Dec. 24, 1885.1 



FOREST AlNiJ STREAM. 



423 



"SHIFTLESS BILL." 



A Christmas Sketch. 

 I. 



TX/^HEN I first met Lim I was a boy of about fifteen and 

 y T ]ie was perhaps a year or so older. 1 had landed my 

 little duck boat where a seine -was drying on a marshy shore, 

 and with infinite difficulty I . made my way through the 

 coarse marsh grass, sticking fast in the soft inuck at almost 

 every step, to a tumble-down log hut back from the river. 

 I had come out, as was my wont when a schoolboy, on a 

 Friday afternoon to spend the night and the Saturday holi- 

 day on the sluggish, muddy river that crawled through the 

 swamps and marshes eight'miles from my home. Usually I 

 passed the Friday night curled up on the dried grass in the 

 bottom of the little duck boat, with a big overcoat for a 

 covering, but on the day I first met Shiftless Bill it had 

 set in to rain steadily, and as I had no tent and no rubber 

 coat, I ventured to seek a shelter for the night in the only 

 house in sight at dusk, the tumble-down log hut aforesaid. ' 



When I knocked a timid knock on the door, an old, hard- 

 vlsaged woman and an older, harder-visaged man both 

 peered out at me in a forbidding sort of a way. Could I 

 stay all night? No. they didn't take lodgers. But I woiild 

 pay, and wanted only shelter and a place to spread my over- 

 coat for a couch. They had no bed, but — would I sleep on 

 the floor? Certainly. Well (after a whispered consultation), 

 then I could come in. 



The interior was dark, ill smelling and otherwise forbid- 

 ding. There were two flag-bottomed chairs, guiltless of 

 backs or arras, and a home-made deal table. At one side 

 was a curtain of faded calico, which probably concealed 

 some sort of a couch, and in the furthermost corner of the 

 room was a black heap of rags or clothing, which of the two 

 I could not tell in the darkness. Even when the home-made 

 tallow dip was lighted and placed upon the greasy table in 

 a spht piece of green wood which served as a candle stick, 

 the light it furnished was faint and dismal, and only made 

 the dark crannies of the room darker yet. 



"Come fm town?" asked the old man. 



"Yes, sir." 



"Got sot lines* in the river?" 



"No, sir; I'm just out for a paddle down to Egypt, I 

 shall go back to town to-morrow night." 



"Humph! Eat supper?" 



"Yes, sir. My lunch is in the rubber bag." 



The old man then relapsed into silence, lighted a pipe and 

 drew toward him a bundle of dried flag, which he proceeded 

 to plait into the shape of a corn basket, while his better half 

 also lighted a pipe and devoted herself to the task of wash- 

 ing up the cracked and yellow earthen dishes which had 

 done duty for a recent meal, using a greasy butter tub iu 

 lieu of dishpan. As for myself,! felt the uncomfortahle 

 knowledge that I was an intru(^r, and an unwelcome one at 

 that, and inwardly vowed that never again, so long as I 

 cruised on that river, would I be found afloat without a 

 rubber blanket or some shelter from rain that would make 

 me independent of the natives of the mai'sh lands. 



An hour passed, and the man still plaited and smoked, 

 and anon spat, with great force and unerring precision' 

 through a chink between the log walls of the cabin where 

 the mud had fallen out, but never a word said he. The 

 old woman finished her dish washing, lighted one fresh 

 pipe and then another, and busied herself glueing a patch 

 on the toe of a rubber boot, but she was as dumb as her 

 spouse. Another hour passed, similar in all respects to the 

 first, and then I nodded on my chair, recovered suddenly 

 and coughed, then nodded again and fell fast asleep. When 

 I awoke, the old woman had vanished, and the old man was 

 standing over me in red flannel shirt and home-knit socks. 



"Blow out the light," he said, "when ye've rigged yerself 

 ferbed." After which terse command,'he drevvthe faded 

 curtain aside and disappeared behind its folds. In five min- 

 utes a profound bass snore, with the accompaniment of an 

 asthmatic, intermittent gasp, told me that my host and 

 hostess were wrapped in slumber. 



I spread my huge overcoat on the cleanest spot on the 

 floor, moved the candle to the edge of the table, where I 

 could reach it from my couch, and proceeded quietly to 

 wrap myself in the generous folds of my improvised cover- 

 let and couch combined. As I lifted my hand with a yawn 

 to reach the candle in order to extinguish it, I thou<yht 

 I saw some slight motion in the heap of rags in the 

 dark corner of the room. I held the candle above my head 

 and peered into the dim recess, but saw no fm-ther move 

 and believing my eyes to have deceived me, was about to 

 blow out the light when the heap of rags began to rise slowly 

 toward the ceiling. Cold shivers chased each other up and 

 down my back and the roots of my hair tingled. As the 

 heap finally assumed the shape of an upright being and ad- 

 vanced toward me my fright increased, and mv terror was 

 so intense that I lay there motionless, the candlestiU grasped 

 In my left hand, unable to move. I say an upright beino- 

 because at first there hardly appeared to be anything human 

 about the object. As it came into the arc of light which my 

 candle threw about me, however, I made out that it was the 

 figure of a man or boy, tall, long-armed and brawny, with a 

 great pumpkin-hke head covered with a thick tangled mass 

 of yellow hair and two big, dull, vacant eyes, staring ©ut 

 from a face dirty, blotched and several shades dai'ker°than 

 the hair. The clothes were few, scant in their fit and hano-- 

 ing iu tatters. As I recovered in a measure from my fright 

 and was about to speak, the boy raised a hand hke a ham in 

 warning gesture and whispered a low "Sh-sh!" Then he 

 sat on a chair close by me, pulled from somewhere iu the in- 

 terior of his rags a dirty, torn volume of Goldsmith's "Nat- 

 ural History," turned the leaves awkwardly until he came 

 to a wood cut of a giraffe, and holding it in front of my 

 eyes he whispered: "Is there sech bosses livin' es that air?"" 

 I nodded my head in assent, and he looked at the cut mus- 

 ingly for a moment, then returned the book slowly to the 

 mysterious depths of his rags, and whispered with a smile. 

 "They must be dod-durned good uus fer ploughin'." 



I again nodded assent, and having now completely re- 

 covered from my fright, I ventured a whispered "Who are 

 you?'- The boy looked cautiously around toward the cur- 

 tains, from behind which Ihe bass snore and the asthmatic 

 gasp were still audible. Tlien he looked at me intently for 



_ *-'Sot lines''-liaes set at night across the river, baited at frequent 

 intervals with worms, for catcliing catflsh. A common nieht's 

 amusement there for the boys of the town . t. 



a moment, then jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indi- 

 cate the sleepers, and said, "Them's my pap an' mam. I'm 

 Bill. Folks gen'rally call me Shiftless Bill. Dad says I 

 ain't right here," tapping: his forehead with a grimy forefin- 

 ger, "and neighlDors say it's Dad's fault. When I was little 

 Dad bet Joe Lynch he could split a green mushmelon on ray 

 head with his hand open — so. It was hard work, but Dad 

 won, with four tries. They say I hain't ben right sence," 

 and the boy gave a low chuckle and seemed vastly amused. 

 Then he leaned further forward and whispered lower, 

 "They didn't know I was under them carpet rags to night. 

 Ef they had Dad 'd ha' wolloped me. He aUus wallops me. 

 I don't live home now, I live — outside," with a wave of his 

 hand to indicate the outer world generally. "I come here 

 after powder an' caps while they was berryin', an' got 

 ketched inside. " Then he rose, walked as still as a cat to a 

 cupboard, poured a small quantity of powder from a horn 

 into his hand and from thence into a little cloth bag he car- 

 ried; then picked out of a box not more than a half dozen 

 G. D. caps, which he disposed of somewhere beneath his 

 rags; then closed the cupboard door carefully, stole with the 

 same cat-like tread to the cabin door, which he opened softly 

 and with a farewell smile of absolute vacancy to me, the 

 door closed noiselessly behind him and he was gone. 



I blew out the candle and tried to sleep; but in vain. I 

 could think of nothing but the vacant smile, the dark, 

 blotched face, the frowsy, yellow hair, and the tattered gar- 

 ments of Shiftless Bill. At last, after tossing and turning 

 for two or three hours, I found that the I'ain had ceased, and 

 rather than lie on that cabin floor for the rest of a sleepless 

 night I rose, stole out of the hut and down to the river, 

 turned the duck boat up to let the water run out, and then 

 paddled away in the darkness until I had put two good miles 

 between me and the log cabin. Then, tired with ray exer- 

 tion and the lack of sleep, I pushed the boat half its length 

 upon a muddy point, laid my arm upon the stern deck and 

 my head upon my arm, and sank to sleep. 



ir. 



It was a long time — rather more than three years— before 

 I had another interview with Shiftless Bill. I had gone as 

 usual for cruises on the river in the summer time; but the 

 great, brawny form of the half-witted lad had never come 

 under my notice, and I somehow began to look upon my 

 first vision of him as a sort of dream, a nightmare which left 

 more than the usual impression upon me. One warm day 

 I heard the sweetest bird music that I had ever listened to 

 coming from a willow copse close by the liver. I landed 

 my boat upon the grassy bank, stole to the edge of the 

 thicket, and looked through into an opening beyond where 

 the sun streamed in. There, in the midst of the sunshine, 

 lying flat upon his back, Ustening with an entranced look in 

 his eyes to the song of the bird, was Shiftless Bill, grown 

 larger than before, more ragged than ever, dirtier in every 

 way, and with lines of care or suffering drawn upon his 

 face, but the same Shiftless Bill whom I had met so strangely 

 in the log cabin three years before. A slight movement upon 

 my part and a snapped twig brought him to his feet in an 

 instant. Then he recognized me with the old vacant smile, 

 picked up an old musket, the barrel of which was red with 

 rust, and stepped out upon the grassy bank by my boat and 

 me, where he sat himself down, dived into the recesses of 

 his rags, puUed out the Goldsmith's "Natiural History," 

 thumbed the dirty leaves until he came to the cut of the 

 giraffe, and then handed me the book, saying, "I've been a 

 lookin' fer ye. That readin' tells about that air boss. A 

 girl read it to me wunst, but I want to hear it agin. Kin 

 you read it?" 



I told Bill I could, and proceeded slowly to read the para- 

 graph of about a dozen lines that described the "giraffe or 

 cameleopard." "Eead it wunst more," said Bill when I had 

 finished. I read it slowly again. Bill following my words 

 with his lips with closest attention. When I laid the book 

 down what was my surprise to hear this uneducated, half 

 witted monster reel off with perfect precision and without 

 hesitation, the paragraph I had just finished, word for word, 

 I beUeve. Then he grinned his vacant smile, and put the 

 book away. 



I was becoming much interested in this strange being, 

 and attempted a conversation with him. Where did he live? 

 Live? Wherever he liked. Everywhere, In fact, if I 

 wanted to know, he hved nowhere. Did he work? Work? 

 Well, yes, sometimes, when he wanted money. What did 

 he do with all the money he earned, if it were not imperti 

 nent to ask? "All on if!" He looked as if I was poking 

 fun at him, then chuckled and shook his filthy rags in a 

 paroxysm of mirth. Save it? Lord, no; he was no miser. 

 Work was a disagreeable necessity sometimes, or sometimes 

 a relief to the monotony of doing nothing. Work might 

 provide him with an old pair of boots when it was tod cold 

 to go barefooted, or a discarded horse blanket for his winter 

 wardrobe, but there was no actual need of continuous work 

 for any length of time. Where did he set his meals? 

 Humph! he never had no meals. Vittles didn't trouble him 

 much. He mostly found "suthin' ter eat" when he was 

 hungry. Raw turnips dug out of a field, sometimes raw 

 potatoes, or corn, or "tommatuses," or melons, or apples, or 

 berries, or "sassafrax" root, were generally, one or the other, 

 near at hand when he felt a desire to eat, but in winter he 

 lived on bread, and then he had to do chores to get it. 

 Didn't he ever eat meat? No, he hadn't touched pork, not 

 since Dad had kicked him out, long ago. For the rest, he 

 was contented with his lot; he knew where to find what' he 

 wanted when he wanted it; nobody meddled with him, 

 and he meddled with nobody. The soft leaves in 

 the hollow made by an uprooted tree were a good 

 enough bed in summer, for rain he didn't care a rap, and 

 w^hen winter and cold a haystack or the straw in a barn was 

 comfortable to bury himself in, and if they weren't handy, 

 why, a pig pen always was and the pigs knew him well and 

 rather liked his company than otherwise. Wasn't he ever 

 cold? Cold? He didn't know what cold was. And sick? What 

 busiuess had he with being sick? In his opinion it was only 

 them that^ drank rum, used tobacco, ate too much, or lived 

 stuffed up in houses that was took sick He never did none 

 of them things, and did he look sick? I was safe to say that 

 he didn't. 



Shiftless Bill's life, as I learned then and afterward from 

 those who knew him, was singularly inoffensive. He was 

 never known to be dishonest; never foul-mouthed; he had no 

 bad appetites. When he was sometimes compelled to labor 

 to obtain certain necessities he could accomphsh with his 

 wonderful strength more at the scythe, with the axe or the 

 spade than any two men. He never took money for his ser- 

 vices, asking for some discarded article of wearing apparel 

 or a loaf of bread instead; and the only objection his ac- 

 quaintances could urge against him was that he was extraor- 

 dinarily dirty and unkempt, and therefore unpleasant as a 



companion to work with. Some complained that he had no 

 pleasure in society and was entirely wrapped up in himself 

 and his filth, with not a tender chord in his heartstrings for 

 any other living being. 



m. 



In that last complaint they wronged Shiftless Bill. He had 

 pleasure in society— a certain very interesting society. With 

 his friends, the chipmunks, .and the squirrels, and the wea- 

 sels, and the rabbits, and the foxes, he was perfectly en 

 rapjx/rt. He would lie on his back for hours listening to the 

 varied and beautiful notes which the catbird, notwithstanding 

 a general impression to the contrary, can pour forth in 

 delicious melody ; and the partridge ' wooed his mate and 

 drummed the love-beat on the hollow log in complete dis- 

 regard of the fact that Shiftless Bill lay watching the occur- 

 rence in plain sight underneath a sumach. And Bill had, 

 too, a tender sympathy in his soul for certain beings, to wit, 

 vagrant dogs;' and the harder theu- lot and the more evident 

 their kicks and abuse, the stronger was the force of com- 

 passion he felt for them; and many the poor wounded cur 

 had Bill kept and tended, and nursed back to health and 

 strength in his retreat in the leafy chestnut woods. 



Do you remember that peculiar winter of 1877, when great 

 tons of snow fell early in December, and on the 30th, five 

 days before Christmas, do you recollect how the south wind 

 blew warm and all the great mass of snow and ice began to 

 melt and rivers rose, and the only thing that saved the 

 country from disastrous freshets was a sudden freeze on 

 Christmas morning, when the thermometer went down with 

 a skurry? Well, that freezing Christmas after the four days' 

 thaw is the day I write of. The river near which Shiftless 

 Bill kept his nomadic domicile rose rapidly, as did all the 

 other rivers during the thaw, broke its ice and went thrash- 

 ing along over its usually quiet course, carrying b.arrels and 

 boxes, hencoops and fences, logs and driftwood of all kinds 

 along with it; and on that cold Christmas morning the in- 

 habitants of the little hamlet of Egypt were gathered in the 

 meeting house, not only celebrating the birth of the Christ- 

 child, but giving prayerful thanks'that the good Lord had 

 sent the freezing temperature at just the right time to pre- 

 vent the further increase of the flood, which was already 

 spreading over the flat meadow on which the hamlet was 

 built, and which in another day of thawing weather would 

 have carried away half the poor little dwellings of the vil- 

 lagers. 



As the congregation filed out of the little chapel and drew 

 their mufflers and "tippets" tighter around them as the nip- 

 ping frosty air bit their noses and ears, a shout from some 

 boys on the river bank drew their attention, and men and 

 women both hurried toward the youngsters, who seemed 

 stricken with intense excitement. As they came nearer to 

 the river the people saw what had aroused 'the interest of the 

 children. Just opposite the hamlet a small raft, probably a 

 barn door, was careering downstream, and on this, running 

 back and forth from one side to the other in an attempt to 

 find a place to escape, was a large, powerful, noble looking 

 Newfoundland dog. Just below the village a point jutted 

 out into the stream, and some of the ice and debris brought 

 down with the flood had caught on this point and made a 

 wall at the edge of the shore some ten feet in height, the 

 force of the current having carried many huge blocks of ice 

 away up on the land. As the raft bearing the dog was swept 

 in toward this icy barrier the intelligent animal stepped to 

 the edge nearest the shore, and crouched as if for a spring. 

 Woultl he leap into the water and try to swim to the point? 

 A sudden shout from the spectators went up as the dog was 

 seen to spring into the icy water and strike out for the shore. 

 For a few moments only his black head could be seen as he 

 struggled nobly to gain the land. At last he reached the 

 wall of icy blocks which rose iu an inclined mass of larae 

 broken cakes for ten feet above the water. If he could climb 

 over this barrier he would be safe. The noble brute was 

 seen to lift himself in the water and put his fore paws upon 

 one of the cakes of ice He drew himself up a little, then 

 his paws slipped on the glassy sm-face, and he fell back into 

 the water. Again he tried it, and again ; and each time with 

 the same result. Then he swam along the wall to another 

 place, tried there, and failed. The spectators on the bank 

 had run down nearly to the point, and were watching the 

 dog with intense interest. Suddenly a loud cry arose. Close 

 in to the village shore, tearing along with the cui'rent at a 

 mad rate of speed, was a huge mass of ice, larger than any 

 one body that had gone down before. Its front was piled 

 up high^ its edges were rough and jagged, its present course 

 would crash it against the wall at the point and crush the 

 poor dog into a pulp with its force. On went the mass, and 

 still the dog struggled in vain. There might be yet time for 

 some agile man to climb out on that slippery wall and draw 

 the animal up out of danger. Who would make the attempt? 

 Oh, it would be a dangerous, mad journey out along that 

 wall of uneven ice for a man to take, and after all, it was 

 only a dog that was to be saved. On, on, rushed the great 

 mass of ice; nearer, every instant nearer to the poor brute, 

 whose struggles seemed to increase tenfold in the desperation 

 of the danger which he seemed to realize. Suddenly a 

 woman shrieked, and pointed with her uplifted arm. The 

 crowd looked, and a shout louder than any heard yet arose 

 from their throats. There, on the bluff at the head of 

 the point, a strange, uncouth flgure of gigantic bight, en- 

 veloped in fluttering rags, with long, matted yellow hair 

 flying in the wind, was tearing with gre.at rapid strides 

 down the declivity toward the strugghng .animal. For a 

 moment he was out of sight and then'he was seen again as 

 he mounted the wall of ice to its crest from the other side. 

 The mass was now almost upon the dog, which had ceased 

 its struggles and was looking upward piteously at the strangi 

 figure. He must hurry if he would save the brute. He 

 makes his way with ditflculty along the uneven, glassy 

 cakes of ice, clinging with hands and feet for a safe support. 

 Ah ! he has slipped ! But one hand has held with a giant's 

 strength, and he hastens along. He has slipped again , and 

 again caught with his hands. Then with two quick mot- 

 ions, he trees his feet from the ill-fitting boots that en- 

 cumber them, and then, barefooted, he bounds like a chamois 

 from cake to cake and crag to crag, with a daring and an 

 agility that make the spectators hold their breath with ex- 

 citement. JNow he is directly over the dog, and descends the 

 almost perpendicular plane of soUd ice more slowly. He 

 is not a moment too soon, as the floating mass is within a 

 few feet of the animal. He reaches out one long arm to the 

 dog, says something in a sharp tone, and the brute in obed- 

 ience makes one last effort to lift itself toward the saving 

 hand. Alas ! it has not the strength! The mass of floating- 

 ice is now almost upon them, and in another instant will 

 crash into the wall with the force of a battering ram. " Go 

 back! Go back!" the people shout. He will not. See! he 



