Kitabı oku: «Over the Plum Pudding», sayfa 2

This was many years ago, dear reader, before the extravagant methods of the present day crept into and somewhat poisoned the Christmas spirit, but from that day to this Old Bills has never ceased to haunt me. He has been my constant companion from that glorious morning until to-day, when I find myself telling you of him, and, save at the beginning of every recurring month, when I am always very busy and somewhat anxious about making ends meet, his society is never irksome. Once you get used to Bills he becomes a passion, and were it not for his singular name I think I should find him a constant source of joy.

It rather dampened my ardor, I must confess, when I found that the initials of the good old doctor, U. P., stood for Un Paid, but if you can escape the chill and irksomeness of that there is no reason why the poorest of us all may not derive much real joy in life from the good things we can get through Bills.

In justice to the readers of this little tale, I should perhaps say, in conclusion, that I read it to my wife before sending it out, and she asserts that it was all a dream, because she says she never received that rope of pearls. To which I retorted that she deserved to, anyhow – but, dream or otherwise, the visitation has truly been with me for many years, and I fear the criticism of my spouse is somewhat prompted by jealousy, for she has stated in plain terms that she would rather go without Christmas than see me constantly haunted by Bills: but, after all, it is a common condition, and it does help one at Christmas time in an era when the simple observance of the season, so characteristic of the olden time, has been superceded by a lavish expenditure which would bring ruin to the richest of us were it not for the benign influence of Bills, M.D.

The Flunking of Watkins's Ghost

Parley was a Freshman at Blue Haven University, and, like many other Freshmen, had a wholesome fear of examinations. In the football field he was courageous to the verge of foolhardiness, but when he sat in his chair in the examination-room, with a paper covered with questions before him, he was as timid as a fawn. There was no patent flying or revolving wedge method of getting him through the rush-line of Greek, nor by any known tackle could he down the half-backs of mathematics and kick the ball of his intellect through the goal-posts, on the other side of which lay the coveted land of Sophomoredom. Hence Parley, who had spent most of his time practicing for his class eleven, found himself at the end of his first term in a state of worry like unto nothing he had ever known before.

"It would be tough to fail at this stage of the game," he thought, as he reflected upon what his father would say in the event of his failure. "It wouldn't be so bad to flunk later on, but for a chap to fall down at the very beginning of his race wouldn't reflect much credit on his trainer, and I think it very likely the governor would be mad about it."

"Of course he would!" said a voice at his side. "Who wouldn't?"

Parley jumped, he was so startled. Nor was it surprising that even so cool and physically strong a person as he should for an instant know the sensation of fear. If you or I should happen to be lying off in our room before a flickering log-fire, which furnished the only illumination, smoking a pipe, reflecting, and all alone, I think we would ourselves, superior beings as we are, be startled to hear a strange voice beside us answering our unspoken thoughts. This was exactly what had happened in Parley's case. Now that the football season was over, he realized that too much time had been spent on that and too little upon his studies, and conditions were all he could see in the future. This naturally made Parley very unhappy, and upon this particular night he had retired to his room to be alone until his blue spell should wear off. Several of his classmates had knocked at his door, but he had made no response, and in order further to give the impression that he was not within he had turned out his gas and table lamp, and sat pulling viciously away at his pipe, watching the flames on the hearth as they danced to and fro upon the logs, which last hissed and spluttered away as if they approved neither of the dancing flames nor of Parley himself.

Straining his eyes in the direction whence the voice had seemed to come, Parley endeavored to ascertain who had spoken, but all was as it had been before. There was no one in sight, and the freshman settled back again in his chair.

"Humph!" he ejaculated. "Guess I must have fallen asleep and dreamed it."

"Not a bit of it," interposed the voice again. "I'm over here in the arm-chair."

Parley sprang to his feet and grabbed up his "banger," as the big cane he had managed to hold to the bitter end in the rush of cherished memory was called.

"Oh, you are, are you?" he cried, controlling his fear with great difficulty; and his voice would hardly come, his throat and lips had become so dry from nervousness. "And, pray, how the deuce did you get in?" he demanded, peering over into the arm-chair's capacious depths – still seeing nothing, however.

"Oh, the usual way," replied the voice – "through the door."

"That's not so," retorted Parley. "Both doors are locked, so you couldn't. Why don't you come out like a man where I can see you, and tell the truth, if you know how?"

"Can't," said the other – "that is, I can't come out like a man."

"Ah!" sneered Parley. "What are you then – a purple cow?"

"I don't know what a purple cow is," replied the voice, in sepulchral tones. "I never saw one. They didn't have 'em in my day, only plain brown ones – cows of the primary colors."

"Ah?" said Parley, smartly. The invisible thing was speaking so meekly that his momentary terror was passing away. "You had blue cows in your day, eh?"

"Oh, my, yes!" replied the strange visitor; "lots of 'em. Take any old cow and deprive her of her calf, and she becomes as blue as indigo."

Here the voice laughed, and Parley joined.

"You're a clever – ah – what? – A clever It," he said.

"You might call me an It if you wanted to," said the stranger. "Possibly that's my general classification. To be more specific, however, I'm a ghost."

"Ho! Nonsense'" retorted Parley. "I don't believe in ghosts."

"That may be," said the other, calmly. "I didn't when I was here, a living human being with two legs and a taste for smoke, like you. But I found out afterwards that I was all wrong. When you get to be a ghost, if you have any self-respect you'll believe in 'em. Furthermore, if I wasn't a ghost I couldn't have got in here through two closed doors to speak to you."

"That's so," replied Parley. "I didn't think of that. Still, you can't expect me to believe you without some proof. Suppose you let me whack you over the head with this stick? If it goes through you without hurting you, all well and good. If it doesn't, and knocks you out, I sha'n't be any the worse off. What do you say?"

"I'm perfectly willing," said the voice; "only look out for your chair. You might spoil it."

"Afraid, eh?" said Parley.

"For the chair, yes," replied the spirit. "Still it isn't my chair, and if you want to take the risk, I'm willing. You can kick a football through my ribs if you wish. It's all the same to me."

"I'll try the banger," said Parley, dryly. "Then if you are a sneak-thief, as I half suspect, you'll get what you deserve. If you're what you claim to be, all's well for both of us. Shall I?"

"Go ahead," replied the ghost, nonchalantly.

Parley was more surprised than ever, and was beginning to believe that It was a ghost, after all. No sneak-thief would willingly permit himself to be whacked on the head with any such adamantine weapon as that which Parley held in his hand.

"Never mind," said he, relenting. "I won't."

"Yon must, now," said the other. "If you don't, I can't help you at all. I can't be of service to a person who either can't or won't believe in me. If you want to pass your examinations, whack."

"Bah! What idiocy!" cried Parley. "I – "

"Go ahead and whack," persisted the voice. "As hard as you know how, too, if you want to. Pretend you are cornered by a wild beast, and have only one chance to escape, and whack for dear life. I'm ready. My arms are folded, and I'm sitting right here over the embroidered cushion that serves as the seat of your chair."

"I've caught you, there," said Parley. "You aren't sitting there at all. I can see the embroidered cushion."

"Which simply proves what I say," retorted the ghost. "If I were not a ghost, but a material thing like a sneak-thief, you couldn't see through me. Whack away."

And Parley did so. He raised the banger aloft, and brought it down on the spot where the invisible creature was sitting with all the force at his command.

"There," said the ghost, calmly, from the chair. "Are you satisfied? It didn't do me any damage; though I must say you've knocked the embroidery into smithereens."

It was even as he said. The force with which Parley had brought the heavy stick down had made a great rent in the soft cushion, and he had had his trouble for his pains.

"Well, do you believe in me now?" the ghost demanded, Parley, in his surprise and wrath, having found no words suited to the occasion.

"I suppose I've got to," he replied, ruefully gazing upon the ruined cushion. "That's what I get for being an idiot. I don't know – "

"It's what you get for pretending that you can't believe all that you can't see," put in the ghost, "which is a very grave error for a young man – or an old one, either, for that matter – to make."

Parley sat down, and was silent for a moment.

"Well," he said at length, "granting that there are such things as ghosts, and that you are one, what the deuce do you come bothering me for? Just wanted to plague me, I suppose, and get me to smash my furniture."

"Not at all," retorted the ghost. "I didn't ask you to smash your furniture. On the contrary, I warned you that that was what you were going to do. You suggested smashing me, and I told you to go ahead."

Parley couldn't deny it, but he could not quite conceal his resentment.

"Don't you think I'm bothered enough by the prospect of a beautiful flunk at my exams, without your trickling in through the doorway to exasperate me?" he demanded.

"Who has come to exasperate you, Parley?" said the ghost, a trifle irritably. "I haven't. I came to help you, but, by Jingo! I've half a mind to leave you to get out of your troubles the best way you can. Do you know what's the matter with you? You are too impetuous. You are the kind of chap who strikes first and thinks afterwards. So far your experiments on me have kept me from telling you who I am and what I've come for. If you don't want help, say so. There are others who do, and I'll be jiggered if I wouldn't rather help them than you, now that I know what a fly-away Jack you are."

The spirit with which the visitor uttered these words made Parley somewhat ashamed of his behavior, and yet no one could really blame him, under the circumstances, for doing what he did.

"I'm sorry," he said, in a moment, "but you must remember, sir, that at Blue Haven there is no chair in manners, and the etiquette of a meeting of this sort is a closed book to me."

"That's all right," returned the ghost, kindly. "I don't blame you, on the whole. The trouble lies just where you say. In college people study geology and physiology and all the other 'ologies, save spectrology. Most college trustees disbelieve in ghosts, just as you do, and the consequence is you only touch upon the relations of man with the spirit world in your studies of psychology, and then only in a very incomplete fashion. Any gentleman knows how to behave to another gentleman, but when he comes into contact with a spook he's all at sea. If somebody would only write a ghost-etiquette book, or a 'Spectral Don't,' people who suffer from what you are pleased to call hallucinations would have an easier time of it. If I had been a book-agent, or a sneak-thief, or a lady selling patent egg-beaters which no home should be without, you would have received me with greater courtesy than you did."

"Still," said Parley, anxious to make out a good case for himself, "most of 'em wouldn't walk right into a fellow's room and scare him to death, you know."

"Nor would I," said the ghost. "You are still living, Parley, as you wouldn't have been if I'd scared you to death."

"Specious, but granted," returned Parley. "And now, Mr. Spook, let's exchange cards."

"I left my card-case at home," laughed the spirit. "But I'll tell you who I am and it will suffice. I'm old Billie Watkins, of the class of ninety-nine."

"There is no Watkins in ninety-nine," said Parley, suspiciously.

"Well, there was," retorted the spirit. "I ought to know, because I was old Billie myself. Valedictorian, too."

"What are you talking about?" demanded Parley. "Ninety-nine hasn't graduated yet!"

"Yes, it has," returned the ghost. "Seventeen ninety-nine, I mean."

Parley whistled. "Oh, I see! You're a relic of the last century!"

"That's it; and I can tell you, Parley, we eighteenth-century boys made Blue Haven a very different sort of a place from what you make it," said Billie. "We didn't mind being young, you know. When we had an eight-oared race, we rowed only four men, and each man managed two oars. And there wasn't any fighting over strokes, either; and we'd row anybody that chose to try us. The main principle was to have a race, and the only thing we thought about was getting in first."

"In any old way, I suppose?" sneered Parley.

"You bet!" cried the spirit, with enthusiasm. "We'd have put our eight-oared crew up against twenty Indians in a canoe, if they'd asked us; and when it came to rounders, we could bat balls a mile in those days. A fellow didn't have to make a science out of his fun when I was at Blue Haven."

"And what good did it do you?" cried Parley.

"We held every belt and every mug and every medal in the thirteen States, that's what. We laid out Cambridge at one-old-cat eight times in two months, and as for those New York boys, we beat 'em at marbles on their own campus," returned the ghost.

Parley was beginning to be interested.

"I'd like to see the records of those times," he said.

"Records? Bosh!" said old Billie Watkins. "You don't for a moment believe that every time we played a game of marbles or peg-top, or rowed against a lot of the town boys, we sat down and wrote up a history of it, do you? We were too busy having fun for that. Oh, those days! those days!" the ghost added, with a sigh. "College wasn't filled with politicians and scientific fun-seekers and grandfathers then."

"Grandfathers? More likely you were forefathers," suggested Parley.

"We've become both since," said Watkins. "But we were boys then, and glad of it."

"Aren't we boys now?" queried Parley.

"Yes, you are," replied the ghost. "But you seem to be doing your best to conceal the fact. As soon as a lad gets into college now he puts on all the airs of a man. Walks, talks like a grave man. Eats and drinks like a grave man. Why, I don't believe you ever robbed the president's hen-coop in your life!"

"No," laughed Parley, "never. For two reasons: it's easier to get our chickens cooked at the dining-hall, and Prex hasn't got a hen-coop."

"Exactly. Even our college presidents aren't what they were. Never hooked a ham out of his smoke-house, either, I'll wager, and for the same reason – Prex hasn't a smoke-house. All the smoking he does is in the line of cigars. But all this hasn't got anything to do with what I came here for. I came to help you, and I've seen enough of the way things are done in colleges these days to know that in the other respects of which I have spoken you are beyond help. Besides, this help is personal. You are worried about your examinations, aren't you?"

"Well, rather," said Parley. "You see, I've been playing football."

"Precisely," said Watkins. "And you've put so much time into learning to do it scientifically and without using your feet, as we did, that you've let everything else go."

"I suppose so," said Parley, sullenly.

"That's it," said old Billie Watkins. "Now that everything's science, there isn't time for a boy to do more than one thing at a time, and he's got to choose between his degree and seeing his picture in the papers as an athlete. Well, it's not your fault, maybe. It's the times, and I'm going to help you out. I always try to help somebody once a year. It's my Christmas gift to mankind, and this year I've decided to help you out of your fix. Last year I helped Blue Haven win the debating championship as against our traditional rivals. This year I should have tried to get Blue Haven to the fore in the boat-race, but everybody about here was so cocksure of winning it didn't seem to be necessary. I'm sorry now I didn't know it was all men's bluff and not boys' confidence. I might have helped the little men out. Still, that's over, and you are to be the gainer. I'll pass your examinations for you."

"What?" cried Parley, scarcely able to believe his ears.

"I'll pass your examinations for you," repeated the ghost. "It won't be hard. As I told you, I was valedictorian of my class."

"But how?" asked Parley. "You couldn't pass yourself off for me, you know."

"Never said I could," returned Billie Watkins. "Never wanted to. I'd rather be me, floating around in space, than you. What I propose to do is to stand alongside of you, and tell you the answers to your questions."

"But what will the professors say?" demanded Parley.

"How will they know? They won't be able to see me any more than you can," said the ghost. "It's easy as shooting."

"Well, I don't know if it's square," said Parley. "In fact, I do know that it isn't; but if I get through this time I won't get into the same fix again."

"That's just the point," returned the ghost. "You're young, in spite of your trying not to be, and you've got into trouble. I'll help you out once, but after that you'll have to paddle your own steam-yacht. I suppose you scientific watermen wouldn't demean yourselves by paddling a canoe, the way we used to."

"I'm sure I'm very much obliged, Mr. Watkins," said Parley.

"Oh, botheration!" cried the ghost. "Mister Watkins! Look here, Parley, we're both Blue Haven boys – somewhat far apart in time, it's true, but none the less Blue-Havenites. Don't 'mister' me. Call me Billie."

"All right, Billie," said Parley. "I'll go you, and after it's all over I'll be as much of a boy as I can."

"That's right," said the ghost of old Billie Watkins, and then he departed. At least I presume he departed, for from that time on to the day of the examinations Parley did not hear his voice again.

What happened then can best be explained by the narration of an interview between Parley and the ghost of old Billie Watkins on the night of the concluding examination-day. Sick, tired, and flunked, poor Parley went to his room to bemoan his unhappy fate. In no single branch had he been successful. Apparently his reliance upon the assistance of Watkins's ghost had proved a mistake – as, in fact, it was, although poor old Watkins was, as it turned out, no more to blame than if he had never volunteered his services.

Flinging himself down in despair, Parley gave way to his feelings.

"That's what I get for being an ass and believing in ghosts. I might have known it was all a dream," he groaned.

"It wasn't," said the unmistakable voice of Watkins, from the chair, which had been repaired.

Parley jumped as if stung.

"You're a gay old valedictorian, you are!" he cried, glowering at the chair. "Next time you have a Christmas gift for mankind, take it and burn it, will you? A pretty fix you've got me into."

"I'm sorry, Parley," began the ghost. "I – "

"Sorry be hanged!" cried Parley. "If you hadn't made me believe in you, I might have crammed up on my Greek and Latin anyhow. As it is, it's a Waterloo all around."

"If you won't listen – " the ghost began again.

"I've listened enough!" roared Parley, thoroughly enraged. "And if there was any way in which I could get at you, I'd make you smart for your low-down trick!"

"To think," moaned the ghost, "that I should see the day when old Billie Watkins was accused of a low-down trick – and I tried to help him, too."

"Tried to help me?" sneered Parley. "How the deuce do you make that out? You didn't come within a mile of me, and I've not only flunked, but I've lost a half-dozen bets on my ability to pass, just because I believed in you."

"I was within a mile of you," retorted the ghost, indignantly. "I was right square in front of you."

"Then why the dickens didn't you answer the questions? I read 'em out so loud that old Professor Wiggins sat on me for it."

"I know you did, Parley," said the ghost, meekly. "And I'd have answered 'em if I could. But I couldn't."

"Couldn't?" cried Parley.

"Regularly just couldn't," said the ghost.

"A valedictorian couldn't answer a question on a Freshman's paper?" cried Parley, scornfully.

"No," said the ghost.

"Fine memory you must have! Do you know what a-b, ab, spells?" sneered Parley.

"I do, of course," retorted the ghost, angrily. "A-b, ab, spells nothing. But that doesn't prove anything. I remember all I ever learned at Blue Haven, but I've made a discovery, Parley, which lets me out. You ought to have told me, but, my dear fellow, college begins now just about where it used to leave off."

"What?" queried Parley, doubtfully. "What do you mean?"

"Why, it's plain enough, Jack! Can't you see?" said Watkins. "What would make a valedictorian in my day won't help a Freshman through his first year now. Times have changed."

"Oh, that's it – eh?" said Parley, somewhat mollified. "It isn't only the fellows that have changed and their sports, but the curriculum – eh? That it?"

"Precisely," rejoined old Billie, with a sigh of relief that Parley should understand him. "I'm beginning to understand, my boy, why you fellows have to be little men and not boys. No average boy could pass any such stiff paper as that, and I found myself as ignorant as you are."

"Thanks," said Parley, with a short laugh. "I think you ought to have found it out before leading me into accepting your Christmas gift, though."

"It was you who should have found out and told me," retorted the ghost. "All I can say is that in my day I'd have got you through with flying colors."

"Well, I'm much obliged," said Parley. "I'll get out of it somehow, but it means hard work; only, Mr. Spook, don't be so free with your Christmas gifts another time."

"I won't, Jack," said the spirit – "that is, I won't if you'll forgive me and stop calling me mister. Call me Billie again, and show you've forgiven me."

"All right, Billie, my boy," said Parley. "We'll call it square."

And the unhappy ghost wandered off into the night, leaving Parley to fight his battles alone. Whether he has turned up again or not, I am not aware, but, from my observation of Jack Parley's ways ever since, I think he really did learn something from his contact with Billie Watkins's ghost. He has been a good deal of a boy ever since. As for Watkins, I hope that the genial old soul off in space somewhere has also learned something from Jack. If the old chaps and the youngsters can only get together and appreciate one another's good points, and how each has had to labor towards the same end under possibly different conditions, there will be a greater harmony and sympathy between them, and they will discover that, in spite of differing times and differing customs, 'way down at bottom they are the same old wild animals, after all. There is no more delightful spectacle anywhere than that to be seen at a college gathering, where the patriarchs of the fifties and the Freshmen of the present join hand-in-hand and lark it together, and it is this spirit that makes for the glory of Alma Mater everywhere.

So, after all, perhaps the meeting of Jack Parley and old Billie Watkins's ghost had its value. For my part, I can only hope that it had, and leave them both with my blessing.