The man that corrupted Hadleyburg and other stories and essays

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The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg i

From Harper's Magazine

My Debut as a Literary Person 84

II " What troubles me now is, what he thinks of us, Edward."

" He ? He doesn't suspect that I could have saved him."

" Oh," exclaimed the wife, in a tone of relief, " I am glad of that. As long as he doesn't know that you could have saved him, he — he — well, that makes it a great deal better. Why, I might have known he didn't know, because he is always trying to be friendly with us, as little encouragement as we give him. More than once people have twitted me with it. There's the Wilsons, and the Wilcoxes, and the Harknesses, they take a mean pleasure in saying, ' Your friend Burgess,' because they know it pesters me. I wish he wouldn't persist in liking us so ; I can't think why he keeps it up."

" I can explain it. It's another confession. When the thing was new and hot, and the town made a plan to ride him on a rail, my conscience hurt me so that I couldn't stand it, and I went privately and gave him notice, and he got out of the town and staid out till it was safe to come back."

" Edward ! If the town had found it out — "

" Dorit! It scares me yet, to think of it. I repented of it the minute it was done ; and I was even afraid to tell you, lest your face might betray it to somebody. I didn't sleep any that night, for worrying. But after a few days I saw that no one was going to suspect me, and after that I got to feeling glad I did it. And I feel glad yet, Mary — glad through and through/'

" So do I, now, for it would have been a dreadful way to treat him. Yes, I'm glad ; for really you did owe him that, you know. But, Edward, suppose it should come out yet, some day !"

"It won't."

"Why?"

" Because everybody thinks it was Goodson."

" Of course they would !"

" Certainly. And of course he didn't care. They persuaded poor old Sawlsberry to go and charge it on him, and he went blustering over there and did it. Goodson looked him over, like as if he was hunting for a place on him that he could despise the most, then he says, ' So you are the Committee of Inquiry, are you ?' Sawlsberry said that was about what he was. ' Hm. Do they require particulars, or do you reckon a kind of a general answer will do?' 'If they require particulars, I will come back, Mr. Goodson ; I will take the general answer first.' ' Very well, then, tell them to go to hell — I reckon that's general enough. And I'll give you some advice, Sawlsberry ; when you come back

-

"GOODSON LOOKED HIM OVER

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for the particulars, fetch a basket to carry the relics of yourself home in.' "

" Just like Goodson ; it's got all the marks. He had only one vanity ; he thought he could give advice better than any other person."

"It settled the business, and saved us, Mary. The subject was dropped."

"Bless you, I'm not doubting that."

Then they took up the gold-sack mystery again, with strong interest. Soon the conversation began to suffer breaks — interruptions caused by absorbed thinkings. The breaks grew more and more frequent. At last Richards lost himself wholly in thought. He sat long, gazing vacantly at the floor, and by-and-by he began to punctuate his thoughts with little nervous movements of his hands that seemed to indicate vexation. Meantime his wife too had relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and her movements were beginning to show a troubled discomfort. Finally Richards got up and strode aimlessly about the room, ploughing his hands through his hair, much as a somnambulist might do who was having a bad dream. Then he seemed to arrive at a definite purpose ; and without a word he put on his hat and passed quickly out of the house. His wife sat brooding, with a drawn face, and did not seem to be aware that she was alone. Now and then she murmured, " Lead us not into t. . . . but — but — we are so poor, so poor !. . . . Lead us not into. . . . Ah, who would be hurt by it ? — and no one would ever know. . . . Lead us. . . ." The voice died out in mumblings. After a little she glanced up and muttered in a half-frightened, halfglad way —

" He is gone! But, oh dear, he may be too late — too late. . . . Maybe not — maybe there is still time." She rose and stood thinking, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. A slight shudder shook her frame, and she said, out of a dry throat, " God forgive me — it's awful to think such things — but. . . . Lord, how we are made — how strangely we are made!"

She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and kneeled down by the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them lovingly ; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes. She fell into fits of absence ; and came half out of them at times to mutter, " If we had only waited ! — oh, if we had only waited a little, and not been in such a hurry !"

Meantime Cox had gone, home from his office and told his wife all about the strange thing that had happened, and they had talked it over eagerly, and guessed that the late Goodson was the only man in the town who could have helped a suffering stranger with so noble a sum as twenty dollars. Then there was a pause, and the two became thoughtful and silent. And by-and-by nervous and fidgety. At last the wife said, as if to herself,

Cl Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses . . . and us . . . nobody."

The husband came out of his thinkings with a slight start, and gazed wistfully at his wife, whose face was become very pale ; then he hesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his wife — a sort of mute inquiry. Mrs. Cox swallowed once or twice, with her hand at her throat, then in place of speech she nodded her head. In a moment she was alone, and mumbling to herself.

And now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted streets, from opposite. directions. They met, panting, at the foot of the printing-office stairs ; by the night-light there they read each other's face. Cox whispered,

" Nobody knows about this but us?"

The whispered answer was,

" Not a soul — on honor, not a soul !"

" If it isn't too late to—"

The men were starting up-stairs ; at this moment they were overtaken by a boy, and Cox asked,

" Is that you, Johnny ?"

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" Yes, sir."

" You needn't ship the early mail — nor any mail ; wait till I tell you."

" It's already gone, sir."

" Gone?" It had the sound of an unspeakable disappointment in it.

" Yes, sir. Time-table for Brixton and all the towns beyond changed to-day, sir — had to get the papers in twenty minutes earlier than common. I had to rush; if I had been two minutes later — "

The men turned and walked slowly away, not waiting to hear the rest. Neither of them spoke during ten minutes ; then Cox said, in a vexed tone,

" What possessed you to be in such a hurry, / can't make out."

The answer was humble enough :

" I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you know, until it was too late. But the next time — "

" Next time be hanged ! It won't come in a thousand years."

Then the friends separated without a good-night, and dragged themselves home with the gait of mortally stricken men. At their homes their wives sprang up with an eager " Well ?" — then saw the answer with their eyes and sank down sorrowing, without waiting for it to come in words. In both houses a i7 discussion followed of a heated sort — a new thing ; there had been discussions before, but not heated ones, not ungentle ones. The discussions to-night were a sort of seeming plagiarisms of each other. Mrs. Richards said,

"If you had only waited, Edward — if you had only stopped to think; but no, you must run straight to the printing-office and spread it all over the world."

" It said publish it."

" That is nothing ; it also said do it privately, if you liked. There, now — is that true, or not?"

" Why, yes — yes, it is true ; but when I thought what a stir it would make, and what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg that a stranger should trust it so—"

" Oh, certainly, I know all that ; but if you had only stopped to think, you would have seen that you couldrit find the right man, because he is in his grave, and hasn't left chick nor child nor relation behind him ; and as long as the money went to somebody that awfully needed it, and nobody would be hurt by it, and — and — "

She broke down, crying. Her husband tried to think of some comforting thing to say, and presently came out with this :

" But after all, Mary, it must be for the best — it iS must be ; we know that. And we must remember that it was so ordered — "

" Ordered ! Oh, everything's ordered, when a person has to find some way out when he has been stupid. Just the same, it was ordered that the money should come to us in this special way, and it was you that must take it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of Providence — and who gave you the right? It was wicked, that is what it was — just blasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek and humble professor of—"

" But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives long, like the whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to stop not a single moment to think when there's an honest thing to be done — "

" Oh, I know it, I know it — it's been one everlasting training and training and training in honesty — honesty shielded, from the very cradle, against every possible temptation, and so it's artificial honesty, and weak as water when temptation comes, as we have seen this night. God knows I never had shade nor shadow of a doubt of my petrified and indestructible honesty until now — and now, under the very first big and real temptation, I — Edward, it is my belief that this town's honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours is. It is a mean town, a hard, stingy town, and hasn't a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so celebrated for and so conceited about ; and so help me, I do believe that if ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards. There, now, I've made confession, and I feel better; I am a humbug, and I've been one all my life, without knowing it. Let no man call me honest again — I will not have it."

" I — Well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do ; I certainly do. It seems strange, too, so strange. I never could have believed it — never."

A long silence followed ; both were sunk in thought. At last the wife looked up and said,

" I know what you are thinking, Edward."

Richards had the embarrassed look of a person who is caught.

" I am ashamed to confess it, Mary, but — "

" It's no matter, Edward, I was thinking .the same question myself."

" I hope so. State it."

" You were thinking, if a body could only guess out what the remark was that Goodson made to the stranger."

" It's perfectly true. I feel guilty and ashamed. And you ?"

" I'm past it. Let us make a pallet here ; we've got to stand watch till the bank vault opens in the morning and admits the sack. . . . Oh, dear, oh, dear — if we hadn't made the mistake !"

The pallet was made, and Mary said :

" The open sesame — what could it have been? I do wonder what that remark could have been ? But come ; we will get to bed now."

" And sleep ?"

"No; think."

" Yes, think."

By this time the Coxes too had completed their spat and their reconciliation, and were turning in — to think, to think, and toss, and fret, and worry over what the remark could possibly have been which Goodson made to the stranded derelict : that golden remark ; that remark worth forty thousand dollars, cash.

The reason that the village telegraph -office was open later than usual that night was this : The foreman of Cox's paper was the local representative of the Associated Press. One might say its honorary representative, for it wasn't four times a year that he could furnish thirty words that would be accepted. But this time it was different. His despatch stating what he had caught got an instant answer :

" Send the whole thing — all the details — twelve hundred words."

A colossal order ! The foreman filled the bill ; and he was the proudest man in the State. By breakfast-time the next morning the name of Hadleyburg the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from Montreal to the Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to the orange-groves of Florida ; and millions and millions of people were discussing the stranger and his money-sack, and wondering if the right man would be found, and hoping some more news about the matter would come soon — right away.

II

Hadleyburg village woke up world -celebrated — astonished — happy — vain. Vain beyond imagination. Its nineteen principal citizens and their wives went about shaking hands with each other, and beaming, and smiling, and congratulating, and saying this thing adds a new word to the dictionary — Hadleyburg t synonym for incorruptible — destined to live in dictionaries forever ! And the minor and unimportant citizens and their wives went around acting in much the same way. Everybody ran to the bank to see the gold - sack ; and before noon grieved and envious crowds began to flock in from Brixton and all neighboring towns ; and that afternoon and next day reporters began to arrive from everywhere to verify the sack and its history and write the whole thing up anew, and make dashing free-hand pictures of the sack, and of Richards's house, and the bank, and the Presbyterian church, and the Baptist church, and the public square, and the town-hall where the test would be applied and the money delivered ; and damnable portraits of the Richardses, and Pinkerton the banker, and Cox, and the foreman, and Reverend Burgess, and the postmaster — and even of Jack Halliday, who was the loafing, good-natured, no -account, irreverent fisherman, hunter, boys' friend, stray -dogs' friend, typical " Sam Lawson " of the town. The little mean, smirking, oily Pinkerton showed the sack to all comers, and rubbed his sleek palms together pleasantly, and enlarged upon the town's fine old reputation for honesty and upon this wonderful endorsement of it, and hoped and believed that the example would now spread far and wide over the American world, and be epoch-making in the matter of moral regeneration. And so on, and so on.

By the end of a week things had quieted down again ; the wild intoxication of pride and joy had sobered to a soft, sweet, silent delight — a sort of deep, nameless, unutterable content. All faces bore a look of peaceful, holy happiness.

Then a change came. It was a gradual change : so gradual that its beginnings Were hardly noticed ; maybe were not noticed at all, except by Jack Halliday, who always noticed everything ; and always made fun of it, too, no matter what it was. He began to throw out chaffing remarks about people not looking quite so happy as they did a day or two ago ; and next he claimed that the new aspect was deepening to positive sadness ; next, that it was taking on a sick look ; and finally he said that everybody was become so moody, thoughtful, and absent-minded that he could rob the meanest man in town of a cent out of the bottom of his breeches pocket and not disturb his revery.

At this stage — or at about this stage — a saying like this was dropped at bedtime — with a sigh, usually — by the head of each of the nineteen principal households :

"Ah, what could have been the remark that Goodson made !"

And straightway — with a shudder — came this, from the man's wife :

"Oh, dont! What horrible thing are you mulling in your mind? Put it away from you, for God's sake !"

But that question was wrung from those men again the next night — and got the same retort. But weaker.

And the third night the men uttered the question yet again — with anguish, and absently. This time

— and the following night — the wives fidgeted feebly, and tried to say something. But didn't.

And the night after that they found their tongues and responded — longingly,

"Oh, if we could only guess !"

Halliday's comments grew daily more and more sparklingly disagreeable and disparaging. He went diligently about, laughing at the town, individually and in mass. But his laugh was the only one left in the village : it fell upon a hollow and mournful vacancy and emptiness. Not even a smile was findable anywhere. Halliday carried a cigar-box around on a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers and aimed the thing and said, " Ready!

— now look pleasant, please," but not even this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces into any softening.

So three weeks passed — one week was left. It was Saturday evening — after supper. Instead of the aforetime Saturday- evening flutter and bustle and shopping and larking, the streets were empty and desolate. Richards and his old wife sat apart in their little parlor — miserable and thinking. This was become their evening habit now : the life-long habit which had preceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented chat, or receiving or paying neighborly calls, was dead and gone and forgotten, ages ago — two or three weeks ago ; nobody talked now, nobody read, nobody visited — the whole village sat at home, sighing, worrying, silent. Trying to guess out that remark.

The postman left a letter. Richards glanced listlessly at the superscription and the post-mark — unfamiliar, both — and tossed the letter on the table and resumed his might-have-beens and his hopeless dull miseries where he had left them off. Two or three hours later his wife got wearily up and was going away to bed without a good-night — custom now — but she stopped near the letter and eyed it awhile with a dead interest, then broke it open, and began to skim it over. Richards, sitting there with his chair tilted back against the wall and his chin between his knees, heard something fall. It was his wife. He sprang to her side, but she cried out :

" Leave me alone, I am too happy. Read the letter — read it !"

He did. He devoured it, his brain reeling. The letter was from a distant State, and it said :

" I am a stranger to you, but no matter : I have something to tell. I have just arrived home from Mexico, and learned about that episode. Of course you do not know who made that remark, but I know, and I am the only person living who does know. It was GOODSON. I knew him well, many years ago. I passed through your village that very night, and was his guest till the midnight train came along. I overheard him make that remark to the stranger in the dark — it was in Hale Alley. He and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while smoking in his house. He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his talk — most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three favorably : among these latter yourself. I say "favorably ' — nothing stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually LIKE any person in the town- — not one ; but that you — / THINK he said you — am almost sure — had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the citizens. Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you are his legitimate heir, and e?ititled to the sack of gold. I know that 1 can trust to your honor and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg these virtues are an itnf ailing inheritance, and so I am going to reveal to you the remark, well satisfied that if you are not the right man you will seek and find the right one a?id see that poor Goodson's debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid. This is the remark: 'You ARE FAR FROM BEING A BAD

man : go, and reform.'

"Howard L.Stephenson."

" Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, oil, so grateful — kiss me, dear, it's forever since we kissed — and we needed it so — the money — and now you are free of Pinkerton and his bank, and nobody's slave any more ; it seems to me I could fly for joy."

It was a happy half- hour that the couple spent there on the settee caressing each other; it was the old days come again — days that had begun with their courtship and lasted without a break till the stranger brought the deadly money. By-and-by the wife said :

" Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poor Goodson ! I never liked him, but I love him now. And it was fine and beautiful of you never to mention it or brag about it." Then, with a touch of reproach, " But you ought to have told me, Edward, you ought to have told your wife, you know."

" Well, I — er — well, Mary, you see — "

" Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me about it, Edward. I always loved you, and now I'm proud of you. Everybody believes there was only one good generous soul in this village, and now it turns out that you — Edward, why don't you tell me ?"

" Well— er— er— Why, Mary, I can't !"

" You cant? Why can't you ?"

" You see, he — well, he — he made me promise I wouldn't."

The wife looked him over, and said, very slowly,

"Made — you — promise? Edward, what do you tell me that for?"

" Mary, do you think I would lie ?"

She was troubled and silent for a moment, then she laid her hand within his and said :

" No . . . no. We have wandered far enough from our bearings — God spare us that ! In all your life you have never uttered a lie. But now — now that the foundations of things seem to be crumbling from under us, we — we — *' She lost her voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, " Lead us not into temptation. ... I think you made the promise, Edward. Let it rest so. Let us keep away from that ground. Now — that is all gone by ; let us be happy again ; it is no time for clouds."

Edward found it something of an effort to comply, for his mind kept wandering — trying to remember what the service was that he had done Goodson.

The couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary happy and busy, Edward busy, but not so happy. Mary was planning what she would do with the money. Edward was trying to recall that service. At first his conscience was sore on account of the lie he had told Mary — if it was a lie. After much reflection — suppose it was a lie ? What then ? Was it such a great matter ? Aren't we always acting lies? Then why not tell them ? Look at Mary — look what she had done. While he was hurrying off on his honest errand, what was she doing? Lamenting because the papers hadn't been destroyed and the money kept ! Is theft better than lying ?

That point lost its sting — the lie dropped into the background and left comfort behind it. The next point came to the front : had he rendered that service ? Well, here was Goodson's own evidence as reported in Stephenson's letter ; there could be no better evidence than that — it was even/ra?/that he had rendered it. Of course. So that point was settled. . . . No, not quite. He recalled with a wince that this unknown Mr. Stephenson was just a trifle unsure as to whether the performer of it was Richards or some other — and, oh dear, he had put Richards on his honor ! He must himself decide whither that money must go — and Mr. Stephenson was not doubting that if he was the wrong man he would go honorably and find the right one. Oh, it was odious to put a man in such a situation — ah, why couldn't Stephenson have left out that doubt ! What did he want to intrude that for?

Further reflection. How did it happen that

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Richards s name remained in Stephenson's mind as indicating the right man, and not some other man's name ? That looked good. Yes, that looked very good. In fact, it went on looking better and better, straight along — until by-and-by it grew into positive proof. And then Richards put the matter at once out of his mind, for he had a private instinct that a proof once established is better left so. He was feeling reasonably comfortable now, but there was still one other detail that kept pushing itself on his notice : of course he had done that service — that was settled ; but what was that service ? He must recall it — he would not go to sleep till he had recalled it ; it would make his peace of mind perfect. And so he thought and thought. He thought of a dozen things— possible services, even probable services — but none of them seemed adequate, none of them seemed large enough, none of them seemed worth the money — worth the fortune Goodson had wished he could leave in his will. And besides, he couldn't remember having done them, anyway. Now, then — now, then — what kind of a service would it be that would make a man so inordinately grateful ? Ah — the saving of his soul ! That must be it. Yes, he could remember, now, how he once set himself the task of converting Goodson, and labored at it as much as — he was

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going to say three months ; but upon closer examination it shrunk to a month, then to a week, then to a day, then to nothing. Yes, he remembered now, and with unwelcome vividness, that Goodson had told him to go to thunder and mind his own business — /^wasn't hankering to follow Hadleyburg to heaven !

So that solution was a failure — he hadn't saved Goodson's soul. Richards was discouraged. Then after a little came another idea : had he saved Goodson's property? No, that wouldn't do — he hadn't any. His life? That is it! Of course. Why, he might have thought of it before. This time he was on the right track, sure. His imagination-mill was hard at work in a minute, now.

Thereafter during a stretch of two exhausting hours he was busy saving Goodson's life. He saved it in all kinds of difficult and perilous ways. In every case he got it saved satisfactorily up to a certain point ; then, just as he was beginning to get well persuaded that it had really happened, a troublesome detail would turn up which made the whole thing impossible. As in the matter of drowning, for instance. In that case he had swum out and tugged Goodson ashore in an unconscious state with a great crowd looking on and applauding, but when he had got it all thought out and was just beginning to remember all about it a whole swarm of disqualifying details arrived on the ground : the town would have known of the circumstance, Mary would have known of it, it would glare like a limelight in his own memory instead of being an inconspicuous service which he had possibly rendered " without knowing its full value." And at this point he remembered that he couldn't swim, anyway.