Wade Ruggles was speechless.
He sat with his mouth wide open and his eyes staring
at the little figure, as if it were a veritable apparition.
All the others looked in the same direction. Nellie
Dawson stood for a moment with her finger pointed
reprovingly at the chairman, and then turning about
ran back into the rear room and plunged into her bed.
“Max, quick!” said Ruggles
faintly, pointing to the black bottle at the rear
of the bar. The landlord hastily poured out some
of the fiery stuff, and the miserable fellow swallowed
it at a gulp. It served partly to revive him,
but he was really on the verge of collapse.
The only one of the company not impressed
was Maurice Dawson, father of the little girl.
He was sitting well back of the rest, where no one
paid attention to him. Comprehending the meaning
of this incident, he drew his hand across his mouth
to conceal the smile that could not be wholly restrained.
Then he hurried back into the room to see that his
child was “tucked up” and properly covered
for the night. Finding himself in the dark, where
he could not be observed, he laughed deeply and silently,
his mirth all the greater because of the oppressive
gravity of every one else. Then bending over,
he said, as he kissed the little one:
“I thought you were asleep, Nellie?”
“So I was, but Mr. Ruggles spoke
those bad words so loud he woked me.”
“You mustn’t get up again, will you?”
“Not if you don’t want me to.”
“I have just told you I don’t wish you
to.”
“Then I wont get up.”
The father lingered in the room, until
he mastered his disposition to laugh, and then, when
he walked out among his friends no countenance was
graver than his.
“I say, Dawson,” said
Ruggles, swallowing a lump in his throat, “will
you oblige me by acting as chairman? I don’t
feel very well.”
The gentleman walked forward to where
Ruggles had been standing with his back against the
bar, looking down in the faces of his friends.
The poor fellow seemed to have aged ten years, as he
slouched off to an upturned box near the door, where
he dejectedly seated himself.
“What is your pleasure, gentlemen?”
asked Dawson, as if presiding over the deliberations
of one of the most august assemblages in the land;
“I am ready to hear any suggestion or motion.”
Al Bidwell rose to his feet.
“Mr. Chairman, I wish to endorse
with all my heart, the soul-stirring, eloquent address
to which we have just listened from the late Mr. Ruggles, I
mean the late Chairman. Them sentiments of his
is as sound as a gold dollar. He maintains that
any gent that uses an unproper word, such as he used
and which I scorn to repeat, in the presence of the
young lady, who has just listened to his remarks, oughter
to be sent to the individooal whose name is too shocking
fur me to pronounce, since the aforesaid young lady
is in the adjoining apartment, from whence she was
awoke by the awful profanity of the gent who lately
served as our chairman.”
And having gotten back on Ruggles
in this masterly manner, Bidwell sat down, slung one
leg over the other, and relit his pipe. The oppressive
silence was broken by a prodigious sigh from Ruggles.
Parson Brush, after the stillness
had continued some minutes, rose to his feet.
“Mr. Chairman, an extraordinary
state of affairs has arisen. You have not forgotten
that I plead for charity for Mr. Bidwell, because it
was his first offence. My plea was not well received,
but my sentiments are unchanged, and I now make the
same plea for Mr. Ruggles and on the same grounds.
When he was denouncing in fitting terms the sin of
Bidwell, he had no thought of committing the crime
himself, but in his earnestness he did. This
being plain to all of us, I renew ”
Wade Ruggles bounded to his feet.
“I don’t want any one
to plead for me! I ain’t pleading fur myself!
I can take my medicine like a man; if there’s
any galoot here ”
He suddenly checked himself with an
apprehensive glance at the door of the rear room,
and then resumed in a more subdued voice:
“I insist that Al Bidwell shall
suffer for his onspeakable crime and me too, ‘cause
mine was onspeakabler. Jedgin’ from the
evidence that showed itself, I must have awoke the
little gal from peaceful slumber, by them awful words
of mine.”
He paused and looked inquiringly at
the chairman, who calmly returned his gaze, without
speaking. It was Parson Brush who interposed:
“I should like to ask, Mr. Dawson,
whether the supposition of Mr. Ruggles has any foundation
in fact.”
“It has; when I asked Nellie
what caused her to awake, she said it was Mr. Ruggles
when he used those bad words.”
“Just what I thought!”
exclaimed Ruggles, as if he enjoyed heaping fire upon
his own head; “there ain’t any depth of
infamy which I hain’t reached. For me to
try to sneak out now, when I made such a (Here
he again threw a startled glance at the rear of the
room) would be to do something which Wade Ruggles
never done in his variegated career of nigh onto forty
years. All I ask is that you’ll git through
it as soon as you kin and fix our terms of imprisonment
or our deaths and hev done with it.”
Al Bidwell took an unworthy delight
in prodding the man who had been so severe upon him.
“I beg humbly to suggest to
the gent that there are plenty of places in the mountains
where he can make a jump of a thousand feet or two
into the kenyons. Wouldn’t it be a good
idée fur the gent to try it?”
“I will if you’ll join
me,” retorted Wade, turning upon him like a
flash.
“I’ll let you try it first
and see how it works,” replied Bidwell, so crushed
that he remained silent henceforward.
“Since I am chairman,”
said Dawson, with becoming dignity, “it is my
duty to listen to suggestions and to hear motions.
What is your pleasure, gentlemen?”
No one in looking at the countenance
of Maurice Dawson would have suspected he was extracting
the keenest enjoyment from these proceedings, yet
such was the fact. There was something so intensely
ludicrous in the whole business, that only by assuming
preternatural gravity could he refrain from breaking
into merriment. His policy was to egg on the
discussion until the company were ready for a decision,
when he would interpose with the proposal to wipe out
the whole matter and begin over again. The earnestness
of Wade Ruggles, however, threatened to check anything
of that nature. He was on his feet several times
until Budge Isham, who shrewdly suspected the sentiments
of the chairman, protested.
“With all due respect to the
parson, to Ruggles and to Bidwell, it strikes me,
Mr. Chairman, that they should give the rest of us
a show. We have listened to their yawping until
it has grown monotonous. Having told us a dozen
times, more or less, that he wants us to punish him
all he deserves, Mr. Ruggles ought to let it rest with
that; but he shouldn’t forget,” added
Budge, with the solemn manner which always marked
his waggery, “that, if we took him at his word,
he would be kicking vacancy this minute. However,
this hasn’t anything to do with his general
cussedness, but concerns his offence against the young
lady. That is all there is before the house, and
I insist that we confine ourselves to that ”
“Isn’t that what I’ve
been insistin’ on?” demanded Wade Ruggles.
“There you go again! I
have the floor, and you have no parliamentary right
to interrupt me with your frivolous remarks. Am
I correct, Mr. Chairman?”
“You are most unquestionably; proceed.”
“Well, to bring this tiresome
matter to a close, I move that Mr. Bidwell be deprived
of the bar privileges of the Heavenly Bower for a
period of four days, and that the same be denied to
Mr. Ruggles for a period of one week. Did I hear
a groan?” asked Budge, looking round at the
two men, who were trying bravely to bear up under the
threatened punishment.
Both shook their heads, afraid to
trust their voices by way of reply.
“If the gentlemen will permit
me,” said the chairman, “I should like
to say a few words.”
“I am sure we shall be glad
to hear from Mr. Dawson,” remarked the parson.
“Thank you. What I had
in mind is this: It is creditable to your
honor that you should pledge yourselves to refrain
from unbecoming language in the hearing of my little
girl, for you cannot help being her instructors, no
matter how much you may wish it were otherwise.
But you are magnifying the matter. I am sure every
man of you will strive just as hard, without being
incited thereto by the fear of punishment. I
would beg to suggest ”
He paused, for, looking at Wade Ruggles,
he saw it was useless to go further. Bidwell
would have been glad to receive leniency, but his
partner in crime was immovable, and it would not do
to punish one and allow the other to go free.
Dawson was wise enough to accept the situation promptly.
“You have heard the penalties
suggested for the offences of the two gentlemen accused.
All who favor such punishment will show it by raising
their right hands.”
Every man in the room, except the
chairman, voted in the affirmative.
“It isn’t worth while
to put the negative. The accused have heard the
verdict, which is that Mr. Bidwell shall not drink
a drop of anything except water or coffee for a period
of four days, dating from this moment, while Mr. Ruggles
is to undergo the same penalty for a period of one
week.”
“That’s right,”
growled Bidwell; “for he drank about half of
what was in the bottle only a few minutes ago.”
“And you would have drunk it
all,” retorted Ruggles, “if you’d
knowed what was coming.”