IF YOU had seen little Jo standing
at the street corner in the rain, you would hardly have admired him. It
was apparently an ordinary autumn rainstorm,
but the water which fell upon Jo
(who was hardly old enough to be either just or unjust, and so perhaps
did not come under the law of impartial distribution)
appeared to have some property
peculiar to itself: one would have said it was dark and adhesive -sticky.
But that could hardly be so, even in Blackburg, where
things certainly did occur that
were a good deal out of the common.
For example, ten or twelve years before, a shower of small frogs had fallen,
as is credibly attested by a contemporaneous chronicle, the record concluding
with a somewhat obscure statement
to the effect that the chronicler considered it good growing-weather for
Frenchmen.
Some years later Blackburg had a fall of crimson snow; it is cold in Blackburg
when winter is on, and the snows are frequent and deep. There can be no
doubt of it-the snow in this instance
was of the colour of blood and melted into water of the same hue, if water
it was, not blood. The phenomenon had attracted
wide attention, and science had
as many explanations as there were scientists who knew nothing about it.
But the men of Blackburg-men who for many years had
lived right there where the red
snow fell, and might be supposed to know a good deal about the matter-shook
their heads and said something would come of it.
And something did, for the next summer was made memorable by the prevalence
of a mysterious disease-epidemic, endemic, or the Lord knows what,
though the physicians didn't-which
carried away a full half of the population. Most of the other half carried
themselves away and were slow to return, but finally
came back, and were now increasing
and multiplying as before, but Blackburg had not since been altogether
the same.
Of quite another kind, though equally “out of the common,” was the incident
of Hetty Parlow's ghost. Hetty Parlow's maiden name had been Brownon,
and in Blackburg that meant more
than one would think.
The Brownons had from time immemorial-from the very earliest of the old
colonial days-been the leading family of the town. It was the richest and
it was
the best, and Blackburg would have
shed the last drop of its plebeian blood in defence of the Brownon fair
fame. As few of the family's members had ever been
known to live permanently away
from Blackburg, although most of them were educated elsewhere and nearly
all had travelled, there was quite a number of them.
The men held most of the public
offices, and the women were foremost in all good works. Of these latter,
Hetty was most beloved by reason of the sweetness of
her disposition, the purity of
her character and her singular personal beauty. She married in Boston a
young scapegrace named Parlow, and like a good Brownon
brought him to Blackburg forthwith
and made a man and a town councillor of him. They had a child which they
named Joseph and dearly loved, as was then the
fashion among parents in all that
region. Then they died of the mysterious disorder already mentioned, and
at the age of one whole year Joseph set up as an
orphan.
Unfortunately for Joseph the disease which had cut off his parents did
not stop at that; it went on and extirpated nearly the whole Brownon contingent
and
its allies by marriage; and those
who fled did not return. The tradition was broken, the Brownon estates
passed into alien hands, and the only Brownons
remaining in that place were underground
in Oak Hill Cemetery, where, indeed, was a colony of them powerful enough
to resist the encroachment of surrounding
tribes and hold the best part of
the grounds. But about the ghost:
One night, about three years after the death of Hetty Parlow, a number
of the young people of Blackburg were passing Oak Hill Cemetery in a wagon-if
you have been there you will remember
that the road to Greenton runs alongside it on the south. They had been
attending a May Day festival at Greenton; and
that serves to fix the date. Altogether
there may have been a dozen, and a jolly party they were, considering the
legacy of gloom left by the town's recent sombre
experiences. As they passed the
cemetery the man driving suddenly reined in his team with an exclamation
of surprise. It was sufficiently surprising, no doubt, for
just ahead, and almost at the roadside,
though inside the cemetery, stood the ghost of Hetty Parlow. There could
be no doubt of it, for she had been personally
known to every youth and maiden
in the party. That established the thing's identity; its character as ghost
was signified by all the customary signs-the shroud, the
long, undone hair, the “far-away
look” -everything. This disquieting apparition was stretching out its arms
toward the west, as if in supplication for the evening
star, which, certainly, was an
alluring object, though obviously out of reach. As they all sat silent
(so the story goes) every member of that party of merrymakers-
they had merrymade on coffee and
lemonade only-distinctly heard that ghost call the name “Joey, Joey!” A
moment later nothing was there. Of course one does
not have to believe all that.
Now, at that moment, as was afterward ascertained, Joey was wandering about
in the sagebrush on the opposite side of the continent, near Winnemucca,
in the State of Nevada. He had
been taken to that town by some good persons distantly related to his dead
father, and by them adopted and tenderly cared for.
But on that evening the poor child
had strayed from home and was lost in the desert.
His after history is involved in obscurity and has gaps which conjecture
alone can fill. It is known that he was found by a family of Piute Indians,
who kept
the little wretch with them for
a time and then sold him-actually sold him for money to a woman on one
of the east-bound trains, at a station a long way from
Winnemucca. The woman professed
to have made all manner of inquiries, but all in vain: so, being childless
and a widow, she adopted him herself. At this point
of his career Jo seemed to be getting
a long way from the condition of orphanage; the interposition of a multitude
of parents between himself and that woeful
state promised him a long immunity
from its disadvantages.
Mrs. Darnell, his newest mother, lived in Cleveland, Ohio. But her adopted
son did not long remain with her. He was seen one afternoon by a policeman,
new to that beat, deliberately
toddling away from her house, and being questioned answered that he was
“a doin' home.” He must have travelled by rail,
somehow, for three days later he
was in the town of Whiteville, which, as you know, is a long way from Blackburg.
His clothing was in pretty fair condition, but
he was sinfully dirty. Unable to
give any account of himself he was arrested as a vagrant and sentenced
to imprisonment in the Infants' Sheltering Home-where he
was washed.
Jo ran away from the Infants' Sheltering Home at Whiteville-just took to
the woods one day, and the Home knew him no more for ever.
We find him next, or rather get back to him, standing forlorn in the cold
autumn rain at a suburban street corner in Blackburg; and it seems right
to explain
now that the raindrops falling
upon him there were really not dark and gummy; they only failed to make
his face and hands less so. Jo was indeed fearfully and
wonderfully besmirched, as by the
hand of an artist. And the forlorn little tramp had no shoes; his feet
were bare, red, and swollen, and when he walked he limped
with both legs. As to clothing-ah,
you would hardly have had the skill to name any single garment that he
wore, or say by what magic he kept it upon him. That
he was cold all over and all through
did not admit of a doubt; he knew it himself. Anyone would have been cold
there that evening; but, for that reason, no one
else was there. How Jo came to
be there himself, he could not for the flickering little life of him have
told, even if gifted with a vocabulary exceeding a hundred
words. From the way he stared about
him one could have seen that he had not the faintest notion of where (nor
why) he was.
Yet he was not altogether a fool in his day and generation; being cold
and hungry, and still able to walk a little by bending his knees very much
indeed and
putting his feet down toes first,
he decided to enter one of the houses which flanked the street at long
intervals and looked so bright and warm. But when he
attempted to act upon that very
sensible decision a burly dog came browsing out and disputed his right.
Inexpressibly frightened, and believing, no doubt (with
some reason, too), that brutes
without meant brutality within, he hobbled away from all the houses, and
with grey, wet fields to right of him and grey, wet fields
to left of him-with the rain half
blinding him and the night coming in mist and darkness, held his way along
the road that leads to Greenton. That is to say, the
road leads those to Greenton who
succeed in passing the Oak Hill Cemetery. A considerable number every year
do not.
Jo did not.
They found him there the next morning, very wet, very cold, but no longer
hungry. He had apparently entered the cemetery gate-hoping, perhaps, that
it
led to a house where there was
no dog-and gone blundering about in the darkness, falling over many a grave,
no doubt, until he had tired of it all and given up.
The little body lay upon one side,
with one soiled cheek upon one soiled hand, the other hand tucked away
among the rags to make it warm, the other cheek
washed clean and white at last,
as for a kiss from one of God's great angels. It was observed-though nothing
was thought of it at the time, the body being as yet
unidentified-that the little fellow
was lying upon the grave of Hetty Parlow. The grave, however, had not opened
to receive him. That is a circumstance which,
without actual irreverence, one
may wish had been ordered otherwise.
The End
