The Best American Humorous Short Stories

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"Fix it up again, sonny," he said, renewing his broad, confiding smile, as the spruce
young man poised a glass inquiringly. The living automaton went through the same
motions as before, and again Elder Brown quaffed the fatal mixture.
What a singular power is habit! Up to this time Elder Brown had been entirely innocent
of transgression, but with the old alcoholic fire in his veins, twenty years dropped from
his shoulders, and a feeling came over him familiar to every man who has been "in his
cups." As a matter of fact, the elder would have been a confirmed drunkard twenty years
before had his wife been less strong-minded. She took the reins into her own hands when
she found that his business and strong drink did not mix well, worked him into the
church, sustained his resolutions by making it difficult and dangerous for him to get to his
toddy. She became the business head of the family, and he the spiritual. Only at rare
intervals did he ever "backslide" during the twenty years of the new era, and Mrs. Brown
herself used to say that the "sugar in his'n turned to gall before the backslide ended."
People who knew her never doubted it.
But Elder Brown's sin during the remainder of the day contained an element of
responsibility. As he moved majestically down toward where Balaam slept in the
sunlight, he felt no fatigue. There was a glow upon his cheek-bones, and a faint tinge
upon his prominent nose. He nodded familiarly to people as he met them, and saw not the
look of amusement which succeeded astonishment upon the various faces. When he
reached the neighborhood of Balaam it suddenly occurred to him that he might have
forgotten some one of his numerous commissions, and he paused to think. Then a
brilliant idea rose in his mind. He would forestall blame and disarm anger with kindness--
he would purchase Hannah a bonnet.
What woman's heart ever failed to soften at sight of a new bonnet?
As I have stated, the elder was a man of action. He entered a store near at hand.
"Good-morning," said an affable gentleman with a Hebrew countenance, approaching.
"Good-mornin', good-mornin'," said the elder, piling his bundles on the counter. "I hope
you are well?" Elder Brown extended his hand fervidly.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"Quite well, I thank you. What--"
"And the little wife?" said Elder Brown, affectionately retaining the Jew's hand.
"Quite well, sir."
"And the little ones--quite well, I hope, too?"
"Yes, sir; all well, thank you. Something I can do for you?"
The affable merchant was trying to recall his customer's name.
"Not now, not now, thankee. If you please to let my bundles stay untell I come back--"
"Can't I show you something? Hat, coat--"
"Not now. Be back bimeby."
Was it chance or fate that brought Elder Brown in front of a bar? The glasses shone
bright upon the shelves as the swinging door flapped back to let out a coatless clerk, who
passed him with a rush, chewing upon a farewell mouthful of brown bread and bologna.
Elder Brown beheld for an instant the familiar scene within. The screws of his resolution
had been loosened. At sight of the glistening bar the whole moral structure of twenty
years came tumbling down. Mechanically he entered the saloon, and laid a silver quarter
upon the bar as he said:
"A little whiskey an' sugar." The arms of the bartender worked like a faker's in a side
show as he set out the glass with its little quota of "short sweetening" and a cut-glass
decanter, and sent a half-tumbler of water spinning along from the upper end of the bar
with a dime in change.
"Whiskey is higher'n used to be," said Elder Brown; but the bartender was taking another
order, and did not hear him. Elder Brown stirred away the sugar, and let a steady stream
of red liquid flow into the glass. He swallowed the drink as unconcernedly as though his
morning tod had never been suspended, and pocketed the change. "But it ain't any better
than it was," he concluded, as he passed out. He did not even seem to realize that he had
done anything extraordinary.
There was a millinery store up the street, and thither with uncertain step he wended his
way, feeling a little more elate, and altogether sociable. A pretty, black-eyed girl,
struggling to keep down her mirth, came forward and faced him behind the counter. Elder
Brown lifted his faded hat with the politeness, if not the grace, of a Castilian, and made a
sweeping bow. Again he was in his element. But he did not speak. A shower of odds and
ends, small packages, thread, needles, and buttons, released from their prison, rattled
down about him.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The girl laughed. She could not help it. And the elder, leaning his hand on the counter,
laughed, too, until several other girls came half-way to the front. Then they, hiding
behind counters and suspended cloaks, laughed and snickered until they reconvulsed the
elder's vis-Ã*-vis, who had been making desperate efforts to resume her demure
appearance.
"Let me help you, sir," she said, coming from behind the counter, upon seeing Elder
Brown beginning to adjust his spectacles for a search. He waved her back majestically.
"No, my dear, no; can't allow it. You mout sile them purty fingers. No, ma'am. No
gen'l'man'll 'low er lady to do such a thing." The elder was gently forcing the girl back to
her place. "Leave it to me. I've picked up bigger things 'n them. Picked myself up this
mornin'. Balaam--you don't know Balaam; he's my donkey--he tumbled me over his head
in the sand this mornin'." And Elder Brown had to resume an upright position until his
paroxysm of laughter had passed. "You see this old hat?" extending it, half full of
packages; "I fell clear inter it; jes' as clean inter it as them things thar fell out'n it." He
laughed again, and so did the girls. "But, my dear, I whaled half the hide off'n him for it."
"Oh, sir! how could you? Indeed, sir. I think you did wrong. The poor brute did not know
what he was doing, I dare say, and probably he has been a faithful friend." The girl cast
her mischievous eyes towards her companions, who snickered again. The old man was
not conscious of the sarcasm. He only saw reproach. His face straightened, and he
regarded the girl soberly.
"Mebbe you're right, my dear; mebbe I oughtn't."
"I am sure of it," said the girl. "But now don't you want to buy a bonnet or a cloak to
carry home to your wife?"
"Well, you're whistlin' now, birdie; that's my intention; set 'em all out." Again the elder's
face shone with delight. "An' I don't want no one-hoss bonnet neither."
"Of course not. Now here is one; pink silk, with delicate pale blue feathers. Just the thing
for the season. We have nothing more elegant in stock." Elder Brown held it out, upside
down, at arm's-length.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"Well, now, that's suthin' like. Will it soot a sorter redheaded 'ooman?"

A perfectly sober man would have said the girl's corsets must have undergone a terrible
strain, but the elder did not notice her dumb convulsion. She answered, heroically:

"Perfectly, sir. It is an exquisite match."

"I think you're whistlin' again. Nancy's head's red, red as a woodpeck's. Sorrel's only halfway
to the color of her top-knot, an' it do seem like red oughter to soot red.

Nancy's red
an' the hat's red; like goes with like, an' birds of a feather flock together." The old man
laughed until his cheeks were wet.

The girl, beginning to feel a little uneasy, and seeing a customer entering, rapidly fixed
up the bonnet, took fifteen dollars out of a twenty-dollar bill, and calmly asked the elder
if he wanted anything else. He thrust his change somewhere into his clothes, and beat a
retreat. It had occurred to him that he was nearly drunk.

Elder Brown's step began to lose its buoyancy. He found himself utterly unable to walk
straight. There was an uncertain straddle in his gait that carried him from one side of the
walk to the other, and caused people whom he met to cheerfully yield him plenty of
room.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

Balaam saw him coming. Poor Balaam. He had made an early start that day, and for
hours he stood in the sun awaiting relief. When he opened his sleepy eyes and raised his
expressive ears to a position of attention, the old familiar coat and battered hat of the
elder were before him. He lifted up his honest voice and cried aloud for joy.

The effect was electrical for one instant. Elder Brown surveyed the beast with horror, but
again in his understanding there rang out the trumpet words.

"Drunk, drunk, drunk, drer-unc, -er-unc, -unc, -unc."

He stooped instinctively for a missile with which to smite his accuser, but brought up
suddenly with a jerk and a handful of sand. Straightening himself up with a majestic
dignity, he extended his right hand impressively.

"You're a goldarn liar, Balaam, and, blast your old buttons, you kin walk home by
yourself, for I'm danged if you sh'll ride me er step."

Surely Coriolanus never turned his back upon Rome with a grander dignity than sat upon
the old man's form as he faced about and left the brute to survey with anxious eyes the
new departure of his master.

He saw the elder zigzag along the street, and beheld him about to turn a friendly corner.
Once more he lifted up his mighty voice:

"Drunk, drunk, drunk, drer-unc, drer-unc, -erunc, -unc, -unc."

Once more the elder turned with lifted hand and shouted back:

"You're a liar, Balaam, goldarn you! You're er iffamous liar." Then he passed from view.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

III


Mrs. Brown stood upon the steps anxiously awaiting the return of her liege lord. She
knew he had with him a large sum of money, or should have, and she knew also that he
was a man without business methods. She had long since repented of the decision which
sent him to town. When the old battered hat and flour-covered coat loomed up in the
gloaming and confronted her, she stared with terror. The next instant she had seized him.
"For the Lord sakes, Elder Brown, what ails you? As I live, if the man ain't drunk! Elder
Brown! Elder Brown! for the life of me can't I make you hear? You crazy old hypocrite!
you desavin' old sinner! you black-hearted wretch! where have you ben?"
The elder made an effort to wave her off.
"Woman," he said, with grand dignity, "you forgit yus-sef; shu know ware I've ben
'swell's I do. Ben to town, wife, an' see yer wat I've brought--the fines' hat, ole woman, I
could git. Look't the color. Like goes 'ith like; it's red an' you're red, an' it's a dead match.
What yer mean? Hey! hole on! ole woman!--you! Hannah!--you." She literally shook him
into silence.
"You miserable wretch! you low-down drunken sot! what do you mean by coming home
and insulting your wife?" Hannah ceased shaking him from pure exhaustion.
"Where is it, I say? where is it?"
By this time she was turning his pockets wrong side out. From one she got pills, from
another change, from another packages.
"The Lord be praised, and this is better luck than I hoped! Oh, elder! elder! elder! what
did you do it for? Why, man, where is Balaam?"
Thought of the beast choked off the threatened hysterics.
"Balaam? Balaam?" said the elder, groggily. "He's in town. The infernal ole fool 'sulted
me, an' I lef' him to walk home."
His wife surveyed him. Really at that moment she did think his mind was gone; but the
leer upon the old man's face enraged her beyond endurance.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

"You did, did you? Well, now, I reckon you'll laugh for some cause, you will. Back you
go, sir--straight back; an' don't you come home 'thout that donkey, or you'll rue it, sure as
my name is Hannah Brown. Aleck!--you Aleck-k-k!"
A black boy darted round the corner, from behind which, with several others, he had
beheld the brief but stirring scene.
"Put a saddle on er mule. The elder's gwine back to town. And don't you be long about it
neither."
"Yessum." Aleck's ivories gleamed in the darkness as he disappeared.
Elder Brown was soberer at that moment than he had been for hours.
"Hannah, you don't mean it?"
"Yes, sir, I do. Back you go to town as sure as my name is Hannah Brown."
The elder was silent. He had never known his wife to relent on any occasion after she had
affirmed her intention, supplemented with "as sure as my name is Hannah Brown." It was
her way of swearing. No affidavit would have had half the claim upon her as that simple
enunciation.
So back to town went Elder Brown, not in the order of the early morn, but silently,
moodily, despairingly, surrounded by mental and actual gloom.
The old man had turned a last appealing glance upon the angry woman, as he mounted
with Aleck's assistance, and sat in the light that streamed from out the kitchen window.
She met the glance without a waver.
"She means it, as sure as my name is Elder Brown," he said, thickly. Then he rode on.

IV


To say that Elder Brown suffered on this long journey back to Macon would only mildly
outline his experience. His early morning's fall had begun to make itself felt. He was sore
and uncomfortable. Besides, his stomach was empty, and called for two meals it had
missed for the first time in years.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

When, sore and weary, the elder entered the city, the electric lights shone above it like
jewels in a crown. The city slept; that is, the better portion of it did. Here and there,
however, the lower lights flashed out into the night. Moodily the elder pursued his
journey, and as he rode, far off in the night there rose and quivered a plaintive cry. Elder
Brown smiled wearily: it was Balaam's appeal, and he recognized it. The animal he rode
also recognized it, and replied, until the silence of the city was destroyed. The odd clamor
and confusion drew from a saloon near by a group of noisy youngsters, who had been
making a night of it. They surrounded Elder Brown as he began to transfer himself to the
hungry beast to whose motion he was more accustomed, and in the "hail fellow well met"
style of the day began to bandy jests upon his appearance. Now Elder Brown was not in a
jesting humor. Positively he was in the worst humor possible. The result was that before
many minutes passed the old man was swinging several of the crowd by their collars, and
breaking the peace of the city. A policeman approached, and but for the good-humored
party, upon whom the elder's pluck had made a favorable impression, would have run the
old man into the barracks. The crowd, however, drew him laughingly into the saloon and
to the bar. The reaction was too much for his half-rallied senses. He yielded again. The
reviving liquor passed his lips. Gloom vanished. He became one of the boys.
The company into which Elder Brown had fallen was what is known as "first-class." To
such nothing is so captivating as an adventure out of the common run of accidents. The
gaunt countryman, with his battered hat and claw-hammer coat, was a prize of an
extraordinary nature. They drew him into a rear room, whose gilded frames and polished
tables betrayed the character and purpose of the place, and plied him with wine until ten
thousand lights danced about him. The fun increased. One youngster made a political
speech from the top of the table; another impersonated Hamlet; and finally Elder Brown
was lifted into a chair, and sang a camp-meeting song. This was rendered by him with
startling effect. He stood upright, with his hat jauntily knocked to one side, and his coat
tails ornamented with a couple of show-bills, kindly pinned on by his admirers. In his left
hand he waved the stub of a cigar, and on his back was an admirable representation of
Balaam's head, executed by some artist with billiard chalk.

[Dark Saint Alaick]

As the elder sang his favorite hymn, "I'm glad salvation's free," his stentorian voice
awoke the echoes. Most of the company rolled upon the floor in convulsions of laughter.

The exhibition came to a close by the chair overturning. Again Elder Brown fell into his
beloved hat. He arose and shouted: "Whoa, Balaam!" Again he seized the nearest
weapon, and sought satisfaction. The young gentleman with political sentiments was
knocked under the table, and Hamlet only escaped injury by beating the infuriated elder
into the street.

What next? Well, I hardly know. How the elder found Balaam is a mystery yet: not that
Balaam was hard to find, but that the old man was in no condition to find anything. Still
he did, and climbing laboriously into the saddle, he held on stupidly while the hungry
beast struck out for home.

V

Hannah Brown did not sleep that night. Sleep would not come. Hour after hour passed,
and her wrath refused to be quelled. She tried every conceivable method, but time hung
heavily. It was not quite peep of day, however, when she laid her well-worn family Bible
aside. It had been her mother's, and amid all the anxieties and tribulations incident to the
life of a woman who had free negroes and a miserable husband to manage, it had been
her mainstay and comfort. She had frequently read it in anger, page after page, without
knowing what was contained in the lines. But eventually the words became intelligible
and took meaning. She wrested consolation from it by mere force of will.
And so on this occasion when she closed the book the fierce anger was gone.

She was not a hard woman naturally. Fate had brought her conditions which covered up
the woman heart within her, but though it lay deep, it was there still. As she sat with
folded hands her eyes fell upon--what?

[Dark Saint Alaick]

The pink bonnet with the blue plume!

It may appear strange to those who do not understand such natures, but to me her next
action was perfectly natural. She burst into a convulsive laugh; then, seizing the queer
object, bent her face upon it and sobbed hysterically. When the storm was over, very
tenderly she laid the gift aside, and bare-headed passed out into the night.

For a half-hour she stood at the end of the lane, and then hungry Balaam and his master
hove in sight. Reaching out her hand, she checked the beast.

"William," said she, very gently, "where is the mule?"

The elder had been asleep. He woke and gazed upon her blankly.
"What mule, Hannah?"

"The mule you rode to town."

For one full minute the elder studied her face. Then it burst from his lips:
"Well, bless me! if I didn't bring Balaam and forgit the mule!"

The woman laughed till her eyes ran water.

"William," said she, "you're drunk."

"Hannah," said he, meekly, "I know it. The truth is, Hannah, I--"

"Never mind, now, William," she said, gently. "You are tired and hungry. Come into the
house, husband."

Leading Balaam, she disappeared down the lane; and when, a few minutes later, Hannah
Brown and her husband entered through the light that streamed out of the open door her
arms were around him, and her face upturned to his.