“Some day ’e says ’e’s goin to live in a big house. He comes ’ere sometimes to see if I’ve got any newspapers. I got some oncet, to see if them Japs ’ad got them fellers in Port Arthur yet, an’ Simons set down an’ studied ’em all through to see wot the society push was doin’.
“He’s got a box out in front that says to drop in cards. Oncet, just to show ’im that I was polite, I stuck a seven spot into it. I wouldn’t hand nothin’ above a seven to a guy like ’im. After that I laid out a lot o’ games o’ sollytare that I couldn’t make work, an’ I seen sumpen was the matter with my deck, an’ then I recollected that cussed seven spot, an’ I skipped back there when that ol’ goat was snoozin’ one night an’ fished it out of ’is box. He’s plumb nutty, an’ ’e don’t amuse me a bit. You fellers may like ’im, but I’ll bet that when ’e gits ’is big house, you an’ me won’t be asked to it. Nothin’ like him goes with me.
“He never has no whisky, an’ I don’t never see ’im out on the lake. He don’t fish ner hunt, an’ Hell! I don’t know where ’e gits ’is money. After ’e’d bin down there a couple o’ years, ’e changed the name on ’is door to ‘J. L. Simons’, an’ after that ’e had it ‘J. Ledward Simons’ an’ now its ‘J. Ledyard Symington—Tuesdays & Thursdays’. I s’pose ’e’ll ’ave ‘Tuesdays & Thursdays’ fer a part o’ that name ’e’s grad’ally constructin’ if ’e keeps it up. Mebbe ’e means that on them days ’e’s always out, but I ain’t goin’ to keep track o’ the days o’ the week fer him, and ’e and ’is ol’ hard-boiled hat can go to the devil.
“If ’e has ‘J. Ledyard Symington Tuesdays & Thursdays’ fer a name ’ere, wot d’ye s’pose ’e’ll ’ave it when ’e gits in ’is big house, that ’e’s always tellin’ about? I’ll bet ’e’ll ’ave a name that ye can’t git through the yard. His plug hat makes me sick. Wot d’ye s’pose Dewey at Maniller would ’av said to a man with a lid like that? He’d a said ‘Bingo!’ an’ smashed it. After that ’e’d a told Gridley to begin’ on ’im any time ’e was ready.”
At this point the old man’s comments began to be mingled with so much ornate profanity that it seems futile to attempt properly to expurgate his remarks. He declared that Simons was certainly “bunk.” “A name like wot ’e’d built out o’ nothin’ would finish anybody.” He thought that something “ought to happen to everybody that got stuck on themselves, an’ usually it did. All o’ them geezers that live ’ere an’ there on the shore, are prob’ly ’ere an’ there ’cause it’s better so fer them. With me its different. I’m ’ere ’cause I want to be ’ere. Simons ’ll prob’ly light out some day, the same way Cal did. I’m goin’ down there some night an’ slip the whole darn deck in ’is card box, just to show my heart’s in the right place.”
Sipes was a captious critic, and to him the “mantle of charity” was an unknown fabric. It was evident that the social strata in the dunes had some humps that would never be leveled.
I passed the shanty some months later, but there was no smoke or other sign of habitation. The disappointed old occupant had evidently “lit out.” The sad-looking “plug” was stuck over the top of the rusty section of stovepipe that had served as the chimney. It was now literally a “stovepipe hat”—that crown of absurdity among the follies of mankind, against which both art and nature have vainly protested through blinding tears.
I suspected the subtle facetiousness of Sipes in the apt decoration of the protruding piece of stove pipe with this melancholy emblem of departed gentility. Its top was ripped around the edge, and it moved languidly up and down in the varying winds, as if in mockery of inconstant fashion, which is regulated by custom instead of artistic taste.
The Home of
“J. Ledyard Symington”