Elbow-Room: A Novel Without a Plot

by Charles Heber Clark

CHAPTER XXVII.

GENERAL TRUMPS OF THE MILITIA.

The principal warrior in our community is General Trumps, the commander of the militia of the district. The general has seen service in the South and West, and is a pretty good soldier. In these happy days of peace, however, he does not often have an opportunity to display his fighting qualities, but sometimes even now, when he is provoked to wrath, he becomes bloodthirsty and ferocious. Last summer the general went to Cape May. Previous to his arrival two young men, whom I will call Brown and Jones, occupied adjoining rooms at a certain hotel. One day Brown fixed a string to the covers on Jones' bed and ran the cord through the door into his own room. His purpose was to pull the covers off as soon as Jones got comfortably fixed for the night. But that afternoon General Trumps came down; and as the hotel was crowded, the landlord put Jones in the room with Brown and gave Jones' apartment to the general. Brown forgot about the string, and he and Jones went to bed. About midnight Jones' dog, while prowling around the room, got the string tangled about his leg, and in struggling to reach the window he slowly dragged the bed-clothes off of the soldier, next door. That gentleman awoke, and after scolding his wife for removing the blankets went to sleep again. Presently Jones' dog saw a rat and darted after it. Off came the covers again. Then the man of war was angry. He roused his wife and scolded her vigorously. She protested her innocence, and while she was speaking Jones' dog heard another dog outside, and hurried to the window to bark. The covers were again removed. Then the general fumbled about until he found the cord. Then he loaded up his revolver, drew his sword and dared Jones and Brown to open their door and come out into the entry. They peeped at him over the transom, observed his warlike preparations, glanced at the string and the dog, packed their carpet-bags, slid down the water-spout outside, and went home in the five-o'clock train. The manner in which that battle-scarred veteran roared around the hotel during the day was said to have been frightful; and when rumors came that Brown and Jones had gone to another place in the neighborhood, he spent the day hunting for them with a purpose to commit violence. He gradually became calmer, and as his anger subsided the humorous aspect of the matter appeared, and he felt rather glad that he had not encountered the two young men.

[Illustration: THE GENERAL IN A RAGE]

Several years ago the general was out upon the plains fighting the Indians. One of the men who accompanied his command was a Major Bing. It happened that the major was captured by the savages, and it devolved upon the general to bear the melancholy tidings to Mrs. Bing. It appears that while the general was on his way home Mrs. Bing moved into another house; and when the general returned with the sad intelligence, he did not know of the fact, but went to the old house, which was now occupied by Mrs. Wood. He told the servant-girl to tell her mistress to come into the parlor, and then he took a seat on the sofa and thought how he could break the news of the major's death to her so as not to give her too violent a shock. When Mrs. Wood entered, the general greeted her mournfully; and when they had taken seats, the following conversation ensued:

"Madam, I have been the major's friend ever since our childhood. I played with him when we were boys together. I grew up to manhood with him; I watched with pride his noble and successful career; I rejoiced when he married the lovely woman before me; and I went to the West with him. Need I tell you that I loved him? I loved him only less than you did."

"I don't understand you, sir," said Mrs. Wood. "Whom are you referring to?"

"Why, to the major. I say that your love for him alone was greater than mine; and I am—"

"Your remarks are a mystery to me. I have no attachment of that kind."

"Call it what you will, madam. I know how strong the tie was between you—how deep the devotion which kept two loving souls in perfect unison. And knowing this, of course I feel deeply that to wound either heart by telling of misfortune to the other is a task from which a man like me might very properly shrink. But I have a duty to perform—a solemn duty. What would you say, my dear madam, if I should tell you that the major had lost a leg? What would you say to that?"

"I don't know. If I knew a major who had lost a leg, I should probably advise him to buy a wooden one."

"Light-hearted as ever," said the general. "Just as he told me you were. Poor woman! you will need your buoyant spirits yet. But, dear madam, suppose the major had lost not only one leg, but two; both gone; no legs at all; not a pin to stand on; now, how would that strike you?"

"Really, sir, this is getting to be absurd. I don't care whether your major has as many legs as a centipede or none at all. If you have any business with me, please transact it as quickly as possible."

"Madam, this is too serious a subject for jest The major has lost not only his legs, but his arms. He is absolutely without limbs of any kind at this moment. That's as true as I'm sitting here. Now, don't scream, please."

"I haven't the slightest idea of screaming."

"Well, you take it mighty cool, I must say. But that's not the worst of it. All his ribs are gone, his nose has departed, and he only has one eye and a part of one shoulder-blade. I pledge you my word that's the truth. I hardly think he will recover."

"I shouldn't think he would, in that condition; but, upon my life, I cannot see that the fact interests me at all."

"Not interest you! Well, that is amazing! Not int—Why, my goodness, woman, that's not half of it. The major's scalp's all gone; he hasn't enough fuzz on his head to make a camel's-hair pencil; he has a stake through his body, and he's been burnt until he is all doubled up in a hard knot; and, in my private opinion, it's mighty unlikely he'll ever be untied and straightened out again. If that doesn't fetch you, you must have a heart of stone."

"I don't care anything about it, sir. It's none of my business."

"Well, then, as long as you're so indifferent, let me tell you, plump and plain, that the major's dead as Julius Cæsar! The Indians killed him, burnt him and minced him up! Now, that's the solemn truth, and his last words to me were, 'Break the news gently to Maria.' You see the man loved you. He cared more for you than you seemed to do for him. He would have welcomed death if he had known you had ceased to love him."

"What did you say his last words were?"

"Why, just before his soul took its eternal flight he whispered something in my ear. Then I made a sudden dash and escaped from the savages, to bring his message back to you. That message was: 'Break the news gently to Maria.' That's what the major said with his dying lips."

"Well, then, why don't you break the news to Maria?"

"Madam, such levity is untimely. I have broken it—broken it gently.
You have heard it all."

"Do you suppose I am Major Bing's wife?"

"Certainly."

"Well, she moved around into Market street last December. Maybe you'd better hunt her up."

The general looked at Mrs. Wood solemnly for a minute, and then he said he would. Then he bade Mrs. Wood good-morning, bowed himself out and walked around to look for the widow. When the real widow heard the news, she was deeply affected, and she sobbed in a most distressing manner. Subsequently she went into mourning. The life insurance company paid her the money due upon the major's policy. The major's lodge passed resolutions of regret, his family divided up his property, and the community settled down comfortably in the conviction that the major was finally and hopelessly dead.

About a year afterward, however, Major Bing suddenly arrived in town without announcing his coming. He had been held as a prisoner by the Indians, and had escaped. As he stepped from the cars a policeman looked at him a minute, then seized him by the collar and hurried him around to the coroner's office. Before he could recover from his amazement the coroner empaneled a jury, put the action of the insurance company in evidence and promptly got from the jury a verdict that "the said Bing came to his death at the hands of the Indians."

Then the major went to his house and found his widow sitting on the front porch talking to Myers, the man to whom she was engaged to be married. As he entered the gate his widow gave one little start of surprise, and then, regaining her composure, she said to Myers,

"Isn't this a new kind of an idea—dead people coming around when common decency requires them to keep quiet?"

"It's altogether wrong," said Myers. "If I was dead, I'd lie still and quit wandering about over the face of the earth."

"Maria, don't you know me?" asked the major, indignantly.

"I used to know you when you were alive; but now that you're gone, I don't expect to recognize you until we meet in a better world."

"But, Maria, I am not dead. You certainly see that I am alive."

"Not dead! Didn't you send word to me that you were? Am I to refuse to believe my own husband? The life insurance company says you are deceased; the lodge says so; the coroner officially asserts the fact. What am I to do? The evidence is all one way."

"But you shall accept me as alive!" shouted the major, in a rage.

"Mr. Myers," said the widow, calmly, "hadn't we better send for the undertaker to come and bury these remains?"

"Look here!" said Myers. "I'm the last man to do a dead friend an injury, but I ain't going to have any departed spirit coming in here and giving this lady hysterics. You pack up and go back, and stay there, or I'll have you hustled into a tomb quicker'n lightning. Hurry up now; don't stop to think about it!"

"This beats the very old Harry!" said the major, in astonishment.

"No answering back, now," said Myers. "When I want communications from the other world, I'll hunt up a spiritualist medium and get my information out of knocks on a table. All you've got to do is to creep off into the tomb somewhere and behave."

"You're perfectly certain I'm dead, are you?" said the major, getting calmer.

"Why, of course."

"Can a dead man violate the laws?"

"Certainly not."

"Well, then, I'm going to hammer you with this club, and I reckon you'll find me the most energetic corpse in the county."

They say that the fight was terrific. First the major was on top, then Myers; and as they rolled over and over in the porch the widow sat by and surveyed the scene. Finally, Myers explained that upon the whole he believed he had enough; and when the major had given him a few supplementary thumps, he got up, and gazing at the prostrate Myers and at the widow, he said,

"Take her; take her, young man. You're welcome to her. I wouldn't have her if she was the only woman in the temperate zone. But let me tell you, before you get her, that when you are married to her you'll wish something'd happen to send you down to the bottom of the ocean and anchor you there."

[Illustration: "TAKE HER, YOUNG MAN!">[

Then the major slammed the gate and left; and he started life afresh in New York. Myers has written to him since to say that the only grudge that he has against him is that he didn't kill him in that fight in the porch, for the widow has made death seem blissful to him; and the major's answer was that the reason why he spared his life was that he wanted to make his revenge fiendish.

Of course I do not vouch for this part of the story which tells of the major's return. General Trumps is responsible for that; and I know that sometimes, when his imagination is unduly warmed, he is prone to exaggeration. The general's own domestic matters are in the most charming condition. According to his own story, he never had any unpleasant feeling in his family but once. Several years ago he was in Williamsport attending to his business. While there he had a strong premonition that something was the matter at home; so, in order to satisfy himself, he determined to run down to Philadelphia in the next train. In the mean time, his mother-in-law sent him a despatch to this effect: "Another daughter has just arrived. Hannah is poorly; come home at once." The lines were down, however, and the despatch was held over; and meanwhile the general reached home, and found his wife doing pretty well and the nurse walking around with an infant a day old. After staying twenty-four hours, and finding that everybody was tolerably comfortable, he returned to Williamsport without anything having been said about the despatch, his mother-in-law supposing of course that he had received it. The day after his arrival the lines were fixed, and that night he received a despatch from the telegraph office dated that very day, and conveying the following intelligence:

"Another daughter has just arrived. Hannah is poorly; come home at once."

The general was amazed and bewildered. He couldn't understand it. He walked the floor of his room all night trying to get the hang of the thing; and the more he considered the subject, the more he became alarmed at the extraordinary occurrence. He took the early train for the city, and during the journey was in a condition of frantic bewilderment. When he arrived, he jumped in a cab, drove furiously to the house, and scared his mother-in-law into convulsions by rushing in in a frenzy and demanding what on earth had happened. He was greatly relieved to find that there was but one infant in the nursery, and to learn how the mistake occurred. But he felt as if he would like to see the telegraph operator who changed the date of that despatch. He wanted to remonstrate with him.