American Agriculturist, August 16, 1924 
The 
I T happened I was down there in Carter 
County where the subterranean won- 
1 der known as Seven Echoes Cave is lo¬ 
cated. I was boarding with old Jed 
Measure at Seven Echoes Farm when the 
Bishop’s Pulpit, in that part called the 
Gothic Cathedral, caved over on top of 
Jed and ended his mortal career in one- 
tenth of a second. That happened some¬ 
time in the afternoon, and, when supper 
had been ready and waiting half an hour, 
Abundant, his daughter, came to me 
where I was sitting in the rocking-chair 
on the front porch and asked me if I would 
go over to the cave and call Jed. I took 
I an electric torch and went over to the 
| cave and found Jed as dead as a door-nail. 
For about a month Jed had been talking 
| about the crack that had appeared behind 
the Bishop’s Pulpit and threatening to get 
cement and timber and shore up the pul¬ 
pit and cement it up solid, so I guessed 
that when he began work at it the whole 
thing had skidded down, including about 
twenty tons of the ceiling and wall. A 
piece of pink stalactite had hit him and he 
was no more. 
That was bad. It left his daughter 
I Abundant a fatherless orphan and de¬ 
stroyed the Bishop’s Pulpit, one of the 
showiest features of Seven Echoes Cave, 
but it did something else that was, per¬ 
haps, worse. It ruined Seven Echoes 
] Cave entirely. 
I discovered this even before I knew 
[ Jed was quite dead. When I saw him on 
the floor of the cave motionless I tried to 
get him to show signs of life and shouted 
“Jed! Jed!” at him, and no echo came 
back. Always, when a person stood there 
and even so much as whispered a word 
the echo would come back. If you said 
“Hello!” it would answer “Hello!” and 
“Hello!” until the last echo came back 
from far down the cave, a soft gentle 
“’lol” And now there was no echo; not 
a sign of one. Those tons of rock falling- 
had changed the acoustics entirely; they 
had not only killed Jed but they had 
killed the whole seven echoes. Abundant 
was not only an orphan but a pauper or¬ 
phan, too. 
E VEN while I was kneeling by poor old 
Jed there I made up my mind what I 
would do. I would stand by Abundant. 
I don’t say it wasn’t pity, but I will say 
it was a good part love and liking. I was 
so sorry for the poor girl, singing aw r ay 
happily, maybe, in the kitchen up at the 
house while I was there on my knees by 
her dead father! My heart achecljor her, 
and I guess nothing else would ever have 
given me nerve enough to think of offering 
I to help her. 
I’ll say, straight out and frank, that if 
[ you took every man in every sort of show 
business and stood them in a row accord¬ 
ing to merit, I would be at the tail end. 
I m about the worst drawing card of the 
lot, and I know it. My line is sleight-of- 
hand, but I’m no good at it and never 
U'as. I admit that. When I took it up 
I thought I was going to be a second 
Houdini, but in a couple of years, after 
I had been just about hissed off the stage 
of the cheapest two-a-day houses, I saw 
how I stacked up and I listed my name 
tor engagements w r ith clubs and for chil¬ 
dren’s birthday parties. I got a mighty 
Poor living out of it, and that w r as about 
all. No club ever had me back a second 
time, and I don’t know that I blamed 
I them much. 
I was pretty well discouraged and 
downhearted when I had a little accident 
over on Long Island. I drew in my 
breath by mistake when I was doing my 
jnre-eating act at a kids’ party, and 
scorched my lungs bad. I was six weeks 
ln the hospital and then the doctor said 
U needed some months in high air, with 
no worry and good food, or I might turn 
out to be a real “lunger” and be done 
hor. That was when I thought of good 
old Jed Measure, who had been a friend 
[p m y father’s and knew me when I was a 
kid. I g 0 t U p nerYe enough to write to 
I him. 
\ 107 
By Ellis Parker Butler 
(Author of “Pigs Is Pigs”) 
Old Jed was a fine old scout. He had Jed was mighty proud of his cave. He When it gets to look like a regular side- 
been in the show business in one shape had put in new steps where you go down show place a cave gets passed up. 
or another all his life and many a time I from the Fairy Drawing-room to the For that reason Carter County cave 
had heard him tell father what he meant Giant’s Cathedral and again where you owners all kept up the simple rustic stuff 
to do when he got along in years and go up from the Giant’s Cathedral to the and had a few cows and chickens round, 
saved up enough money to retire. Palace of the Gods, and he kept the cave and wore blue jeans, but there was no 
“Barras,” he used to say to father, as neat as a pin. Abundant used to dust money in the farms. Abundant Meas- 
“ there’s just one business for a retired off the stalagmites and stalactites every ure’s farm was one of the worst of the 
showman to retire to and spend his old day or two and once a week she washed lot, too. 
age in ease and comfort, and that is the them down with soap and water. There was another thing. Jed hadn’t 
cave business.” “It isn’t as big as Hermit Cave or been able to pay cash down for the full 
It sounded reasonable, too. The cave Submarine Lake Cave,” Jed used to say, value of his farm. He had given a mort- 
business is a good, steady business without “ but I will say I’ve got the transparentest gage in part payment and had let the 
any worry attached. If a man owns a and prettiest stalactites in Carter County, interest payments get behind and the 
nice, showy cave—not too big but well The Hermit Cave stalactites are muddy- man that owned the mortgage was a 
located on some main automobile route— like. And, when all is said and done, fellow named Ranee Titherweight. He 
he only needs a few signs along the road where is there a cave with seven echoes?” had a bad eye. I did not like him at all, 
and he is sure of a steady income. You The seven echoes—and this is the truth and I did not like the way he looked at 
don’t have to carry fire insurance on a —were the making of Jed’s cave. He had Abundant when he came round. He was 
cave, or carry a big payroll. A man may a Bishop’s Pulpit and a Pipe Organ and a big, fat man, almost fifty if not fully 
have to wash down the stalagmites and all the other trimmings a good cave has that, and I was afraid of what he might 
stalactites once in a while to keep them to have, but every other cave in Carter propose now that Jed was gone and he 
shining, and he has to take time to show County had the same, and it couldn’t be had Abundant more or less in his fat 
visitors through his cave, but that is about disputed that Jed’s cave was back off the paws, so to speak. 
all his trouble and expense. The rest is main road quite a distance. People came In our talk Abundant told me about 
clear profit. to Jed’s cave to hear the echoes and it was the mortgage and all, but it did not seem 
no use pretending anything else. With the to worry her. She said Jed had expected 
ONG before he retired Jed-had pretty echoes gone Jed’s cave was nothing but a to take in enough from cave-seers that 
well selected the cave he meant to buy. tenth-rate cave and not worth bothering season to pay up all the interest and 
He had looked at a couple of hundred about in a county that was full of caves, something on the principal, and that he 
caves in one part of the country and an- When I had worked poor old Jed out would have done it before but that he had 
other and he thought the Carter County from under the stalactites and had shoul- spent so much repairing the house and 
cave field was the best. There were dered his lifeless form I carried him to the out-buildings, 
eighteen or twenty caves in Carter house, but I did not have the heart to tell 
County, and that advertised the county Abundant about the dead echoes. I just L^OR two or three days after the funeral 
and made folks want to go there, and one couldn’t do it while she was in her first I walked around that farm, like a lost 
of the neatest pieces of cave property in burst of sorrow. I padlocked the cave soul trying to think of something I could 
the lot was this Seven Echoes Cave. It door and put a sign at ,the gate of the do for Abundant, and Ranee Titherweight 
was the only cave Jed knew that would farm,“ Closed because of death in family,” bothered me a lot. He came to the farm 
echo back at you seven times, each echo and did what I could about the funeral every day, driving up in his glossy car 
distinct and clear. So, when he had and all. an< ^ telling Abundant that she must not 
saved up enough money Jed bought the After it was all over I talked with worry and holding her hand longer than 
cave and took Abundant down there and Abundant. I asked her what she thought necessary when he came and when he 
went into the cave business, meaning to she would do now. It was pitiful to see went, the fat snake! I could see she hated 
spend the rest of his life in it, as he did, her trying to be brave and cheerful. She t° have him touch her hand. After he 
poor fellow. said she thought she would just let things was gone she would rush to the kitchen 
When Jed got my letter saying I was go along as usual. Probably, she said, she aud scrub her hands as if he had left 
hard-up and sick and all, he did just what would have to get an extra hand to work slime on them. 
you might expect any old showman to do on the farm and a woman to be a sort of It couldn t go on long as it was. I kept 
—he telegraphed me money to take me chaperone, but she said she couldn t do the key to the cav e in my pocket, but it 
to Carter County and said he wanted me anything but stay on the place and run stood to reason that a cat e couldn t be 
to stay as long as I liked. He said there the cave and the farm and live on the kept closed very. long on account of a 
was work enough round the farm—-easy income. death in the family, but if I opened the 
work—to pay my board and lodging, and cave everyone would know the echo was 
when I got off the train, all skin and bones T TOW could I tell her how bad things dead, and that would be the end of Abun- 
and bent over like an old man and holding ^ ^ were? The farm 1 had never earned a dant. Either she would ha\e to marry 
my chest against the cough with my hand, cent and never would: Jed had told me that, that fat lizard of a Ranee I itherweight or 
he made me feel like a long-lost child. The farm was nothing but local color. One let him foreclose the mortgage and turn 
For a week or two I couldn’t do any- of the first rules of the Carter County Cave- her adrift in the^world without a cent or 
thing but sit in the rocker on the front owners’ Association was that every cave- an y experience with the world or any way 
porch and let Abundant bring me broth owner must be a farmer or appear to be to make a living. 
or a beaten-up egg and fix the rug round a farmer. The trade liked it. The cave- I took my torch and unlocked the cave 
knees, but in a week or two more I was seeing trade was high class and liked to and went in and sat down neai where poor 
able to move round and feed the chickens think of Carter County as plain farm Jed had passed away. I tried the echoes 
and pretend I was doing work. By the country owned by plain farmers, sweet but they were only too dead. While I was 
time a month was up I was able to work and unspoiled and unsophisticated, with sitting theie wishing I was a millionaire 
in the garden a little'and attend to the nothing of the Coney Island thing about or a second Herrmann the Great, a name 
cows and fences when Jed was busy tak- it. The minute Carter County began to suddenly came to my mind. It came so 
ing parties through the cave. I guess I be Coney Islandish the big-car people unexpectedly and clearly that for a second 
loved Abundant from the first minute I would pass it by. That was plain com- or two I thought some one had shouted it 
saw her, but what right had I to think of mon sense; many a cave has been ruined Bare-lip Bill. It seemed to settle 
a girl like that when nobody knew how by the owner putting in a soft-drink stand every trouble Abundant had. I went 
my lungs would turn out and I hadn’t a or ice-cream tables. The best cave-seeing back to the house ana told Abundant I 
cent and she was the daughter of Jed trade likes the rustic line, with maybe the must go up to New i ork for a couple of 
Measure, cave owner and all? I almost woman of the place coming out in a ging- days to see my lawyer or something and 
wept when I thought how sweet and gen- ham apron and sunbonnet to offer a glass that I would bring back a larm-hand tor 
tie and loving she was and I such a busted of buttermilk. Then the cave-seeing trade her, arid she let me go. 
wreck with nothing to look .forward to. feels it has sort of discovered the cave. 1 did not haw as much trouble getting 
Bill come to Carter County as I had 
feared. It was summer and nothing doing 
in his line or any other vaudeville line and 
he jumped at the chance. 
“Sam,” he said, “it suits me! It surely 
suits Bill Saggerty. You could not have 
come at a better time, old pal, because 
I’ve been wondering where I could go to 
be among the cows and the pigs and the 
chickens. I’ve got the greatest idea for 
a new stunt.” 
Enthusiastic, you understand. You 
know how a two-a-day man is when he 
thinks he has caught hold of a great idea. 
Sam figured that if he went to the agents 
with a stage set showing the dear old farm¬ 
yard with its cows and chickens and 
dickybirds and ducks, he would be dated 
up for about ten consecutive years in 
about ten minutes. He was a ventrilo- 
Drav through the dots in order to finish the question ( Continued on "page 108) 
