In Our Town

by William Allen White

"No—but he might have hypnotised us—or something."

"Yes—but still, he might have been hypnotised by something himself," suggested Larmy, and then added: "That thing he did with the linotype—say, wasn't that about the limit? And yet nothing has come of that prophecy. That's the trouble. I've seen dozens of those things, and they always just come up to the edge of proving themselves, but always jump back. There is always——"

"My God, Larmy, look—look!" cried the reporter.

And the two men looked at the screen before them, just as the backward sway of the crowd had ceased and horror was finding a gasping voice upon the lips of the women; for there, walking as naturally as life, out of the background of the picture, came David Lewis with his dark sleeves rolled up, his peaked army hat on the back of his head, a bucket in his hand, and as he stopped and grinned at the crowd—between the lightning-flashes of the kinetoscope—they could see him wave his free hand. He stood there while a laugh covered his features, and he put his hand in his pocket and drew out a key-ring, which he waved, holding it by some long, stemlike instrument. Then he snapped back into nothing.

And the operator of the machine, being in a hurry to catch the ten-thirty train, went on with his picture-show and gave us President McKinley and Mark Hanna sitting on the front steps of the home in Canton, then followed the photograph of the party around the big table signing the treaty of peace. As the crowd loosened and dissolved, Larmy and the reporter stood silently waiting. Then, when they could get away together, the reporter said:

"Come, let's go over to the shop and think about this thing."

When they opened the office door, the rank odour of the machinery came to them with sickening force. They left the front door open and raised the windows. The reporter began using a chisel on the top of a little box with a Government frank on it, that had been placed upon the music-box in the corner.

"We may as well see what David sent home," he grunted, as he jerked at the stubborn nails, "anyway, I've got a theory."

Larmy was smoking hard. "Yes," he replied after a time; "we might as well open it now as any time. The letter said all his things would be found there. I guess he didn't have a great deal. Poor little devil, there was no one much to get things for but you fellows and maybe me, if he thought of us."

By this time the box was opened, and the reporter was scooping things out upon the floor. There was an army uniform, that had something clinky in the pockets, and wrapped in a magenta silk handkerchief was a carved piece of ivory. In a camera plate-box was a rose, faded and crumbly, a chip-diamond ring, a bangle bracelet, a woman's glove and a photograph. These Larmy looked at as he smoked. They meant nothing to him, but the reporter dived into the clothes for the clinky things. He came up with a bunch of keys, and on it was the long brass lever which unlocked the music in the box.