CHAPTER XVII THE STORY OF A PIPE.

I SUPPOSE that there are prettier places in the world than western Massachusetts, although I should consider it a profitless task to try to find them, but whether it arose from the beauty of the scenery or the witchery of the mountain air, certain it is that we have never stayed at a country place that exercised such a charm over us as did the rolling hills and valleys around Clover Lodge. Ethel was not less under its influence than I, and we have seen how Minerva, coming there with an evident and pronounced disgust for it, was now coming to look on it as home.

All the events connected with that summer resolved themselves in the retrospect into something agreeable. The visits in turn of the burglar, the sheriff, and the “game warden” furnished us food for pleasant talk, and our early and frantic attempts to keep Minerva satisfied did not seem as tragic when looked at from the latter end of July as they did in the happening.

It was a few days after our loss of the delicious trout lunch that we received an unexpected call from a neighbour.

It was an unusually hot night for Clover Lodge. Ordinarily a blanket was not too much, no matter how warm the day, and there were nights in July when two blankets were necessary, but this night was breathless, and so hot that a sheet would have felt like hot metal.

We had retired to rest, but found that rest was impossible. It was a night in which to deplore good circulation and wish for cold feet.

It may have been twelve o’clock; it may have been much later—we had no striking clock in the house—when we heard uncertain steps on the graveled walk. They came nearer and nearer, and at last a foot slid along the floor of the porch, followed by a reluctant mate, a heavy hand fell against the door and an over-mellow voice called out,

“You ’wake, papa?”

I was only too wide awake, but I had no children, so I did not think it necessary to answer his question.

A muttering arose and then a louder query as to whether “papa” was awake.

“Who can it be?” said Ethel.

“Some one who believes in local option. I wish he’d go away.”

“Papa. Papa. It’s on’y me. I wan’ a borrer mash.”

“What does he want?” said Ethel.

“He wants a match.”

“Oh, tell him to go away. He’ll set the house afire.”

“How can he set the house afire if he hasn’t a match? It rests with me whether he sets anything afire.”

I called out in as stentorian a tone as my lungs would allow me to muster, “Go away. Go home.”

My voice was encouragement to the tired wayfarer.

“Oh, papa. Was ’frai’ you was ’sleep. Papa, ’blizh me wi’ a mash. Mine wen’ out, wan’a ligh’ a pipe.”

I got out of bed. The moon had about ended its lighting services for the night, but I could see the form of a man sitting on the porch seat, his head swaying from side to side and as I looked he again lifted up his voice and said,

“Papa, don’ you hear me? Be neighbourly, papa.”

“I don’t find any matches,” said, I with a fine Puritanical regard for the letter of the truth. I found none because I did not look for them.

My denial of his request worked on the sensibilities of my unknown neighbour to such an extent that he was moved to tears. Amid his maudlin sobs he said,

“Pa’a, if you came to my house in dea’ night an’ as’ me for mash I’d leshu have one. I’m kin’ hearted, pa’a. On’y one mash I as’ an’ pa’a refuses. My pipe’ gone out an’ pa’a has box’s mashes an’ he can’ fin’ one.”

It did seem a little like a disobliging spirit and I moved to the bureau to get one, but Ethel said,

“Don’t give him one. He’ll set himself on fire or else set fire to the grass. Tell him to go away.”

Ethel has a horror of drunken gentlemen or even drunken men, who are not gentlemen, and I could do no more than respect her wishes.

I leaned out of the window and said in very much the tone one would assume in talking to a wilful little dog,

“Now go home. Go right home. You may catch cold if you stay here. I can’t let you have a match.”

“Papa, if I caught cold ni’ like this I’d know wha’ do with it. Mos’ hot ’nough to ligh’ my pipe. Goo’ bye, papa. Mos’ unneighbourly, papa.” He rose from his seat and swayed down the walk until he came to the gate.

“Papa, I shut your gate for you. No har’ feelin’s, papa. Mos’ unneighbourly, but I shu’ your gate.”

And muttering and stumbling, he went along to his home.

Ethel, with an absence of logic that must have been due to the heat, lay awake for an hour in fear that the matchless man would set fire to the house in revenge, but we did not hear from him again.

Next morning I found a pipe in the grass not far from the gate. I said nothing about it to Ethel, but when opportunity offered I showed it to James and asked him if he knew whose it was.

“Looks like Sam Adams’s,” said he. “Yes, there’s S. A. scratched on the bowl.”

I knew Sam Adams (fictitious name) to be a hard working farmer of some thirty years of age, a young married man with an adoring wife and pretty baby and with a lack of tact that I have never ceased to wonder at I resolved to restore the pipe to him. I learned from Bert that once in a while he would go down to Grange Meeting and would stop on the way back for beverages that he did not need.

The opportunity soon offered itself. I was out walking by myself one Sunday afternoon and I came on him inspecting some buckwheat that was coming along finely.

I leaned on the fence that separated us and passed the time of day with him.

He was cordial, as he always was.

“Nice hay weather,” said I, a phrase that I had picked up very easily and worked a good deal.

“Yes, if it wasn’t the Sabbath,” said he, “or if my grass land was a leetle further away.”

“Mr. Adams,” said I, “I picked something up the other day that I think belongs to you.”

His manner, which had been warm, became frigid as he said, “I guess not. I haven’t missed anything.”

“Isn’t this yours?” said I, producing the pipe.

He looked me coldly in the eye and said, “I never saw that before.”

I, on my part, saw something that I had not seen before. I put the pipe into my pocket, feeling that I had put my foot in it.

Anxious to make amends, I pulled out a cigar and said, “Have one.”

Relaxing, he accepted it and biting off the end he put it in his mouth.

“Got a match,” said I without thinking.

“Thank you, yes,” said he turning away his head.

I lighted a cigar and we puffed silently for a minute or two.

“Weather’s been hot enough lately, to drive a man to drink,” said I. “Better take your pipe and think no more about it.”

“Thank you,” said he, as he put it into his pocket. And we became good friends from that hour.