AS FIGURED BY ITS PROMOTER, HIRAM LOOK
Open order and forward march!
Major in bearskin and stiffer than starch,
Knees like a thoroughbred—he’s the kind!
And all the musicianers marchin’ behind,
Then poum-ta-roum! Oh, ain’t it grand
To march with the Atkinson Full Brass Band?
—From “Village Ballads.”
When Hiram turned in at the dooryard of the Look place next day it was late in the afternoon, and he was riding in the rear of a farmer’s beach waggon, his long legs dangling over the tail-board. Imogene followed docilely at the end of a rope, her affectionate gaze on her master.
Squire Phin and Peak, who had been sitting on the porch, came along to greet the new arrival and congratulate him.
“Well, it’s taken leg-work a lot and head-work a lot,” said Hiram with a sigh of relief as he slid stiffly down from his perch. “Look-a-there!” He pointed to the horse that had drawn the waggon. “Had two runaways and one smash-up before I got that invented.”
Two saplings were lashed to the thills and extended beyond the bit-rings through which they were thrust. The horse was unable to turn his head to look behind, and for further precaution the apprehensive country youth who drove had tied his ragged coat around the animal’s head like a muffler.
“I never saw a section, hoss-kind and human-kind both, get so foolish over one mild and inoffensive elephant before,” Hiram went on disgustedly. “I should have been home before this, but I stayed and squared up. Went along the whole trail and, as you might say, settled damages along the right o’ way. They ain’t got no kick comin’. Ain’t that so, son?” he demanded, addressing the youth on the seat.
“I don’t see how anyone could be any perficker a gent,” said the driver, warmly. “Our folks lost a row and a half of nurs’ry stock and one cosset lamb stepped on and squashed, and Mr. Look just up and slapped what it come to right down into dad’s fist, with a half a dollar extry for a laylock bush that we didn’t make no account of. And at Abby Snell’s, where the most damage was done, why, you jest ought to hear Abby tell——”
“Well, that’s all right, son,” interrupted Hiram, hastily. “All is I wanted to stand square up that way, and give the gossips a chance to chaw on something sweet ’stead of something sour.” He handed the youth a silver dollar. “That’s for yourself, son,” he said, “and now you’d better be hustling for home ‘fore dark.” He looked more comfortable when the waggon went clattering away under the elms.
“I guess what they don’t know about Abby Snell down this way jest yet awhile won’t hurt ’em any,” he muttered as he led away Imogene into the barn, and into the companionship of the eight horses once more assembled. “Sime is such a soft old fool he would think I am in love, and Phin would pitch into me on account of my temper for gittin’ even, the same as he allus does.”
“Hiram,” said his brother, when the showman joined the two men on the porch, “I want to ask your pardon for trying to stop you yesterday. Mr. Peak has told me how you managed at the other end. At this end it all worked to perfection. Wat Mayo only knows that she ran away on account of a mistaken notion that she would be helping him, and that she loved him too much to stay away.”
“There’s mighty few cases where women’s concerned when judicious lyin’ ain’t a benefit all ’round,” said Hiram, lighting his cigar.
“It’s only the strong natures that want and can stand the whole truth,” replied the Squire, sighing. “I did what I thought was for the best.”
“He’s a cosset and allus will be and you warmed his milk for him,” snorted Hiram. “That’s all right! You ain’t done anything wrong. Any other kind of feedin’ would give him an attack of love-colic that would tie him up into knots so that he’d never get untangled.”
He smoked in silence for a little while.
“Ain’t there any ding-blasted thing in this world that the critter knows how to do?” he demanded. “There’s no young and pretty girl that’s goin’ to stay very hard in love with a swipe in a liv’ry stable, no matter how she tries. I pity the poor little gaffer, Phin. We had a talk together on the road—me and her and Sime here. I ain’t all bristles, Phin. I’d do somethin’ for the feller if I could—anything short of charity, and I’ll be cussed if I’ll give money to an able-bodied man that’s able to earn it. She’d hate him then, if there’s anything to her, and if she didn’t I’d hate her—and there you have it. Gad! I don’t understand how a chap can grow to be over twenty-one and not know how to do some one thing.”
“If his folks had taught him to play a fiddle instead of a cornet,” said the Squire, “he might have been able to fiddle for dances and earn an oyster supper and a dollar-fifty once in a while, as old Eb Lancaster does.”
“Does the Mayo boy know how to play the cornet?” asked Hiram, with reviving interest.
“His folks paid that bandmaster, that has his summer cottage down on Prout’s Point, two hundred dollars and over for lessons to Wat.”
“But can he play?” persisted Hiram.
“How should I know?” snapped the Squire impatiently. “All I know is he near drove me crazy with his practising—and nigh every one else in the village.” But after a moment he went on with gentler tone:
“Yes, Hiram, some of the men around here who understand such things say that Wat Mayo plays wonderfully well. I remember that the bandmaster used to brag about him, but what with folks jawing about the noise he made, and his natural laziness, he hasn’t done anything with it. And a bulldog might as well try to chew with a set of store teeth as a man start out to earn a living in Palermo with a cornet.”
“Well, he’ll earn one from now on,” said Hiram.
The two men stared at him.
“He’s jest the man I’ve been lookin’ for,” said the showman. “Life ain’t worth livin’ for me without band music. I’m homesick for it. Wat Mayo can consider himself hired as the teacher and leader of ‘Look’s Cornet Band,’ and I’ll bet you ten dollars I’ll have twenty men practisin’ in Hobbs’s hall before next Saturday night.”
“You’ll never find twenty men in this place who can afford to buy band instruments,” objected the Squire.
“I’ll buy ’em myself,” cried Hiram, stoutly. “Great Caesar, what’s a little expense beside good band music when a man’s hungry for it? I’ll buy the instruments, I’ll buy the uniforms—it’ll be my band, and I’ll buy a bearskin cap for Sime, here, six feet tall, and advertise him for the tallest drum-major in the State. Why, hustlin’ Cicero, men,” he cried, as his enthusiasm warmed his showman’s heart, “I can make Look’s Cornet Band an organisation that will be wanted in ev’ry parade from Quoddy to the Scarb’ro clam flats. And when your young friend Wat Mayo, Phin, gets ahead of that band in his spick-and-span uniform, you won’t have any more trouble about any critter ever cuttin’ him out with his wife. Why, she’ll love him to death!” He stamped his big foot on the piazza and laughed.
“I knew there was something I was hankerin’ for,” he chuckled. “’Twas a band. Why, we can serenade you, Phin, when you get elected Congressman or hog-reeve or culler of staves or to some other high office.”
“Of course, you are able to have such a plaything, Hime,” said the Squire, without enthusiasm, “and if it helps poor Wat Mayo to get out of his troubles I reckon the rest of us ought to be willing to stand the hullabaloo.”
With a rather grim smile he left them and went around into his kitchen.
“Sime,” said the showman after he had smoked reflectively for some time, “I have taken you in with me as a sort of a side partner. It’s no use—there’s a few things that Phin and I can’t hitch hosses on, and they are things that’s derned important to me. No matter what they are, not jest now, at any rate. But I don’t mind tellin’ you that there’s more comin’ out of that Palermo Cornet Band than biff-bangs and toodle-oos. The thought of gettin’ it up was an inspiration—that’s what it was. You see now what comes of doin’ a good deed! Gettin’ that girl back makes us talk about Mayo, and from Mayo to a job for him, and thus around to the band. Yess’r, a good deed brings it own reward. Now, I ain’t popular with the people of this place. I want to be popular, but I never could cater to the old moss-backs by soft-soapin’ ’em. To do what I’ve set out to do I need to have a followin’. Now I’m goin’ to start that band, pay ’em wages when they play, furnish free concerts and music for dances, and if I ain’t popular then, why, I don’t know my people, that’s all.”
“Goin’ to run for office, I persume?” suggested Simon.
“Run for your grandmother!” snorted Hiram. “What have I ever done to you that you should twit me that style? No, s’r, I’ll jest say this much to you, Sime. There’s a certain old son of a pickerel that I’m layin’ for in this town, and I’m goin’ to have him. I’m goin’ to walk one way acrost him and then come back the same way and wipe my feet on him. I tell ye, Sime, when an old harker that has got plenty of his own, jest gets out his knife and lets the financial blood out of a poor old man and a strugglin’ boy, only for the sake of lettin’ it, then if he don’t get it handed to him here—well, I may be lodged in another part of hell from him and shan’t be able to see what is passed to him there. So it’s me for him in this life! I tell you, Sime, our trip to Square Harbour wa’n’t all for nothin’. We done a good deed and we are gettin’ our pay passed right back to us.”
With this curious but entirely characteristic reflection on the dispensations of Providence, Hiram tossed away his cigar butt and answered the supper call of Aunt Rhoda.