The Story of a Country Town

by E. W. Howe

Big Adam was about to draw another cork, when I inquired if Mrs. Deming had been ill long.

“About a week I should say, and she kept them about her night and day to jaw at, occasionally sending for me. Several times she came down stairs, but no more dried up than usual, so none of us thought anything unusual the matter. She was always complaining about something or other, and although she was undoubtedly bad off this time, we didn’t believe it. We thought she was only pretending, to make us trouble, for she fooled us so much that I have an idea they were all very much surprised when they found her dead at last. It was by the merest accident that Agnes and Biggs were at home. It will be a great day for me to-morrow. I am to drive the remains to the graveyard.”

I could not impress Big Adam with the gravity of the occasion, and after telling him that I would go over to Smoky Hill in the afternoon, he went out into town, but returned every little while with packages of pickles, cloves, confectionery, crackers, etc., which he spread out on my table and devoured with the greatest relish, precisely as if he were at a pic-nic. Usually he was followed by great troupes of boys, whom he hired to swear with his pickles and confectionery.

While he was out on the porch, I heard him say to one of them that he hadn’t an enemy in the world, but if he had, he would like to hear the boy curse him, for up to that time he had won all the prizes with his dreadful oaths and was the raggedest and dirtiest of the lot. He was arranging for a fight between two of them, when I mildly objected to it, whereupon Big Adam laughed with hoarse good humor, and said that while he didn’t know of an enemy, he might have one, and gave the wicked boy a pickle and a caramel to curse him, or her, as the case might be. The young scoundrel promptly responded with the vilest language I had ever heard, and Big Adam laughed so loudly that I thought the house would fall down, declaring that the boy was a “captain.” I knew what he was about, but he seemed to be enjoying himself so much that I did not interfere again. At last he said he was certain the boy’s curses had killed his enemy, and he called upon all of them to give three cheers, which they did, Big Adam joining in like a steamboat whistle.

In the afternoon I drove over to the Smoky Hill country, leaving Big Adam to follow at his leisure, as he showed a disposition to dissipate until night, and after arriving at Mr. Biggs’, I put the horses away in the stable I had become familiar with on my first visit to the place, the stalls of which were still oozy and wet, and went up to the house.

Although I disliked to disturb the quiet of the place, I was compelled to ring the bell, for there was no other way of attracting attention, and after a little while Agnes came to open the door. Instead of speaking to me, she burst out crying, and, in involuntary pity for her distress, I took her in my arms, to which she made no resistance, but sobbed softly as I tried to comfort her with pitying words. I did not even think of my arms being about her, or that her head rested on my shoulder, and for the first time in several years I felt natural in her presence.

From where we stood in the hall I could see through an open door a plain coffin, supported at each end with a chair, in the room where I had sat with Biggs on my first visit to the house. I was impressed that it held a friendless body, for the coffin was not ornamented in any way, and had evidently been hurriedly made by a country carpenter. The top was shut down, as though there were no friends anxious to look frequently at the face, and for the first time I felt sympathy for the dead. It was no doubt very absurd in me, but I had almost expected to find the family in good spirits on my arrival, for I had never had a kindly thought for Mrs. Deming in my life. Her brother never mentioned her at all; her only child did not, except when it was necessary, and Big Adam had told me so much of her disagreeable qualities that I was very much prejudiced against her, but when I found that no one but members of her own family were there during her sickness and death, I felt kindly toward her memory, and thought that Big Adam had certainly misrepresented her. The distress of Agnes, which continued after we were seated in the room where the coffin was, also convinced me there must have been some good in the dead woman, and as the room began to grow dark from the going down of the sun, I thought that her life had been a night, which I hoped would be followed by a glorious morning.

I heard while at the house—it may have been from her old enemy, who returned from town in the course of the night, whistling all the wild airs I had ever heard—that the family had not a single acquaintance in the neighborhood, and that no one came to the house, except a farmer occasionally to see Mr. Biggs on business; that the people all believed Mrs. Deming to be a witch, and that they kept horse-shoes and charms in their houses from dread of her. Although many of them knew and admired pretty Agnes, they believed she had been stolen by Mrs. Deming when very young, and were always expecting some one to arrive and claim her.

From an occasional noise overhead, I understood that Mr. Biggs and the family were up stairs, but none of them appearing, I volunteered to remain up during the night to watch. Agnes gratefully accepted the offer, and as I sat there trying to read after her disappearance, I could tell when each one of the eight children was put to bed. At last I heard the cradle, which had been going constantly up to that time, stop, and I knew the baby, the last one, had been disposed of. Therefore I was not surprised that soon after Mr. Biggs came softly into the room, quite elegantly dressed, in slippers and gown, though he seemed very much depressed. He bowed to me patronizingly, as much as to say that few men could look as interesting in grief as he did, and after standing before me a moment to consider the matter, took hold of my hand and shook it sideways, though I was accustomed to shake up and down. As he walked around the room with his hands clasped behind him, I wondered whether I should be compelled to take the accustomed dose of philosophy, and I soon saw that I should, for, as he walked, he meditated; this was his usual way before attacking me. Coming over to me presently in a manner indicating that he had long been waiting for opportunity to discourse on the shortness of life, and the presence of the coffin afforded it, he seated himself, and abruptly inquired:—

“What is life?”