Death is not a bad fellow. Let no man cross his grey front stoop with misgiving. The honey he serves is made by noble bees. Yet do not go seeking him out. No doubt his acquaintance is most worth while when it is casual, unexpected, one of the natural accidents. And he does not always ask such simple riddles.
II
The Trap without the Bait
It was about two o’clock when the north road left the cornfields and reached the hill crests above the city. How the highway descended over cliffs and retraced itself on ridges and wound into hollows to get to the streets! At the foot of the first incline I met a lame cat creeping, panic-stricken, out of town.
Oil City is an ugly, confused kind of place. There are thousands like it in the United States.
I reached the post-office at last. There was no letter for me at the general delivery. I was expecting a missive. And now my blistered heels, and my breaking the rule to avoid the towns, and my detour of half a day were all in vain.
Oil City, in her better suburbs, as a collection of worthy families in comfortable homes, may have much to say for herself. But as a corporate soul she has no excuse. The dominant, shoddy architecture is as eloquent as the red nose of a drunkard. I do not need to take pains to work her into my allegory. The name she has chosen makes her a symbol. No doubt others reach the very heart of her only to find it empty as the post-office was to me. Baffling as this may be, there is another risk. Escape is not easy.
Almost out of town at last, I sat down by the fence, determined not to stir till morning. I said, “I can sleep with my back against this post.”
I had just overtaken the lame cat, and she now moved past me over the ridge to the cornfields. She seemed most unhappy. I looked back to that oil metropolis. I wondered how many had lived and died there when they would have preferred some other place.
III
A Mysterious Driver
A fat Italian came by in a heavily-tired wagon. The wagon was loaded with green bananas. The fruit-vendor stopped and looked me over. He most demonstratively offered me a seat beside him. He had a Benvenuto Cellini leer. He wore one gold earring. He looked like the social secretary of the Black Hand.