'll open up suddent-like, and if you don't see old Sis bug out them eyes of hero I don't want a cent !" And as the gleeful boy concluded this speech, he put his hands over his mouth and dragged me down the little, narrow steps.
"Here's that feller come to see you, Sis!" he announced abruptly, opening the door and peering in. "Come on," he said, turning to me. I followed,
a-14
2442 JAMESY
closing the door, and looking curiously around. A squabby, red-faced woman, sitting on the edge of a low bed, leered upon me, but with no salutation. An old cook-stove, propped up with bricks, stood back against the wall directly opposite, and through the warped and broken doors in front sent out a dismal suggestion of the fire that burned within. At the side of this, prone upon the floor, lay the wretched figure of a man, evidently in the deepest stage of drunkenness, and thrown loosely over him was an old tattered piece of carpet and a little checkered shawl.
There was no furniture to speak of ; one chair—and that was serving as a stand—stood near the bed, a high hump-shouldered bottle sitting on it, a fruit-can full of water, and a little dim and smoky lamp that glared sulkily.
"Jamesy, can't you git the man a cheer er somepin'?" queried a thin voice from the bed ; at which the red-faced woman rose reluctantly with the rather sullen words: "I-le can sit here, I reckon," while the boy looked at me significantly and took up a position near the "stand."
"So this is Sis?" I said, with reverence.
The little haggard face I bent above was beautiful. The eyes were dark and tender—very tender, and though deeply sunken were most childish in expression and star-pure and luminous. She reached a wasted little hand out to me, saying simply: "It was mighty good in you to give them things to Jamesy, and send me that mo—that—that little box,
JAIIIESY 2443
you know—on'y I guess I—I won't need it." As she spoke a smile of perfect sweetness rested on the face, and the hand within my own nestled in dovelike peace.
The boy bent over the white face from behind and whispered something in her ear, trailing the little laughing lips across her brow as he looked up.
"Not now, Jamesy; wait a while."
"Ah l" said I, shaking my head with feigned merriment, "don't you two go to plotting about me I"
"Oh, hello, no, Cap ?" exclaimed the boy, assuringly. "I was on'y jist a-tellin' Sis to ast you if she mightn't open that box now—honest! And you jist ask her if you don't believe me—/ won't listen." And the little fellow gave me a look of the most penetrative suggestiveness ; and when a moment later the glad words, "Christmas gift! Jamesy," rang out quaveringly in the thin voice, the little fellow snatched the sack up, in a paroxysm of delight, and before the girl had time to lift the long dark lashes once upon his merry face, he had emptied its contents out tumultuously upon the bed.
"You got it on to me, Sis l" cried the little fellow, dancing wildly round the room; "got it on to me this time! but I'm game, don't you fergit, and don't put up nothin' snide! How'll them shoes there ketch you? and how's this fer a cloak ?—is them enough beads to suit you? And how's this fer a hat—feather and all? And how's this fer a dress—made and ever'thing? and I'd 'a' got a corsik with it if he'd on'y had any little enough. You won't look fly ner
2444 JAMESY
nothin' when you throw all that style on you in the morning!—Guess not!" And the delighted boy went off upon another wild excursion round the room.
"Lean down here," said the girl, a great light in her eyes and the other slender hand sliding from beneath the covering. "Here is the box you sent me, and I've opened wasn't right you know, but somepin' kind o' said to open it 'fore morning—and —and I opened it." And the eyes seemed asking my forgiveness, yet were filled with great bewilderment. "You see," she went on, the thin voice falling in a fainter tone, "I knowed that money in the box—that is, the bills—I knowed them bills 'cause one of 'em had a ink-spot on it, and the other ones had been pinned with it—they wasn't pinned together when you sent 'em, but the holes was in where they had been pinned, and they was all pinned together when Jamesy had 'em—'cause Jamesy used to have them very bills—he didn't think I knowed,—but onc't when he was asleep, and father was a-goin' through his clothes, I happened to find 'em in his coat 'fore he did; and I counted 'em, and hid 'em back ag'in, and father didn't find 'em, and Jamesy never knowed it—I never said nothin', 'cause somepin' kind o' said to me it was all right; and somepin' kind o' said I'd git all these things here, too—on'y I won't need 'em, ner the money, nor nothin. How did you get the money? That's all!"
JAMES? 2445
The boy had by this time approached the bed, and was gazing curiously upon the solemn little face.
"What's the matter with you, Sis ?" he asked in wonderment; "ain't you glad?"
"I'm mighty glad, Jamesy," she said, the little, thin hands reaching for his own. "Guess I'm too glad, 'cause I can't do nothin' on'y jist feel glad; and( somepin' kind o' says that that's the gladdest glad in all the world. Jamesy 1"
"Oh, pshaw, Sisl Why don't you tell a feller what's the matter ?" said the boy, uneasily.
The white hands linked more closely with the brown, and the pure face lifted to the grimy one till they were blent together in a kiss.
"Be good to father, fer you know he used to be so good to us."
"0 Sis! Sis I"
"Molly !"
The squabby, red-faced woman threw herself upon her knees and kissed the thin hands wildly and with sobs.
"Molly, somepin' kind o' says that you must dress me in the morning—but I won't need the hat, and you must take it home for Nannie— Don't cry so loud ; you'll wake father."
I bent my head down above the frowzy one and moaned—moaned.
"And you, sir," went on the failing voice, reaching for my hand, "you—you must take this money
2446 JAMESY
back—you must take it back, fer I don't need it. You must take it back and—and—give it—give it to the poor." And even with the utterance upon the gracious lips the glad soul leaped and fluttered
• through the open gates.
|
F |
IRST—I want it most distinctly understood 1 that I am superstitious, notwithstanding the best half of my life, up to the very present, has been spent in the emphatic denial of that fact. And I am painfully aware that this assertion at so late a date can but place my former character in a most unenviable light ; yet for reasons you will never know, I have, with all due deliberation, determined to hold the truth up stark and naked to the world, with the just acknowledgment shorn of all attempt at palliation or excuse, that for the best half of my life I have been simply a coward and a liar.
Second—From a careful and impartial study of my fellow beings, I have arrived at the settled conviction that nine men of every ten are just as superstitious as myself ; yet, with the difference, that, for reasons I know, they refuse to acknowledge it openly, many of them dodging the admission even within their own ever curious and questioning minds.
Third—Most firmly fixed in this belief and intuitively certain of at least the inner confidence and sympathy of a grand majority of those who read, I
2447
2448 TALE OF A SPIDER
throw aside all personal considerations, defy all ridicule—all reason, if you like—in order to devote myself wholly to the narration of an actual experience that for three long weeks has been occurring with me nightly in this very room. You should hear me laugh about it in the daytime I Oh, I snap my fingers then, and whistle quite as carelessly and scornfully as you doubtless would ; but at night—at night—and it's night now—I grow very, very serious somehow, and put all raillery aside, and here all in vain argue by the hour that it's nothing in the world but the baleful imaginings of a feverish mind, and the convulsive writhings of a dyspeptic fancy. But enough I—Even forced to admit that I'm a fool, I will tell my story.
Although by no means of a morbid or misanthropic disposition, the greater portion of my time I occupy in strict seclusion, here at my desk—for only when alone can I conscientiously indulge certain propensities of thinking aloud, talking to myself, leaping from my chair occasionally to dance a new thought round the room, or take it in my arms, and hug and hold and love it as I would a great, fat, laughing baby with a bunch of jingling keys.
Then there are times, too, when worn with work, and I find my pen dabbling by the wayside in sluggish blots of ink, that I delight to take up the old guitar which leans here in the corner, and twang among the waltzes that I used to know, or lift a most unlovely voice in half-forgotten songs whose withered notes of melody fall on me like dead
TALE OF A SPIDER 2449
leaves, but whose crisp rustling still has power to waken from "the dusty crypt of darkened forms and faces" the glad convivial spirits that once thronged about me in the wayward past, and made my young life one long peal of empty merriment. Someway, I've lost the knack of wholesome laughter now, and for this reason, maybe, I so often find my fingers tangled in the strings of my guitar ; for, after all, there is an indefinable something in the tone of a guitar that is not all of earth. I have often fancied that departed friends came back to hide themselves away in this old husk of song that we might pluck them forth to live again in quavering tones of tenderness and love and minor voices of remembrance that coax us on to Heaven. Pardon my vagaries.—I'm practical enough at times; at times I fail. But I must be clear to-night ; I must be, and I will.
This night three weeks ago I had worked late, though on a task involving nothing that could possibly have warped my mind to an unnatural state, other than that of peculiar wakefulness; for although physically needful of rest, I felt that it was useless to retire; and so I wheeled my sofa in a cozy position near the stove, lighted a cigar (my chum Hays had left me four hours previous), and flinging myself down in languid pose best suiting the requirements of an aimless reverie, I resigned all serious complexities of thought and was wholly comfortable.
The silence of the night without was deep. Not
2450 TALE OF A SPIDER
a footstep in the street below, and not a sound of any living earthly thing fell on the hearing, though that sense was whetted to such acuteness I could plainly hear the ticking of a clock somewhere across the street.
All things about the room were in their usual order. My letters on the desk were folded as I answered them, and filed away; my books were ranged in order, and my manuscripts tucked out of sight and mind, with no scrap of paper to remind me of my never-ended work, save the blank sheet that always lies in readiness for me to pounce upon with any vagrant thought that comes along, and close beside it the open inkstand and the idle pen.
I had reclined thus in utter passiveness of mind for half an hour perhaps, when suddenly I heard, or thought I heard, below me in the street, the sound of some stringed instrument. I rose on my elbow and listened. Some serenader, I guessed. Yes, I could hear it faintly, but—so far away it seemed, and indistinct. I arose, went to the window, raised it and leaned out; and as the sound grew fainter and failed entirely, I closed the window and sat down again; yet even as I did so the mysterious tones fell on my hearing plainer than before. I listened closely, and though little more than a ghost of sound, I still could hear, and quite audibly distinguish, the faint repeated twanging of the six open strings of a guitar—so plainly, indeed, that I instinctively recognized the irritating fact that both the "E" and "D" strings
TALE OF A SPIDER 2451
were slightly out of tune. I turned with some strange impulse to my own instrument, and I must leave the reader to imagine the cold thrill of surprise and fear that crept over me as the startling conviction slowly dawned upon my mind that the sounds came from that unlooked-for quarter. The guitar was leaning in its old position in the corner, the face turned to the wall, and although I confess it with reluctance, full five minutes elapsed before I found sufficient courage to approach and pick it up; then I nearly dropped it in abject terror as a great, fat, blowzy spider ran across my hand and went scampering up the wall. What do you think of spiders, anyhow? You say "Wooh l" I say you don't know anything about spiders.
I examined first the wall to see if there might not be some natural cause for the mysterious sounds—some open crevice for the wind, some loosened and vibrating edge of paper, or perhaps, a bristle protruding from the plaster—but I found no evidence that could in any way afford an answer to the perplexing query. An old umbrella and a broom stood in the corner, but in neither of these inanimate objects could I find the vaguest explanation of the problem that so wholly and entirely possessed me.
I could not have been mistaken. It was no trick of fancy—no hallucination. I had not only listened to the sounds repeated, over and over, a dozen times at least, but I had recognized and measured the respective values of the tones; and as I turned, half in awe, took up the instrument and lightly
2452 TALE OF A SPIDER
swept the strings, the positive proof, for the conviction jarred as discordantly upon my fancy as upon my ears—the two strings, "E" and "D," were out of tune.
I will no longer attempt the detail of my perturbed state of curiosity and the almost dazed condition of my mind ; such an effort would at best be vain. But I sat down, doggedly, at last ; and in a spirit of indifference the most defiant I could possibly assume, I ran the guitar up to a keen exultant key, and dashed off into a quickstep that made the dumb old echoes of the room leap up and laugh with melody. I was determined in my own mind to stave off the most unwholesome influence that seemed settling fog-like over me ; and as the sharp twang of the strings rang out upon the night, and the rich vibrating chords welled up and overflowed the silence like a flood, the embers of old-time enthusiasm kindled in my heart and flamed up in a warmth of real delight. Suddenly, in the midst of this rapturous outburst, as with lifted face I stared ceiling-ward, my eyes again fell on that horrid spider, madly capering about the wall in a little circumference of a dozen inches, perhaps, wheeling and whirling up and down, and round and round again, as though laboring under some wild jubilant excitement.
I played on mechanically for a moment, my eyes riveted upon the grotesque antics of the insect, feeling instinctively that the music was producing this singular effect upon it. I was right ; for, as I grad‑
TALE OF A SPIDER 2453
ually paused, the gyrations of the insect assumed a milder phase, and as I ceased entirely, the great bloated thing ran far out overhead and dropped suddenly a yard below the ceiling, and, pendent by its unseen thread, hung sprawled in the empty air above my face, so near I could have touched it with the lifted instrument. And then, even as I shrank back fearfully, a new line of speculation was suggested to my mind: I arose abruptly, leaned the guitar back in the corner, took up a book, and sat down at the desk, leaving the silence of the room intensified till in my nervous state of mind I almost fancied I could hear that spider whispering to itself, as above the open pages of the book I watched the space between it and the ceiling slowly widening, till at last the ugly insect dropped and disappeared behind the sofa.
I had not long to wait ; nor was my curious mind placed any more at ease, when., at last, faint and far-off sounding as at first, I heard the eery twanging of the guitar—though this time I could with some triumphant pleasure note the fact that the instrument was in perfect tune. But to assure myself thoroughly that I could in no way be mistaken as to the mysterious cause, I arose and crept cautiously across the carpet until within easy reach of the guitar. I paused again to listen and convince myself beyond all doubt that the sounds were there produced. There could be no possible mistake about it. Then suddenly I caught and whirled the instrument around, and as I did so the spider darted
2454 TALE OF A SPIDER
from the keyboard near the top, leaped to the broom-handle and fled up the wall.
I tried no more experiments that night, or rather morning—for it must have been three o'clock as I turned wearily away from the exasperating contemplation of the strange subject, turned down the lamp,.then turned it up again, huddled myself into a shivering heap upon the sofa, and fell into an uneasy asleep, in which I dreamed that I was a spider—of Brobdingnagian proportions, and lived on men and women instead of flies, and had a web like a monster hammock, in which I swung myself out over the streets at night and fished up my prey with a hook and line—thought I caught more poets than anything else, and was just nibbling warily at my own bait, when the line was suddenly withdrawn, the hook catching me in the cheek, tearing out and letting me drop back with a sullen plunge into the great gulf of the night. And as I found myself, with wildly staring eyes, sitting bolt upright on the sofa, I saw the spider, just above my desk, lifted and flung upward by his magic line and thrown among the dusky shadows of the ceiling.
"Hays," said Ito my chum in the early morning, as he came in on me, sitting at my desk and gazing abstractedly at an incoherent scrawl of ink upon the scrap of paper lying before me—"Hays," said I, "what's your opinion of spiders?"
"What's my opinion of spiders?" he queried, staring at me curiously.
"What's your opinion of spiders?" I repeated
TALE OF A SPIDER 2455
with my first inflection—for Hays is a young man in the medical profession, and likes point, fact and brevity. "What I mean is this," I continued, "isn't it generally conceded that the spider is endowed with a higher order of intelligence than insects commonly?"
"I believe so," he replied with the same curious air, watching me narrowly; "I have a vague recollection of some incident illustrative of that theory in Goldsmith's 'Animated Nature,' or some equally veracious chronicle," with suggestive emphasis on the word "veracious." "Why do you ask?"
And, although half assured I would be sneered at for my pains, I went into a minute recountal of my strange experience of the night, winding up in a high state of excitement, doubtless intensified by the blandly smiling features of my auditor, who made no interruption whatever, and only looked at me at the conclusion of the dream with gratuitous compassion and concern. "Well!" said I uneasily, taking an impatient turn or two across the room. . . . "Well I" I repeated, pausing abruptly and glaring at the shrugged shoulders of my stoical companion, "why don't you say something?"
"Nothing to say, I suppose," he answered, turning on me with absolute severity. "You never listen to advice. Two months ago I told you to quit this night business—it would wreck you physically, mentally, every way. Why, look at you!" he continued in pitiless reproof, as I flew off on another nervous trip around the room. "Look at you! a
2456 TALE OF A SPIDER
perfect crate of bones—no 'get-up' in your walk—no color in your face—no appetite—no anything but a wisp of shattered nerves, and a pair of howling-hungry eyes that do nothing but stare."
"It wouldn't seem that you did have much to say, upon the point, at least," I interrupted. "Never mind my physical condition; what do you think of my spider?"
"What do I think of your spider!" he repeated contemptuously, "why, I think it's a little the thinnest piece of twaddle I ever listened to !—And I think, further—"
"Hold on, now!" I exclaimed, a trifle warmed, but smiling; "I knew you'd have to sweat a while over that ; but hold on—hold on! I have only told you the minor facts of the strange occurrence; the most startling and irrefutable portion yet remains. Now, listen! What I have already told you I pledge you on my honor is pure truth. I can offer nothing but my word for that. But I will close now —don't interrupt me, if you please: As I awakened from that dream, I saw that spider jerked from above the desk here—just as a small boy might whip up a fish-line—jerked by his own thread, of course.—Well, and I got up at once--came to the desk like this, feeling instinctively that that infernal spider had some object in lowering itself among my letters ; and I found this scrap of paper, which I'll swear I left last night without one blot or line of ink or pencil on it.—I found this scrap of paper with this zigzag line—which you can see
TALE OF A SPIDER 2457
was never made with human hand—scrawled across it, and the ink was yet wet when I picked it up. Now, what do you say ?"
He took the scrap of paper in his hand half) curiously, and then, as though ashamed of having betrayed so great a weakness, threw it back upon the desk with scarce a look.
"What do you say ?" I repeated, in a tone of triumph.
"Well," he replied, "it is barely possible you did see a spider in this last instance, and I must confess that it is a much easier matter for me to imagine a spider dropping by accident into your inkstand and leaving the trail of his salvation across your writing-paper, than it is for me to fancy the fantastic insect plucking the strings of your guitar. In fact, the first part of your story won't do at all. I don't mean to intimate that your veracity is defective—not at all. But I do mean that you have overworked yourself of late, and that your brain needs rest."
"But," said I, pushing the scrap of paper toward him again, "you don't seem to recognize the fact that that ugly scrawl of ink means something. Look at it carefully; it's writing."
He again took the paper in his hand, but this time without a glance, and ere I could prevent him he had torn it in a half dozen pieces and flung it on the floor.
"What do you mean?" I cried resentfully, springing forward.
2458 TALE OF A SPIDER
"Why, I mean that you're a babbling idiot," he answered in a tone half anger, half alarm ; "and if you won't look after your own condition I'll do it for you, and in spite of you I You must quit this work—quit this room—quit everything, and come with me out in the fresh air, or you'll die; that's what I mean !"
Although he spoke with almost savage vehemence, I recognized, of course, the real promptings of his action, and smiled softly to myself as I gathered up the scattered scraps of paper from the carpet.
"Oh, we'll not quarrel," said I, seating myself patiently at the desk, and dipping my finger in the paste-cup--"we'll not quarrel about a little thing like this; only if you'll just wait a minute I'll show you that it does mean something."
I deftly joined the fragments in their proper places on a base of legal cap. "There I" said I good-naturedly, "now you can read it ; but don't tear it again, please." I think I was very white when I said that, for my companion took the paper in his hand with at least a show of interest, and looked at it long and curiously.
"Well, what is it?" he asked, laying it back upon the desk before me: "I am really very sorry, but I am forced to acknowledge that I fail to find anything exactly tangible in it."
"Look," said I; "you see this capital that begins the line ; the first letter ?—It's a 'Y,' isn't it?"
TALE OF A SPIDER 2459
"Yes ; it looks a little like a 'Y'—or a 'G." " "No; it's a 'Y,' " said I, "and there's no more
doubt about it than that this next one is an 'e.' " "Well—"
"Well, this next letter is an 'S'—an old-fashioned 'S,' but it's an 'S' all the same, and you can't make anything else out of it ; I've tried it, and it can't be done."
"Well, go on."
"This is a `c," I continued.
"Go on ; call it anything you like."
"No ; but I want you to be thoroughly satisfied." "Oh, do you? Well, it's a 'c,' then ; go on." "And this is an 'h." "
"Go on."
"And this is an 'o'; you know that !"
"Yes; know it by the hole in it."
"Don't get funny. And this is an 'I."
"That's an 'I." "
"This is an 'a." "
"Close observer !"
"And that's an 'r'—and that's all."
"Well, you've got it all down to suit you; now, what does it spell?"
"What does it spell? Why, can't you read?" I exclaimed, flourishing the scrap triumphantly before his eyes. "It spells 'Ye Scholar l'—why, I could read it across the room!"
"Yes, or across the street," he answered caustically. "But come now !" he continued seriously,
2460 TALE OF A SPIDER
"throw it aside for the present at least, and let's go out in the sunshine for a while. Here, light a cigar, and come along"; and he moved toward the door.
"No," said I, turning to the mysterious scrawl, "I will hound this thing down while the inspiration's on me."
"Inspiration ?—Bah !" The door slammed, but I never turned my head.
I had sat thus in dead silence for ten minutes, when suddenly I heard a quick impatient movement at my back, and then the sharp impetuous words—"In God's name! quit biting your nails like that! Don't you know it's an indication of madness!"
I think I need not enter into any explanation as to the reason which, from that moment, determined me upon a course that could afford no further conflict of opinion other than that already going on within my own mind. That of itself furnished all the exasperating controversy that I felt was well for my indulgence. But in one way I was grateful for the pointed suggestion of my friend regarding the questionable status of my mental faculties, for by it I was made most keenly alive to that peculiar sense of duty that made me look upon myself and question every individual act, entirely separated from my own personality; in fact, to look upon myself, as I did, clearly and distinctly defined in the light of a very suspicious and a very dangerous character, whose sole intent and purpose was to play and practise on me all unlooked-for and undreamed-of deceptions. and which. to combat sue,
2462 TALE OF A SPIDER
idle in my hand or I had turned wearily away to pace about the room, has it ever exhibited any inclination whatever to occupy my attention. This curious fact interpreted itself at last in the rather startling proposition that it was simply an indication on the part of the insect that it desired me to favor it with music, since my time was not better occupied.—Virtually this is what it did mean; I know it! I would know and appreciate now any want the insect might choose to express ; only at first I was very dull, as one naturally would be. And I noticed, too, that when I first responded to this summons the spider would leap from the guitar to the wall with every evidence of pleasure, and glide back to its old position near the ceiling, indulging the wildest tokens of glee and approval throughout my performances. And many times I have marched off round and round the room simply thrumming the time, the spider following along the upper margin of the wall with the most fantastic caperings of joy.
Other experiments followed, too numerous and too foolish for recountal here, but each, in its way, sufficient to establish more conclusively in my mind the belief that the hideous little monster was endowed with an intelligence as wise and subtle in its workings as it was within the power of my own to recognize—even greater—for gradually, as we became more accustomed to each other, the ugly insect grew so tame it would come down the wall and dance for me on a level with my face as I sat play‑
TALE OF A SPIDER 2463
ing, and even spring off upon the instrument if I held it out. At last I found my mind so baffled and bewildered that more than once the conviction was forced upon me that the spider was not a spider, but a— No, I'll not say that—not yet, not yeti
These experiments had progressed for perhaps half a dozen nights, when, as I sat, pen in hand at the desk here one evening, mechanically poring over the still incomprehensible meaning of the scrawl and writing and rewriting the two words over and over again upon an empty page before me, I became suddenly aware of a strange sensation of repose. A great cool quiet fell upon my brain, as when suddenly within some noisy foundry the clanging hammers cease to beat and all the brazen tumult drops like a plummet into silence fathomless. I felt a soothing languor flowing down and over me, and ebbing through and through my very being. It was not drowsiness ; my eyelids were not heavy, nor did they droop the shadow of a shade. I saw everything about me as clearly as I do this very moment—only, I did not seem a part of my surroundings. My eyes, although conscious of all objects within range, were fixed upon the scrap of paper headed by the zigag scrawl and with an intensity of gaze that seemed to pierce the paper and to see through and beyond it ; and I did not think it strange. I was dimly conscious, too, of being under the control of some influence hitherto undreamed, but I felt no thought of resistance‑
•2464 TALE OF A SPIDER
rather courted the sensation. All was utter calm with me; and I did not think it strange. I saw my hand held out before me in this same position—the forearm resting on the desk—the same pen grasped lightly in my fingers.
Slowly—slowly—slowly—I saw the spider lowering itself above it, wavering and swaying in the air, until, at last, I saw it reach its dangling legs and clutch and cling to the penholder at the tip, and rest there; and I did not think it strange. But I grew duller then, and very chilly, though I vividly recall seeing the hand moved—not of my own volition—the pen dipped in the ink, and brought directly over the old scrap whereon the scrawl was traced; and I remember, too, that as I watched the motion of my hand, I still saw beyond the surface of the paper, and read the very words my pen traced afterward. I say the words my pen traced—or my hand—either —both—for the act was not my own, I swear! And the spider still sat perched there at his post, rocked lightly with the motion of the pen, with all his arms hugged round him as though chuckling to himself ; and I say to you again, and yet again, I did not think it strange.
Not until the page before me had been filled did I regain my natural state of being, nor did it seem that I then would, had not the spider quitted his position and run down the penholder, leaning from it for an instant, touching and pressing my naked hand: then I was conscious of a keen exquisite sting; and with a quick spasmodic motion
TALE OF A SPIDER 2463
I flung the hideous insect from it. As I lifted my white face and starting eyes, I saw the spider wildly clambering toward the ceiling on its invisible thread. Then, with a mingled sense of fear, bewilderment and admiration, as oppressive and strange as indescribable, I turned to the mysterious scrap and read, traced tremblingly, but plainly, in a dainty flowing hand, unlike any I had ever seen before, the lines I now copy from the original script before me, bearing the pedantic title of "Ye Scholar":
"Ho! ho! Ye Scholar recketh not how lean His lank frame waxeth in ye hectic gloom That smeareth o'er ye dim walls of his room
His wavering shadow! Shut is he, I ween,
Like as a withered nosegay, in between
Ye musty, mildewed leaves of some volume Of ancient lore ye moth and he consume In jointure. Yet a something in his mien Forbids all mockery, though quaint is he,
And eke fantastical in form and face
As that Old Knight ye Tale of Chivalry Made mad immortally, yet spared ye grace Of some rare virtue which we sigh to see, And pour our laughter out most tenderly."
Over and over I read the strange production to myself ; and, as at last I started to my feet repeating it aloud, all suddenly the spider swooped on its flying thread before my upturned face, swung back upon the margin of the wall, and went scampering round and round above me as I read.
I did not sleep two hours of the night, but
2466 TALE OF A SPIDER
mouthed and mouthed that sonnet—even in my scrappy dreams—until when morning strained the sunlight through the slatted window-blinds I turned and dragged myself from the room like an old, old man with childish summer fancies in his head and bleak and barren winter in his bones.
The night following, and the next night, and the next, I did not permit myself to enter my room after dark—not from a sense of fear, but simply because I felt my mind was becoming too entirely engrossed with the contemplation of a theme that, even yet at times, I feared was more chimera than reality.
Throughout the day as usual with me, I worked perhaps three hours at such trivial tasks as required only the lightest mental effort; nor did I allow my mind to wander from the matter-of-fact duties before me to the contemplation of the ever-present topic that so confounded it when studiously dwelt on. Only once in this long abstinence from the fascinating problem did I catch sight of the spider, peering down upon me from behind the shoulder of the little terra-cotta bust of Dickens that sits on a dusty bracket just above my desk. I looked up at the little fellow with a smile, rose to my feet and held out my hand, when, at the motion the insect cowered trembling for an instant, then sprang up the wall beyond my reach. But from that time on I always felt its presence though unseen, intuitively conscious that at all hours my every act was vigilantly scrutinized and guarded by the all-seeing
TALE OF A SPIDER 2461
cessfully, must needs require the most rigid and unwavering strength of reason.
In further justice to my honesty in this resolve, I will say that I began at once the exercise of systematic habits. Although by no means pleasant, I took long rambles in the country ; ate regularly of wholesome food, regained my appetite, and retired at night at seasonable hours. I will not say that sleep came sooner to my eyes by reason of the change, but anyway I wooed sleep—let this suffice. I threw smoking aside entirely—not by any means a hard trial for me, although an occasional cigar is a great pleasure; but I threw it aside. Did not study so intensely as had been by wont ; read but little, and wrote less—even neglecting my letters. Yet, with all this revolution of reform, I am left to confess that I never for one waking moment forgot the mystic legend, "Ye Scholar," or its equally incomprehensible author; and how could I?
Since the first discovery of the strange insect and its musical proclivities three evenings only have passed that I have not been favored with its most extraordinary performances on the guitar. In this way has its presence been usually made known. And noting carefully, as I have done, the peculiar times and conditions of its coming, together with such other suggestions as the surroundings have afforded me, I have been led to believe that the spider reasoned as a man would reason: In no instance yet has it ever touched the instrument when I sat busy at my desk ; and only when my pen was
TALE OF A SPIDER 2467
eye of that spider, and that every motion of my pen was duly noted by it, and accepted as token of the fact that I was busy and must not be disturbed. Indeed, I even allowed my vanity such license that I came to believe that the spider was not only interested in everything I did, but was actually proud of my accomplishments. Certain it is, I argued, that he likes my silence, my music and my voice, and equally apparent from his actions that he likes my society under any and all circumstances. Nor shall it be the promptings of mere curiosity on my part that shall make me endeavor to strengthen and develop this curious bond of fellowship, but my serious and most courteous duty as well.
So I went back to my night labors, greeted the first evening, as I lit my lamp, by another mysterious scrawl, which I readily interpreted in the one word "Love."
I dashed the scrap down in a very spasm of revulsion and loathing. I can not describe nor will I weaken the sense of utter abhorrence that fell upon me by an attempt to set it forth in words ; why, I could taste it, and it sickened me soul-deep! I remember catching quick breaths through my clenched and naked teeth ; I remember snatching up the pen as a despairing man grasps a dagger ; I remember stabbing it in the ink, and drawing it back in defiance ; but as my hand once more rested on the desk it was my hand no longer.—It was like another man's, and that man my deadly foe. I
2468 TALE OF A SPIDER
looked upon it vengefully, wishing that in my other I but held an ax—an old ax, with a nicked and rusty edge,—that I might hack and haggle the traitor-member sheer off at the numb and pulseless wrist. And then the spider I I tried to shrink back as the hideous insect again dangled before my eyes, but could not move. Once more it clutched the holder of the pen, huddled its quivering limbs together, and squatted in its old position on the tip. And then began the movement of the hand.
This time my eyes were fixed upon the insect. I could not move them from it. I could see nothing else ; and but for the undulating motions of the pen I felt that I might note its very breathings—and I did see it smile. Oh, horrible! Why, I set my teeth together till my inner sense of hearing pinged like a bell, and said, away down among the twanging fibers of my heart, "I will kill you for that smile! I will kill you—kill you !" And when at last the motion of the hand had ceased, and the hideous insect again ran down the penholder, leaning, and pressing into my naked flesh that keen exquisite sting, I snapped the thrall that bound me, flung the spider violently against the desk, stabbed the pen wildly at it with a dozen swift vindictive motions as the abhorrent thing lay for the moment writhing on its back. And I struck it, too, and pinioned it ; but as for an instant I turned away from the revolting sight, my pen still quivering above it, sunken eye-deep in the desk, my victim yet escaped me, for, as I turned again, no sign remained to designate
TALE OF A SPIDER 2469
my murderous deed but one poor severed limb, twitching and trembling in ever-lessening throes and convulsions.
I turned my eyes upon the mysterious scrap once more, with the same unaccountable feeling of dread and revulsion that had possesed me as I read the scrawl. Written in the same minute, tremulous but legible hand in which the first was traced, 1 read:
"0, what strange tragedy is this of mine
That wars within, and will not let me cry?
My soul seems leaking from me sigh by sigh; And yet I dare not say—nor he divine
That I, so vile and loathsome in design,
Am brimmed with boiling love; but I must lie Forever steeped in seething agony I
If all these quivering arms might wreathe and twine, And soak him up in one warm clasp of bliss
One long caress, when babbling wild with words
My voice were crushed and mangled with his kiss,
My soul would whistle sweeter than the birds.—But now, my dry and husky heart in this Pent heat of gasping passion can but hiss!".
Be patient! I am hurrying toward the end. I am very lonesome here alone. For three long empty nights have I sat thus, with nothing but the raspings of my pen for company. I can not sleep now ; and I would not if I could. My head feels as if I wore a very heavy hat, and I put up my hand at times to see. /try head is feverish, that's all. I have been working too late again. Last night I heard Hays come up the steps—my window opens on an alley;
2470 TALE OF A SPIDER
but at night the light shows from the street. Hays has a peculiar walk: I'd know it if I heard it in the grass above my grave. And he came up the stairs last night, and knocked and rattled at the door; but I was very still, and so he went away. Sometimes I think that fellow isn't right exactly in his mind. I never knew what silence was before. It will not • even whisper to me now. Sometimes I stop and listen, and then it holds its breath and listens too—but we never hear a thing. The old guitar leans in the corner with its face turned to the wall. I know it's sorry, but it would be such a comfort to me if it would only moan or murmur as it used. I always tune it the first thing when I come in, and lean it back, just as it was when the spider first began to play it ; but the spider won't go near it any more. Even the spider has deserted me, and gone away and left me here alone—all alone! One night, late, I heard it coming up the stairs; and it knocked and rattled at the door, and I wouldn't let it in, and so it went away—and do you know that I have often thought that that spider wasn't right—in its mind, you know? Oh, yes! I have often thought so—often! This hat bothers me, but I'll hurry on—I must hurry on.
When I came in to-night—no; last night it was—when I came to work last night, there was another of those scrawls the spider had left for me, and it was written in a very trembling hand. The letters were blotted and slurred together so I could hardly make the word out ; but I did make it out, and it
TALE OF A SPIDER 2471
was simply the one word, "Death"—just "Death." I didn't like the looks of it, and I tried to make it read something else ; but it wouldn't. It was "Death." And so I laid it gently on the desk and walked about the room very softly for a long time. And the night kept on getting stiller, and stiller, and stiller, till it just stopped. But that didn't disturb me ; I was not sleepy, anyhow, and so I sat down at the desk, took up my pen, and waited. I had nothing else to do, and the guitar wouldn't play any more, and I was lonesome ; so I sat down at the desk, and took up the pen, and waited.
Sometimes I think it's those spells the spider gives me that make my head feel this way. It feels as if I had a heavy hat on ; but I haven't any hat on at all, and if I had I wouldn't have it on here in the room. I can't even sit in the cars with a hat on.
And so I waited, and waited ; but it seemed as if it wasn't still enough for the spider yet. It was still enough for me; but I got to thinking about why the spider didn't come, and concluded at last that it wasn't still enough yet for the spider. So I waited till it got so still I could see it ; and then the spider came sliding along down through it ; and when it touched the penholder, and I got a good clear look at it, I flashed dead-numb clean to the marrow.—It was so pale I Did you ever see a spider after it has had a long spell of sickness? That's the way this spider looked. I shuddered as it huddled its trembling legs together and sat down. And then the pen moved off, with that pale, ghastly hag‑
2472 TALE OP A SPIDER
gard insect nodding away again as though it still were victor of the field; and as, at last, I found courage to peer closer into its face, I saw that same accursed smile flung back at me. All pity and compassion fled away, and I felt my heart snarl rabidly and champ its bloody jaws with deadly hate. And when the spider hobbled down the penholder and touched my hand again, the only sting I felt upon that hand was the vengeful blow I smote it with the other and I held and ground it there with an exultant cry that rang out upon the silence till the echoes clapped their very hands and shouted with me, "Dead! dead at last! Dead! dead! and I am free I" Oh, how I reveled in my fancied triumph as I danced about the room, crunching my hands together till I thought that I could feel the clammy fragments of the hateful thing gamed and slimed about between my palms and fingers! And what a fool I was! for when at last I unclasped them and spread them wide apart in utter loathing, they were as free from taint or moisture as they are this very moment ; and then it all flashed on me that I was in some horrid dream—some hideous baleful nightmare—some fell delusion of a fevered sleep. But no! I could not force that comfort on myself, for here the lamp sat burning brightly as at this very moment, and I reached and held my finger on the chimney till it burned. I wheeled across the room, opened the door, went to the window and raised it, and felt the chill draft sweeping in upon my fevered face. I took my hat from the sofa and dashed out into
TALE OF A SPIDER 2473
the night. I was not asleep ; I had not been asleep; for not until broad daylight did I return, to find the window opened just as I had left it ; the lamp still blazing at its fullest glare, and that grim scrawl, "Death," lying still upon the desk, with these lines traced legibly beneath it :
"And did you know our old friend Death is dead?
Ah me! he died last night; my ghost was there,
And all his phantom-friends from everywhere Were sorrowfully grouped about his bed. 1 die; God help the living now!' he said
With such a ghastly pathos, I declare
The tears oozed from the blind eyes of the air And spattered on his face in gouts of red. And then he smiled—the dear old bony smile
That glittered on us in that crazy whim When first our daring feet leapt the defile
Of life and ran so eagerly to him:
And so he smiled upon us, even while
The kind old sockets grew forever dim."
I am almost through. It is nearly morning as I write. When daylight comes, and this is finished, I can sleep.
That last spider that appeared to me was not the real spider. That last spider was not a spider, and I'll tell you how I know: Four hours ago, as I sat writing here, I dipped and dragged a strange clot from the inkstand with my pen. It is barely dry yet, and it is a drowned spider. It is the real spider —the other spider was its ghost. Listen: I know this is the real spider from the fact that it has one leg missing, and the leg that has been lying on my
2474 TALE OF A SPIDER
desk here, for three days and nights, I find, upon careful examination and adjustment, is the leg that originally supplied this deficiency.
Whatever theory it may please you to advance regarding the mysterious manifestations of the spider while in the flesh will doubtless be as near the correct one as my own. Certainly I shall not attempt to controvert any opinion you may choose to express. I simply reserve the right, in conclusion of my story, to say that I believe this spider met his death by suicide.