Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 2

The Saddest Man-1

The Saddest Man––––––––

The bench, the barrel, and the cracker box in front of Hennery McNabb's general store held three men, all of whom seemed to be thinking. Two of them were not only thinking but chewing tobacco as well. The third, more enterprising than the other two, more active, was exerting himself prodigiously. He was thinking, chewing tobacco, and whittling all at the same time.

Two of the men were native and indigenous to Hazel-ton. They drew their sustenance from the black soil of the Illinois prairie on which the little village was perched. They were as calm and placid as the growing corn in the fields round about, as solid and self-possessed and leisurely as the bull-heads in the little creek down at the end of Main Street.

The third man was a stranger, somewhere between six and eight feet high and so slender that one might have expected the bones to pop through the skin, if one's attention had not been arrested by the skin itself. For he was covered and contained by a most peculiar skin. It was dark and rubbery-looking rather than leathery, and it seemed to be endowed with a life of its own almost independent of the rest of the man's anatomy. When a fly perched upon his cheek he did not raise his hand to brush it off. The man himself did not move at all.

But his skin moved. His skin rose up, wrinkled, twitched, rippled beneath the fly's feet, and the fly took alarm and went away from there as if an earthquake had broken loose under it. He was a sad-looking man. He looked sadder than the mummy of an Egyptian king who died brooding on what a long dry spell lay ahead of him.

It was this third man of whom the other two men were thinking, this melancholy stranger who sat and stared through the thick, humid heat of the July day at nothing at all, with grievous eyes, his ego motionless beneath the movements of his rambling skin. He had driven up the road thirty minutes before in a flivver, had bought some chewing tobacco of Hennery McNabb, and had set himself down in front of the store and chewed tobacco in silence ever since.

Finally Ben Grevis, the village grave-digger and janitor of the church, broke through the settled stillness with a question:

“Mister,” he said, “you ain't done nothing you're afraid of being arrested for, hev you?”

The stranger slowly turned his head toward Ben and made a negative sign. He did not shake his head in negation. He moved the skin of his forehead from left to right and back again three or four times. And his eyebrows moved as his skin moved. But his eyes remained fixed and melancholy.

“Sometimes,” suggested Hennery McNabb, who had almost tired himself out whittling, “a man's system needs overhaulin', same as a horse's needs drenchin'. I don't aim to push my goods on to no man, but if you was feelin' anyway sick, inside or out, I got some of Splain's Liniment for Man and Beast in there that might fix you up.”

“I ain't sick,” said the stranger, in a low and gentle voice.

“I never seen many fellers that looked as sad as you do,” volunteered Ben Grevis. “There was a mighty sad-lookin' tramp, that resembled you in the face some, was arrested here for bein' drunk eight or nine years ago, only he wasn't as tall as you an' his skin was different. After Si Emery, our city marshal, had kep' him in the lock-up over Sunday and turned him loose again, it come to light he was wanted over in I'way for killin' a feller with a piece of railroad iron.”

“I ain't killed anybody with any railroad iron over in I'way,” said the lengthy man. And he added, with a sigh: “Nor nowheres else, neither.”

Hennery McNabb, who disagreed with everyone on principle—he was the Village Atheist, and proud of it—addressed himself to Ben Grevis. “This feller ain't nigh as sad-lookin' as that tramp looked,” said Hennery. “I've knowed any number of fellers sadder-lookin' than this feller here.”

“I didn't say this feller here was the saddest-lookin' feller I ever seen,” said Ben Grevis. “All I meant was that he is sadder-lookin' than the common run of fellers.” While Hennery disagreed with all the world, Ben seldom disagreed with any one but Hennery. They would argue by the hour, on religious matters, always beginning with Hennery's challenge: “Ben Grevis, tell me just one thing if you can, where did Cain get his wife?” and always ending with Ben's statement: “I believe the Book from kiver to kiver.”

The tall man with the educated skin—it was educated, very evidently, for with a contraction of the hide on the back of his hand he nonchalantly picked up a shaving that had blown his way—spoke to Ben and Hennery in the soft and mild accents that seemed habitual to him:

“Where did you two see sadder-lookin' fellers than I be?”

“Over in Indianny,” said Hennery, “there's a man so sad that you're one of these here laughin' jackasses 'longside o' him.”

And, being encouraged, Hennery proceeded.

This here feller (said Hennery McNabb) lived over in Brown County, Indianny, but he didn't come from there original. He come from down in Kentucky some-wheres and his name was Peevy, Bud Peevy. He was one of them long, lank fellers, like you, stranger, but he wasn't as long and his skin didn't sort o' wander around and wag itself like it was a tail.

It was from the mountain districts he come. I was visitin' a brother of mine in the county-seat town of Brown County then, and this Bud Peevy was all swelled up with pride when I first knowed him. He was proud of two things. One was that he was the champeen corn-licker drinker in Kentucky. It was so he give himself out. And the other thing he was prouder yet of. It was the fact, if fact it was, that he was the Decidin' Vote in a national election—that there election you all remember, the first time Bryan run for President and McKinley was elected.

This here Bud Peevy, you understand, wasn't really sad when I first knowed him: he only looked sad. His sadness that matched his innard feelin's up to his outward looks come on to him later. He was all-fired proud when I first knowed him. He went expandin' and extendin' of himself around everywheres tellin' them Indianny people how it was him, personal, that elected McKinley and saved the country from that there free-silver ruination. And the fuller he was of licker, the longer he made this here story, and the fuller, as you might say, of increditable strange events.

Accordin' to him, on that election day in 1896 he hadn't planned to go and vote, for it was quite a ways to the polls from his place and his horse had fell lame and he didn't feel like walkin'. He figgered his district would go safe for McKinley, anyhow, and he wouldn't need to vote. He was a strong Republican, and when a Kentuckian is a Republican there ain't no stronger kind.

But along about four o'clock in the afternoon a man comes ridin' up to his house with his horse all a lather of foam and sweat, and the horse was one of these here Kentucky thoroughbred race horses that must 'a' travelled nigh a mile a minute, to hear Bud Peevy tell of it, and that horse gives one groan like a human bein' and falls dead at Bud Peevy's feet afore the rider can say a word, and the rider is stunned.

But Bud Peevy knowed him for a Republican county committeeman, and he poured some corn licker down his throat and he revived to life again. The feller yells to Bud as soon as he can get his breath to go to town and vote, quick, as the polls will close in an hour, and everybody else in that district has voted but Bud, and everyone has been kep' track of, and the vote is a tie.

It's twelve miles to the pollin' place from Bud's farm in the hills and it is a rough country, but Bud strikes out runnin' acrost hills and valleys with three pints of corn licker in his pockets for to refresh himself from time to time. Bud, he allowed he was the best runner in Kentucky, and he wouldn't 'a' had any trouble, even if he did have to run acrost mountains and hurdle rocks, to make the twelve miles in an hour, but there was a lot of cricks and rivers in that country and there had been a gosh-a-mighty big rain the night before and all them cricks had turned into rivers and all them rivers had turned into roarin' oceans and Niagara catarac's. But Bud, he allows he is the best swimmer in Kentucky, and when he comes to a stream he takes a swig of corn licker and jumps in and swims acrost, boots and all—for he was runnin' in his big cowhides, strikin' sparks of fire from the mountains with every leap he made.

Five times he was shot at by Democrats in the first six miles, and in the seventh mile the shootin' was almost continual, and three or four times he was hit, but he kep' on. It seems the Democrats had got wind he had been sent for to turn the tide and a passel of 'em was out among the hills with rifles to stop him if they could. But he is in too much of a hurry to bandy words with 'em, and he didn't have his g*n along, which he regretted, he says, as he is the best g*n fighter in Kentucky and he keeps on a-runnin' and a-swimmin' and a-jumpin' cricks and a-hurdlin' rocks with the bullets whizzin' around him and the lightnin' strikin' in his path, for another big storm had come up, and no power on this here earth could head him off, he says, for it come to him like a Voice from on High he was the preordained messenger and hero who was goin' to turn the tide and save the country from this here free-silver ruination. About two miles from the pollin' place, jist as he jumps into the last big river, two men plunges into the water after him with dirks, and one of them he gets quick, but the other one drags Bud under the water, stabbin' and jabbin' at him. There is a terrible stabbin' and stickin' battle way down under the water, which is runnin' so fast that big stones the size of a cow is being rolled down stream, but Bud he don't mind the stones, and he can swim under water as well as on top of it, he says, and he's the best knife fighter in Kentucky, he says, and he soon fixes that feller and swims to shore with his knife in his teeth, and now he's only got one more mountain to cross.

But a kind of hurricane has sprung up and turned into a cyclone in there among the hills, and as he goes over the top of that last mountain, lickety-split, in the dark and wind and rain, he blunders into a whole passel of rattlesnakes that has got excited by the elements. But he fit his way through 'em, thankin' God he had nearly a quart of licker left to take for the eight or ten bites he got, and next there rose up in front of him two of them big brown bears, and they was wild with rage because the storm had been slingin' boulders at 'em. One of them bears he sticked with his knife and made short work of, but the other one give him quite a tussel, Bud says, afore he conquered it and straddled it. And it was a lucky thing for him, he says, that he caught that bear in time, for he was gittin' a leetle weak with loss of blood and snake bites and battlin' with the elements. Bud, he is the best rider in Kentucky, and it wasn't thirty seconds afore that bear knowed a master was a-ridin' of it, and in five minutes more Bud, he gallops up to that pollin' place, right through the heart of the hurricane, whippin' that bear with rattlesnakes to make it go faster, and he jumps off and cracks his boot heels together and gives a yell and casts the decidin' vote into the ballot box. He had made it with nearly ten seconds to spare.

Well, accordin' to Bud Peevy that there one vote carries the day for McKinley in that county and not only in that county alone, but in that electorial district, and that electorial district gives McKinley the State of Kentucky, which no Republican had ever carried Kentucky for President for afore. And two or three other States was hangin' back keepin' their polls open late to see how Kentucky would go, and when it was flashed by telegraph all over the country that Bud Peevy was carryin' Kentucky for McKinley, them other States joined in with Kentucky and cast their electorial votes that-a-way, too, and McKinley was elected President.