第7章 THE INVALIDS STORY(1)

I seem sixty and married,but these effects are due to my condition and sufferings,for I am a bachelor,and only forty-one.It will be hard for you to believe that I,who am now but a shadow,was a hale,hearty man two short years ago,a man of iron,a very athlete!--yet such is the simple truth.But stranger still than this fact is the way in which Ilost my health.I lost it through helping to take care of a box of guns on a two-hundred-mile railway journey one winter's night.It is the actual truth,and I will tell you about it.

I belong in Cleveland,Ohio.One winter's night,two years ago,Ireached home just after dark,in a driving snow-storm,and the first thing I heard when I entered the house was that my dearest boyhood friend and schoolmate,John B.Hackett,had died the day before,and that his last utterance had been a desire that I would take his remains home to his poor old father and mother in Wisconsin.I was greatly shocked and grieved,but there was no time to waste in emotions;I must start at once.I took the card,marked "Deacon Levi Hackett,Bethlehem,Wisconsin,"and hurried off through the whistling storm to the railway station.Arrived there I found the long white-pine box which had been described to me;I fastened the card to it with some tacks,saw it put safely aboard the express car,and then ran into the eating-room to provide myself with a sandwich and some cigars.When I returned,presently,there was my coffin-box back again,apparently,and a young fellow examining around it,with a card in his hands,and some tacks and a hammer!I was astonished and puzzled.He began to nail on his card,and I rushed out to the express car,in a good deal of a state of mind,to ask for an explanation.But no--there was my box,all right,in the express car;it hadn't been disturbed.[The fact is that without my suspecting it a prodigious mistake had been made.I was carrying off a box of guns which that young fellow had come to the station to ship to a rifle company in Peoria,Illinois,and he had got my corpse!]Just then the conductor sung out "All aboard,"and I jumped into the express car and got a comfortable seat on a bale of buckets.The expressman was there,hard at work,--a plain man of fifty,with a simple,honest,good-natured face,and a breezy,practical heartiness in his general style.

As the train moved off a stranger skipped into the car and set a package of peculiarly mature and capable Limburger cheese on one end of my coffin-box--I mean my box of guns.That is to say,I know now that it was Limburger cheese,but at that time I never had heard of the article in my life,and of course was wholly ignorant of its character.Well,we sped through the wild night,the bitter storm raged on,a cheerless misery stole over me,my heart went down,down,down!The old expressman made a brisk remark or two about the tempest and the arctic weather,slammed his sliding doors to,and bolted them,closed his window down tight,and then went bustling around,here and there and yonder,setting things to rights,and all the time contentedly humming "Sweet By and By,"in a low tone,and flatting a good deal.Presently I began to detect a most evil and searching odor stealing about on the frozen air.This depressed my spirits still more,because of course I attributed it to my poor departed friend.There was something infinitely saddening about his calling himself to my remembrance in this dumb pathetic way,so it was hard to keep the tears back.Moreover,it distressed me on account of the old expressman,who,I was afraid,might notice it.However,he went humming tranquilly on,and gave no sign;and for this I was grateful.

Grateful,yes,but still uneasy;and soon I began to feel more and more uneasy every minute,for every minute that went by that odor thickened up the more,and got to be more and more gamey and hard to stand.

Presently,having got things arranged to his satisfaction,the expressman got some wood and made up a tremendous fire in his stove.

This distressed me more than I can tell,for I could not but feel that it was a mistake.I was sure that the effect would be deleterious upon my poor departed friend.Thompson--the expressman's name was Thompson,as Ifound out in the course of the night--now went poking around his car,stopping up whatever stray cracks he could find,remarking that it didn't make any difference what kind of a night it was outside,he calculated to make us comfortable,anyway.I said nothing,but I believed he was not choosing the right way.Meantime he was humming to himself just as before;and meantime,too,the stove was getting hotter and hotter,and the place closer and closer.I felt myself growing pale and qualmish,but grieved in silence and said nothing.

Soon I noticed that the "Sweet By and By "was gradually fading out;next it ceased altogether,and there was an ominous stillness.After a few moments Thompson said,"Pfew!I reckon it ain't no cinnamon 't I've loaded up thish-yer stove with!"He gasped once or twice,then moved toward the cof--gun-box,stood over that Limburger cheese part of a moment,then came back and sat down near me,looking a good deal impressed.After a contemplative pause,he said,indicating the box with a gesture,"Friend of yourn?""Yes,"I said with a sigh.

"He's pretty ripe,ain't he!"