Uncle Jake was called a good, old soul. In fact, there was not a better, kinder man in the whole county than old Uncle Jake and when he was going to the city to sell his turnips and buy any amount of sugar, molasses, starch and such things, he promised his twenty-eight-year-old niece that she should go down to the city with him and he would “take her round,” he said, in a lordly way. This, considering that he had only been to the city once before himself, was a very generous offer and Sarah was very glad to have an uncle who was so worldly minded and knew all about the big cities and all that.
So the next day at sunrise Uncle Jake dressed himself in his best suit of black clothes and Sarah arrayed her angular form in her best calico gown, and put on her cotton mitts and the lilac sunbonnet with the sunflowers on it. After surveying his niece with a good deal of pride and some misgivings about the city men, whom he thought might be likely to steal such a lovely creature, he kissed his wife good-bye as if he were going to Europe for ten years, clambered upon the high seat of his wagon, pulled Sarah up beside him as if she had been a bundle of straw, flourished his whip, smiled blandly and confidently upon his wife, the two hired men and a neighbor’s boy, and drove away.
The two large fat horses walked up hill and trotted down dale and Uncle Jake’s white beard blew about in the wind, first over one cheek and then over the other, as he sat upon the high seat with his legs braced, pulling the horses’ heads this way and that. As the sun commenced to get warm, Sarah put up the big cotton umbrella over the lilac sunbonnet with the sunflowers, the dusty wheels rattled, the turnips in the wagon bobbed and rolled about as if each one was possessed of a restless devil, and Uncle Jake, and Sarah, and the turnips and the sunbonnet rode gaily toward the city.
Soon the houses began to appear closer together, there were more tin cans and other relics strewn about the roadside, they began to get views of multitudes of backyards, with wet clothes on the lines; grimy, smoky factories; stockyards filled with discordant mobs of beasts; whole trains of freight cars, standing on side tracks; dirty children, homeless dogs and wandering pigs. To Uncle Jake’s experienced eye, this denoted that they were entering the city.
Beer saloons commenced to loom up occasionally with men standing in front of them who wore their hats over their right eyes, or their left eyes, or their ears, or whichever member they deemed it proper, as gentlemen of leisure and of sporting proclivities. Old Uncle Jake nodded benignly at these gentlemen, whom he doubtless thought had heard he was coming to town and had “knocked off” work to see him go past, while the gentlemen nearly swallowed their tobacco in their amazement at the white-haired old “duck” but recovering themselves winked bleared eyes and bowed red noses at the lilac bonnet with the sunflowers but that was immediately focussed on somebody’s wash line in the backyard opposite, where, it seemed half of the men of the family were given over to wearing red nether garments and the other half were partial to white, thereby imparting a picturesque and lurid appearance to the line of clothes dangling in the breeze. They reached the Main Street of the town and Uncle Jake sold his turnips to a dealer who beat the old man down considerably by lying to him about “market prices”. They spent the morning in going about to the different stores buying their supplies. Uncle Jake would take his niece by the hand and enter a store, calling the first clerk he saw “Mr. Jones and Co.” or whatever name he saw on the sign board. After cordially shaking him by the hand, he would introduce his little niece Miss Sarah Bottomley Perkins and announce that she “was only twenty-eight years, seven months and—how many days Saree? Don’t know? Well, never mind. Well, sir, crops was never better than this year, by George, sir.” Had Mr. Jones and Co. noticed the amazin’ manner in which cucumber pickles grew this year or the astounding manner in which early pumpkins came up? No? Well, well, he hoped he would see Mr. Jones and Co. in a year or two. But he couldn’t say. His wife, poor critir, had the most astonishing case of plumbago that had been in Green County since ’58 when old Bill William’s wife’s second cousin took down with it. Well, he supposed he must be going. The best of friends must part. If Mr. Jones and Co. ever kim out in Green County he knew he had a place at old Jake Perkinses board: “Good-bye, my boy. Heaven bless you.”
Then the old gentleman would buy three yards of calico or seven pounds of brown sugar maybe, and bidding an affectionate good-bye to the clerk, take his niece by the hand and leave, waving his hand back at the store, while in sight to the eminent danger of a collision between the fat horses and the street cars.
Uncle Jake spent the morning this way. Some of the clerks, understanding the old man and being gentlemen, listened politely and deferentially to his ramblings, while others who were not troubled that way, snickered behind his back at the other clerks, and pointed their fingers at him, while the old man beamed a world of peace and good will toward all men through the glasses of his spectacles.
At noon, they put up the fat horses at a livery stable whose proprietor charged Uncle Jake fifty cents more than he did anyone else, merely on principle. They went to a hotel and were ushered into the parlor to await the summons of the dinner gong.
Uncle Jake and his niece walked about the spare hotel parlor and were both filled with amazement at what they deemed its magnificence. Uncle Jake’s curiosity was immense. He wandered about the room, running his hands over the picture frames and feeling of the upholstery of the chairs.
In an evil hour, he came upon the bell handle.
It was an old-fashioned affair arranged in a sort of brass scoop or cup from which projected the long handle. He looked at it for some time and wondered what it was for. He pressed on it and no tap commenced to flow ginger-pop. Finally he pulled it.
Now it came to pass that, at precisely that moment, a waiter of the hotel made a terrific onslaught on a gong that was sure to make any horses in the vicinity run away and awaken all the late sleepers for blocks around.
Uncle Jake’s pull on the bell handle and the sound of the gong were identical.
“Good Lord! what have I did? Holy Mackerel! I have gone and done it!”
With these words, Uncle Jake sank, pale-faced, back on a chair like a man who has been stricken down with a stuffed club. The old man’s hair stood on end. He was “done up,” as he expressed it. His manner conveyed a sense of terror to his niece who seemed inclined to fill the air with her lamentations but suppressed herself enough to cry “Oh! uncle! uncle! what have you done,” asking him the same momentous question he had asked himself a moment before.
“Done, Sarah? Done? Oh, sufferin’ Susan, that I should live to see this day! Done! I’ve called out the fire department, or the police force or the ambulance corps or something else that’s awful! Oh! miserable man! maybe it’s the insurance agents or the Board of Health and this poor old carcass will never get home alive.” His violent agitation made the innocent maiden still more bent on howling but her uncle stopped her as before.
“S-s-s-h! Sar-ee! S-s-s-h! My pore girl, you now see your old uncle as a fergitive from justice, a critir hounded by the dogs of the law! S-s-s-h! Make no sound er they’ll be down on us like a passel of wolves!”
Impressed by her uncle’s manner, Sarah kept quiet while the old man went about the room on his tiptoes, peering out the window in momentary expectation of seeing the police force, the ambulance corps, and the fire department come up the street.
“Thank goodness, Sar-ee, that the militia can’t be called out on such short notice and they’ll have time to find out that it is a mistake. To see this innocent country plunged in to er civil war by the hand of an ignorant old man would be terr’ble.” The old man peeped out the door and says “Come Sar-ee! S-s-sh! The minions of the law may be on our track any minute!”
Out they went into the street, hand in hand, giving cautious glances about and starting at any sudden sound. Every eye seemed to them to be full of suspicion. When they would see a policeman, they would turn up an alley or a side street. The city was very quiet and the blue buttons were out in full force, so the “fergitive from justice” and his companion went around a good many corners. When they arrived at the livery stable, their route from the hotel, if it could be mapped, would look like a brain-twisting Chinese puzzle. They hurried the hostlers and Uncle Jake’s hand shook the reins up and down as if he were knocking flies off the fat horses.
They drove down byways until they reached their road home, where the fat horses were surprised into making the exertion of their lives.
Uncle Jake and Sarah cast many fearful glances behind them until they were safe in the shelter of the old barnyard.
There with fat horses breathing heavily beside him, the cows looking solemnly over the fence and all the delights of his old heart about him, he made a vow never again to touch “no bell handles nor pull out no plugs agin, as long as I live, bein’s as how my gray hairs were like to be lowered in sorrer this blessed day.”
1885
[Bulletin of the New York Public Library,
Vol. 64 (May, 1960), pp. 275–278.]
* By permission of Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Hitherto unpublished in book form.