Cupid of Campion

Francis Finn

Cupid of Campion

CHAPTER I

In which Clarence Esmond places himself in the hands of the Bright-eyed Goddess of Adventure, and is entrusted by that Deity to the care of a Butcher’s Boy

On a morning early in September, the sun was shining brightly upon the village of McGregor. Nestled in a coulée between two hills, one rising squarely and rock-ribbed, lacking only the illusion of windows to give it the appearance of a ruined castle, the other to the northwest, sloping gently upwards, and crowned at the summit with a number of villas, McGregor, running down to the Mississippi River, was as pretty a town as Iowa could boast.

On this bright particular morning, an overgrown youth was sitting on the boat-landing, his feet dangling above the water, his face glooming darkly. Master Abe Thompson, age sixteen, was troubled in spirit.

He was homeless. He had lost his position, that of a butcher’s boy, just a little after sunrise. It arose out of a difference of seventy-five cents in the butcher’s accounts. Abe had been told under penalty of having “his face shoved in” never to darken the doors of the butcher-shop again. At the tender age of twelve Abe had left his home unostentatiously and without serving notice, and ever since had spent his time in losing jobs up and down the river. The trouble with Abe was that he never could resist “obeying that impulse,” no matter what that impulse might be. He had been blessed, if one may say so, with an obedient mother and an indifferent father. The discipline of the public school which Abe was supposed to attend might have done something for the boy had he been present for so much as six days hand-running. But Abe had early made a successful course in the art of dodging duty. He was by way of joining that vast army of the unemployed who are the ornament of our country roads in summer and of our back alleys in winter. Abe was entitled to graduate with honors in the ranks of those who have learned the gentle art entitled “How not to do it.” At the present moment Abe Thompson was in darkest mood. His soul just now was fit for treasons, stratagems, and spoils. His gloomy eyes moved vacantly over the waters shimmering in the sun. Suddenly his air of listlessness disappeared, his eyes grew tense. Among the boats around the landing was one small skiff riding high on the water, in which (for some people will be careless) lay a pair of oars and a paddle.

Abe was still gazing at this boat and its contents with greedy eyes when there came upon his ears the sound of a sweet, piercing soprano voice, giving, to whoso should wish to hear, the ineffable chorus of an almost forgotten music-hall melody:

“Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”

Abe turned to discover coming blithely down street – the one street running through McGregor – a gay lad of about fourteen years of age, dressed in an immaculate white sailor-suit. The approaching youth was walking, skipping, and jumping in such wise that it was hard to define what he was doing at any particular moment. He was rather small for his years, but apparently of muscle all compact. Gracefulness characterized his wildest and most impetuous motions. He was a perfect blonde, and his hair, bobbed after the fashion of little girls of ten or eleven, gave him a somewhat feminine aspect, further emphasized by his cream-and-rose complexion. A close observer, studying his pretty features, might indeed have inferred from his tip-tilted nose and his square chin that the youngster was not safely to be treated as a mollycoddle. Abe was not a close observer.

“I say,” he broke out, as the pretty boy drew near, “what sort of a lingo is that you’re giving us? You don’t call that American, do you?”

“Good morning, fair sir,” replied the boy, raising his sailor hat and bowing elaborately, “may I have the pleasure of your acquaintance?”

“What lingo was that you was a-singing?”

“The language, fair sir, of adventure.”

Abe frowned, and spat into the river.

“Permit me,” continued the newcomer, “to introduce myself. I have the honor of informing you that my name is Clarence Esmond. What is yours?”

“I’m Abe Thompson. What are you looking for this morning?” continued Abe, as he noticed that Clarence was gazing longingly at the craft moored at the river’s edge.

“Who? – me?” queried the debonair youth. He drew himself erect, threw back his head, raised his eyes, and with a dramatic gesture continued: “I am looking for the bright-eyed goddess of adventure!”

“Oh, talk American!”

“I will, gentle youth. I am looking for fun; and if something happens, so much the better.”

“Do you want to go anywheres?”

“I want to go everywhere. I’d like to be on the ocean, running a liner; I’d like to be a cowboy, dodging Indians; I’d like to be a soldier in the trenches, and a sailor in a submarine. In fact, I’d like to be everywhere at the same time.”

“You can’t do that, you boob,” said Abe with strong disfavor on his rugged face.

“I am one of those fellows,” continued Clarence, “who wants to eat his cake and have it.”

“Oh, jiminy!” roared Abe, breaking into a loud laugh, “you want to eat your cake and you want to have it at the same time?”

“That’s it exactly. I want to eat my cake, and at the same time have it.”

“Oh, jiminy! Why, do you know what you are?” asked Abe laughing with conscious superiority.

“Won’t you please tell me?”

“Why, you are an idiot, a plumb-born idiot.”

“Oh, am I?” and as Clarence asked the question his face beamed with joy.

“You sure are.”

“I suppose,” continued Clarence, “that you think I am one of those chaps who hasn’t got enough sense to come in out of the rain when it is raining.”

“You’re the dumbdest idiot I ever met,” said the frank butcher’s boy.

“I guess you are right,” assented the lad beamingly. “Lots of people have told me I am an idiot. And I never do come in out of the rain when it is raining. I use a cravenette.”

“Oh, Lord!” cried Abe, all his crude humor stirred to scornful laughter, “what an awful ass you are!”

“Thank you so much,” answered Clarence glowing with delight. “It’s a pleasure to meet a fellow who says just what he thinks.”

“Any more like you at home?”

“I happen to be the only child,” answered Clarence. “I am the light of my mother’s eyes. There are no others like me.”

“I should say not! Say, who let you loose?”

“That reminds me,” said Clarence, his smile leaving him. “I’ve got to be back at noon, and it’s nearly eight-thirty now. Say, do you know this river?”

“I should say I do. Do you want me to row you?”

“Is there any place around here worth seeing?”

“Sure! Pictured Rocks! Everybody goes there. It’s a mile down the river.”

“Suppose I hire a boat, would you mind acting as my guide – salary, fifty cents?”

“I can do better than that,” said Abe, becoming all of a sudden obsequious. “That’s my boat down there – that little boat with the oars – and I’ll take you to Pictured Rocks and bring you back for one dollar. That’s fair enough, ain’t it?”

Abe was young and his imagination undeveloped. Had he been older, he would have tried to sell the boat and a few houses nearest the river bank, all together, for a slightly larger sum.

“That’s a go!” cried Clarence, running for the boat, jumping in and seating himself to row. “Come on quick. Cast off, old boy.”

The boat was locked to a post. Abe was accustomed to facing such difficulties. He broke the lock under Clarence’s unobservant eyes, and, shoving the skiff off and jumping in, seated himself in the stern.

“You row and I’ll steer,” he said, as he picked up the paddle.

Clarence dipped the oars into the water, and with a few strokes the two started down the river with the swift current. It was a beautiful morning, clear and crisp. The river, a vast lake in width with islands and inlets and lagoons and streams between the Iowa and the Wisconsin shores, was dancing in the sunlight. Birds, late though the season was, made the air gay. On the Wisconsin shore the solemn hills, noble and varied, stood sentinel over the smiling valleys of golden grain which ran almost to the river’s banks; on the Iowa side, a twin range came down almost to the water. The river was clear and, despite the current, had all the appearance of a vast lake.

The air and the sunshine and the scenery entered into Clarence’s soul.

“Hurrah!” he cried, brandishing an oar. “All aboard to meet the bright-eyed goddess of adventure!”

And the bright-eyed goddess was not deaf to the summons of the thoughtless lad. The goddess was awaiting him. The meeting was to be very soon, and the interview a long one. And it is because of the meeting that this veracious story is written.

CHAPTER II

In which the Steamer St. Paul and a tramp lend their aid to the Bright-eyed Goddess

“I say,” observed Abe presently, “you can row some!”

“What do you think I’ve been going to school for?” retorted the dainty youngster, as with even and strong stroke he sent the boat flying down the current.

“What are you giving us? There ain’t no rowing-schools.”

“It may be, fair sir,” answered Clarence, “that there be no schools with that precise name; at the same time, I don’t mind telling you that for the past three years I’ve been attending Clermont Academy in New York State, a young gentleman’s boarding school, as the prospectus says, where for the trifling sum of nine hundred dollars a year, cash in advance semi-annually, I have learned to play handball, baseball, football, lawn tennis, basket-ball, hurdling, shot-throwing, swimming, skating, and a few other little things like that.”

“You call that a school?” exclaimed Abe, his large nose curling in disdain.

“Everybody calls it a school,” answered Clarence, blithely, “even the babes in their mothers’ arms.”

“What about readin’, ’ritin’ and ’rithmetic?” continued the incredulous steersman.

“Oh, we’ve got all that, too; if we want that sort of thing. We can’t be running and jumping all day, you know.”

“That’s a measly school,” continued Abe.

“Awful sorry you don’t like it. Of course, you don’t have to come.”

“No school for me,” said Abe emphatically. “Say, why ain’t you at school now?”

“Because my ma and my pa are over here visiting. They’re going West as far as the coast, and my pa’s taking me along so’s he’ll know me next time he sees me. And my ma says she’s real anxious to make my acquaintance.”

“You don’t mean to say you don’t know your own pa and your own ma?” cried the scandalized Abe.

“Well, I haven’t seen ’em ever since I was eleven. A boy changes a good deal in three years. My ma didn’t change so much. But she says she’d hardly know me. I say, this river looks fine! How is it for swimming?”

“Mighty bad,” answered Abe, his power of invention beginning to stir. “If you don’t know this river, you’re just as like as not to get drownded. It looks all right,” continued the young vagabond, warming up to his theme; “but it’s full of sink-holes and places that suck you down. Don’t you ever go in this river unless you know some one who can show you a safe spot. You see that little house there, with the red roof?”

“It appears to me I do.”

“Well, the other day, three guys who didn’t know nothing about this river went in swimming just in front of it. All three went down, and they never come up no more.”

“What!” cried Clarence, resting on his oars and losing something of his color.

“Yes, sir,” Abe affirmed, regretting now that he hadn’t made it six or seven boys. “And their fathers all came here to see what could be done, and one of them went in and he was drownded too. It’s a mighty dangerous river in these parts.”

“That settles it,” said Clarence, resuming his rowing with a sigh. “I’ll not take the swim today that I promised myself.”

“Oh, I can fix that,” said Abe, “I know a place right down by Pictured Rocks where a hen wouldn’t mind swimming; it’s so safe. Oh, look!” he continued, “here comes the St. Paul.”

“What? Where?” cried Clarence, once more relinquishing the oars and craning his neck. “By George! That’s worth seeing. Where is it from?”

“From St. Louis. It’s a passenging boat and is going to St. Paul.”

The approaching steamboat, just turned a bend, was quite near them.

“Aha!” cried Clarence, picking up the oars and becoming melodramatic. “There she is! I can see her. Somewhere, Master Abe, in that boat is the bright-eyed goddess of adventure, and I’m going to meet her.” As he spoke he set vigorously to rowing out towards mid-stream.

“Say, you boob,” roared Abe, dropping his paddle in dismay: “You’re going to get run down. Do you want to get drownded?”

“Not at all. Now just sit tight, don’t rock the boat, and let me do it all by myself. We’re going to shoot right across her bow. You just leave it to me. We can do it easily.”

They were now quite near the steamer and it looked to Abe, as it looked to the captain of the boat, as though the little craft were almost certain of being run down. Abe fell back, his cheeks grew white, his teeth chattered; he turned his face from the approaching vessel. Meantime, there was a whistle, a clanging of bells, and hurried movements on the St. Paul. As the forward deck filled with excited passengers, the steamboat came almost to a full stop; observing which Mister Clarence, who had been rowing with all his might and main, lessened his efforts most perceptibly, and gazed enquiringly at the big boat.

“Say, do you know, Abe, I believe that boat’s in trouble? Maybe they want our help.”

Abe sat up and once more took notice.

“You young jackass!” roared the captain leaning as far as it was safe over the deck.

“Which one of us do you mean, sir?” asked Clarence.

“You, gosh blame you! You, drat your hide! If there were more idiots on this river like you, I’d give it up and take to farming. I’ve stopped my boat on your account.”

“Go right ahead, sir. I didn’t want you to stop.”

Clarence beamed kindly on the captain, smiled upon the passengers, and doffed his cap. There came a cheer from the deck, Clarence hummed “Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay,” and presently the two adventurers had the river to themselves.

“He said you were a young jackass,” said Abe presently.

“Yes, I noticed.”

“Well, you are.”

“Why, I could have made that easily. There was no danger at all. He had no business to stop that old boat of his. I didn’t ask him to. And then he goes and calls me names.”

“He said you were an idiot,” pursued Abe.

“That’s nothing. I’ve heard that before. Nearly all my friends say things like that to me.”

“I’ll not go rowing with you again, you big boob.”

“You’ll not get the chance. I’m off for the Coast at noon-time.”

“Here we are,” cried Abe presently, steering towards the shore. “This is the place that leads up to Pictured Rocks.”

“Hurrah for Pictured Rocks!” shouted Clarence, bringing with a few swift strokes the boat well up on the beach. “And what are Pictured Rocks anyhow?”

“The folks round here,” answered Abe, as he took the oars from the boat and carefully hid them in the undergrowth near the shore, “calls ’em Pictured Rocks, because the rocks up this here hill instead of being white like other rocks is in layers of red and orange and blue and all sorts of colors between, and they says that the Injuns used to come here and use the stuff of the rocks for war-paint.”

“Well,” said Clarence, blithely turning a few cartwheels on reaching the bank, “I’m ready for your Pictured Rocks. Do you think I’ll find the bright-eyed goddess of adventure amongst them?”

“I dunno. Come right along; we can get up there in about fifteen minutes.”

But the bright-eyed goddess of adventure was nearer than Clarence fancied. She took, on this occasion, the guise of a tramp, who, making his way along the railroad ties of the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul towards McGregor and chancing to see a youth in a white sailor-suit, thought it worth his while to pause upon his weary journey.

Abe led the way. He passed the tracks unnoticed by the road adventurer. Clarence, pausing at every other step to take in the view, presently followed.

“Say, young feller, could I say a word to you?”

“Make it a dozen, while you’re about it,” answered Clarence, gazing at the long-haired, unshorn, shabby, middle-aged man before him.

“I ain’t had nothing to eat since last night. Could you spare me a dime?”

“With pleasure,” responded the youth, taking out as he spoke a handful of coin, selecting a quarter and handing it over to the hungry one.

The sight of money brings a strange light into certain eyes. The tramp’s were of that kind.

“You’re carrying too much money for a kid. Give me some more,” he said.

“Skiddoo! Hump yourself!” yelled Abe from a safe distance.

Clarence was looking hard at his new acquaintance. There was no mistaking the glint in the fellow’s eye. The beggar had developed into the highwayman.

“Excuse me!” said Clarence, and turning tail he dashed down the track.

The tramp had a good pair of legs in excellent condition from much travel. He was quick to the pursuit.

“Run faster!” roared Abe, content to give advice. “He’s catching up.”

Clarence had a start of nearly ten yards; but before he had gone far, it grew clear to him that his pursuer was no mean runner. Nearer and nearer drew the tramp. The race could not last much longer.

Suddenly Clarence stopped, whirled around, and before his pursuer could realize the turn of events, plunged through the air, landing with both arms about the astounded man’s knees. The tramp went down with a suddenness to which few men are accustomed, and, assisted by a quick shove from the boy’s agile arm, started rolling from the tracks down an incline of some fifteen feet. By the time he had arisen to a sitting posture below and passed his hand over the several bruises on his head, the boy was back with Abe and lustily making his way up the hillside.

The tramp saw him, no more; but as he rose to resume his wearied journey, he heard a blithe voice far up the hillside carolling forth:

“Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay, Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay!”

CHAPTER III

In which Clarence and his companion, the Butcher’s Boy, discourse, according to their respective lights, on poetry and other subjects, ending with a swim that was never taken and the singing of Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay for the last time

“That was great,” said Abe, enthusiastically, as he led the way up a steep and winding path. “You dished that feller easy. How did you do it?”

“I just tackled him.”

“What’s that?”

“Don’t you know anything about football?”

“Naw!”

“Well, when a chap on the other side has the ball and is running up the field with it and you want to stop him, you make a dive at his knees and clasp your arms right above ’em; and the faster he’s going, the harder he’ll fall.”

“I’d like to learn that game,” remarked Abe with some show of enthusiasm.

“What a nice little stream that is,” continued Clarence, waving his hand towards a tiny streamlet beside their upward path. “I like the sound of running water, don’t you? There ought to be a waterfall somewhere about here.”

“There is; it’s furder up.”

“Are you fond of Tennyson, Abe?”

“Eh? What’s that? Another game?”

“He’s a poet.”

“A what?”

“A poet: he writes verses, you know.”

“I don’t read nothin’.”

“Well, listen to this:

“‘I come from haunts of coot and hern,  I make a sudden sallyAnd sparkle out among the fern  To bicker down a valley!’”

“Sally is a girl’s name,” said Abe, whose brows had grown wrinkled from concentrated attention.

“I don’t think you quite got the idea of those lines,” said Clarence suavely. “But just listen to this:

“‘I chatter, chatter as I flow  To join the brimming river;For men may come and men may go,  But I go on forever.’”

“Say that again, will you?”

Clarence obligingly and with some attention to elocution repeated the famous stanza.

“Who said that?” asked Abe.

“Tennyson.”

“What was he chattering for?”

“He wasn’t chattering; it was the brook that chattered.”

“Well, why didn’t he say so, then? He said, ‘I chatter.’”

“Oh, hang it! He put those words into the mouth of the brook.”

“But a brook ain’t got no mouth.”

“Yes; but he put himself in place of the brook. He just imagined what the brook would say, if it could talk. Listen once more.” And for the third time and still more melodramatically Clarence gave voice to the quatrain.

“Tennysee was a fool. The idea of a feller taking himself to be a brook. Why, if he was a brook, he couldn’t talk anyhow.”

“Abe, you’re hopeless.”

“See here, don’t you call me no names.”

“You’re a literalist!”

“You’re another, and you’re a liar!”

“Oh!” cried Clarence, gurgling with delight, “here are the Pictured Rocks, sure enough. And a cave!”

Beside the stream, a vast bed of rocks in veritable war-paint, hollowed at the centre into a rather large cavern, greeted the eyes of the astonished youth. The colors in horizontal layers were gay and well-defined, red being predominant.

“This is where the Injuns used to come for their paint,” explained Abe, forgetting his grievance in the pleasure of being a cicerone. “They used to come down this path and daub themselves up, and then cross the river to Wisconsin, and shoot the Injuns on the other side with their bows and arrers.”

Clarence was examining the surface of the rock. It was easy to rub away the outer part of the soft layers.

“Say, Abe, let me paint you. I think you’d make a fine Indian.” And Clarence with a handful of red sand sprang smilingly at his guide.

“You go on and paint yourself,” growled Abe, backing quickly. As a result, he missed his footing, slipped and fell into the tiny stream, where he sat for several seconds before it occurred to him to rise.

“Ha, ha, ha!” screamed Clarence. His silvery laughter, clear and sweet, was caught up by the echoes and came back translated into the merriment of elfland.

Much as the echoes seemed to appreciate his burst of glee, it did not appeal at all to the wrathful guide. His face had grown red as a turkey-cock’s; his fists doubled, and he was on the point of assaulting the unsuspecting Clarence.

“Oh, hark, oh, hear!” cried Clarence with a gesture and in a voice so high and ringing that Abe was startled, and paused in the execution of his revenge.

“Did you hear ’em?”

“Hear what?”

“The echoes. They’re the horns of elfland, you know.”

“The what!” exclaimed Abe. He had a dread of the unknown word.

“The horns of elfland faintly blowing.”

“You’re blowing yourself. Here you” – Abe stooped, picked up a small twig and placed it on one shoulderband of his blue overalls – “Knock that chip off’n my shoulder!”

Clarence surveyed his offended companion severely.

“Abe, come on; let’s go up. You know, I owe you a dollar. If you were to put one of my beautiful blue eyes into mourning, I think I’d claim that dollar for damages and then where would you be?”

“Well, then, you stop using them big words.”

“All right, Abe.”

With an occasional shout to set the wild echoes flying, the two pursued their steep upward way. For the most part, there was no conversation.

When they reached the waterfall, nothing would do Clarence but at the risk of life and limb to get under the hollow rock, over which fell the water in a wide but thin stream, and, extending his head and opening his mouth, catch what drops he could as they fell.

“Abe!” he suddenly said, “I think I know now where the goddess of adventure lives.”

“Eh? What?”

“If ever I wish to communicate with that bright-eyed lady, I’ll address my letters thus:

“‘To the Goddess of Adventure,

The Bright-eyed Waterfall,

Pictured Rocks,

Iowa, U. S. A.’”

“You drop that goddess of adventure. I don’t believe in no such foolishness as that.”

“All right, Abe, if you don’t believe in her, she doesn’t exist. Now for the top.”

Up they went, with quick steps and, as regards Clarence, steady breathing. Abe was puffing. Loose living had reached out into the future and gained for him the “far off interest of years.” Abe belonged to that steadily increasing class of Americans who, growing up without recognition of any law of God or man are destined to be short-lived in the land.