The Miracle Man by Frank L. Packard

F >> Frank L. Packard >> The Miracle Man

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15

He handed the slate to the Patriarch, and on it were the words:

"Won't you tell me something of yourself, how you came to live here
alone, and your name, perhaps? I do not mean to presume, but I am deeply
interested."

"There is never presumption in kindliness and sympathy," answered the
Patriarch. "But my name and story is buried in the past--perhaps when I
am gone those who care to know may know. I have not hurt you by refusing
to answer?"

"No, indeed!" said Madison politely to himself. "The element of mystery
is one of the best drawing cards I know--it's got Needley going strong.
Far, far be it from me to tear the veil asunder. I mentioned it only as
a feeler."

But upon the slate he wrote:

"Far from being hurt, I respect your silence. But your eyes--you were to
tell me about them."

The Patriarch's face saddened suddenly as he read the words.

"I have made no secret of it," he wrote. "I have been going blind for
nearly a year now. The end, I am afraid, is very near--within a few
days, perhaps even to-morrow. I think I should not mind it much myself,
for I am very old and have not a great while longer to live in any case,
but for the time that is left it will mar my usefulness. I have been
able to help the people here and they have come to depend upon me--that
is my life. I trust I am not boastful if I say my greatest joy has been
in helping others."

He had come to the bottom of the slate and held it out for Madison to
read; then wiped it off, and went on:

"I have dreamed often of a wider field, of reaching out to help the
thousands beyond this little town--but I have realized that it could be
no more than a dream. I have been successful here because the people
believe in me and have unquestioning faith in me--to go outside amongst
strangers would only have been to be received as a charlatan and faker,
or as a poor deaf and dumb fool at best."

Madison took the slate.

"But if these thousands of others came to you--what then?"

The Patriarch's face glowed.

"It would be a wondrous joy," he wrote. "Too wondrous to dwell
upon--because it could never be. If they came I could help them, for
their very coming would be an evidence of faith--and faith alone is
necessary. Think of the joy of helping so many others--it is the fulness
of life. But let us not dream any more, friend Madison."

"Of course," communed Madison, studying the illumined face, "he's
slightly touched in his upper story on the faith stunt; but he's in dead
earnest, and he's got the brotherhood-of-man bug bad. Come to think of
it, Hiram did say something about his 'sight failing,' but I didn't
think it was anything like this. If he's going to go finally blind in,
say, a week, perhaps it would be just as well to postpone the opening
night until he does."

Madison took the slate.

"Stranger things than that have happened," he wrote. "I never heard of
you before, yet I am one of the thousands beyond this little town and I
am here--why not the others?"

The Patriarch shook his head sadly.

"It is but a dream," he wrote.

Madison held the slate in his hands for quite a long time before he
wrote again; his attitude one of sympathetic hesitancy as his eyes
played over the form and face before him, while the Patriarch smiled at
him with gentle, patient resignation. Back in Madison's fertile brain
the germ of an inspiration was developing into fuller life.

"What will you do here alone when you are blind?" he asked--and his face
was disturbed and solicitous as he passed the Patriarch the slate.

"I need very little," the Patriarch wrote back. "You must not worry
about me. My garden supplies nearly all my wants, and there are many in
the village, I am sure, who will help me with that when the snow is
gone."

"I am quite certain of that," Madison's pencil agreed. "But here in the
house you cannot be alone--there are so many things to do, little things
that I am sure you have not thought of--some one must cook for you, for
instance. You will need a woman's hand here--have you no one, no
relative that you can call upon?"

The Patriarch lowered the slate from his eyes, shook his head a little
pathetically, and began to write.

"I do not think they would have cared to come, even if they were still
alive; but they are all gone many years ago--except perhaps a
grand-niece, and I do not know what has become of her."

"Why, that's just the thing," wrote Madison. "Suppose we try to find
her?"

Again the Patriarch shook his head.

"I am afraid that would be impossible. I do not even know that she is
alive. I know only of her birth, and that is twenty years ago."

"Even that is not hopeless," wrote Madison optimistically, and his face
as he looked at the Patriarch was seriously thoughtful. "Where was she
born?"

"New York," the Patriarch answered.

"And I never half appreciated the old town nor the fulness thereof until
I came to Needley!" said Madison plaintively to the toe of his boot,
while his hand scrawled the inquiry: "What is her name?"

"Vail," wrote the Patriarch. "That was her father's name. She is my
grand-niece on her mother's side. I do not know what they christened
her."

Madison once more, apparently deep in thought, sought refuge at the
fireplace, his hands plunged in his pockets, his shoulders drawn a
little forward, his back to the Patriarch.

"Fiction," he assured a crack in the cement between two stones, "was
never, never like this. It seems to me that I remember the occurrence.
It had grown a little dim with the lapse of time, it is true; but now
that I recall it, it comes back with remarkable clearness. I am quite
sure they christened her--Helena. Helena Vail! Now isn't that a
perfectly lovely name for a novel! And she'll be so good to the dear old
chap too--washing and ironing and cooking for him--and stealing out into
the woodshed for a drag on her cigarette--_not_. No, my dear, not even
that--this is serious business."

He turned, came back to his chair, picked up the slate, and wrote:

"I have the fortune, or misfortune perhaps, to be what is commonly
called a rich man. Money, they say, will do anything, and if it will
I'll find this niece for you."

The Patriarch's eyes grew moist as he read the words, and his hand
trembled a little with emotion as he held the pencil.

"I cannot let you do that," he protested. "You are very kind, and it
seems almost as though you had been brought to me providentially at the
end of long years of loneliness for a purpose, when my hour of
helplessness was near; but, indeed, I have no right to allow you to do
this."

"They tell me in the village," wrote Madison in reply, "that you have
always refused to accept a penny for anything you have ever done for
them. I have no doubt you would equally refuse to accept anything from
me for what you may do, and I should hesitate to offer it however much I
felt indebted, but this is something that you must let me do. It will
make me feel more--how shall I say it?--more as though I had a right to
the privilege of coming here."

The Patriarch wiped his still moist eyes before he answered.

"What can I say to you? It does not seem right that I should let a
stranger do so much, and yet it seems that I should not say no
because--"

Madison was bending over the slate, reading as the other wrote, and he
took the pencil gently from the Patriarch's hand.

"You must not look on me any longer as a stranger," he wrote. "Let us
just consider that it is all arranged--only I would strongly advise
making no mention of it until we make sure that she is alive."

"I think nothing should be said," agreed the Patriarch. "For even if you
found her she might not care to come--I have little here to offer a
young girl--few comforts--the care of a blind man who is deaf and dumb."

"We'll see about that when we find her"--Madison smiled brightly at the
Patriarch, as he wrote. "Now that's settled for the time being, isn't
it?"

The dumb lips moved and both hands reached out to Madison.

Madison took them in a firm, strong, reassuring clasp, then shook his
finger in a sort of playfully emotional embarrassment, excellently well
done, at the Patriarch--and picked up the slate again.

"It is getting late," he wrote, "and I must not tire you out. I am
afraid you will think I am far more inquisitive than I have any right to
be, but there is one more question that I would like to ask--may I?"

The Patriarch nodded his head, and laid his hand on Madison's sleeve in
a quaint, almost affectionate way.

"It is about your education. You came here sixty years ago, and you have
lived alone. You could have had but few advantages, with your handicap,
previous to that, and yet you write and use such perfect English."

"The answer is very simple," replied the Patriarch on the slate. "Until
within the last year, I have read largely. Would you care to look at my
books? They are there in the nook on the other side of the fireplace."

Madison, promptly and full of interest, rose from his chair, passed
around the fireplace, and halted before a row of shelves set in against
the wall.

"I pass," Madison admitted to himself after a moment, during which his
eyes roved over the well chosen classics. "I've heard of one or two of
these before--casually. I've an idea that if the Patriarch's got all
this inside his gray matter, it's just as well for the Flopper, for Pale
Face Harry, for Helena and yours truly that he's deaf and dumb--and will
be blind."

Madison came back to the Patriarch with beaming face, and picked up the
slate.

"I read a great deal myself," he wrote. "It is a pleasure to find _real_
books here. May I, during my stay in Needley, look upon them in a little
way as my own library?"

"You are very welcome indeed," the Patriarch answered.

"Thank you," wrote Madison. "And now, surely, I must go"--he smiled at
the Patriarch.

"Come to-morrow," invited the Patriarch. "I would like to show you all
around my little place here."

"Indeed, I will," Madison scratched upon the slate, "and do you know
that somehow, since I came here to-night, I feel a sense of relief, a
sort of guarantee that everything is going to be all right with me in
the future."

The Patriarch smiled quietly, almost tolerantly.

"I know that," he wrote. "Keep your mind free of doubt, be optimistic
and cheerful as regards yourself, nourish the faith that has already
taken root and that I feel responds to mine; keep in the open air and
take plenty of exercise."

Slowly, with an apparently abstracted air, Madison read the slate,
wiped it carefully, laid it down, and then held out his hand.

"Good-night!" he nodded warmly.

The Patriarch, still with the quiet smile upon his lips, rose from his
armchair, and, keeping his clasp on Madison's hand, led Madison to the
door, opened it, and with a gesture at once courtly and affectionate
bade his guest good-night.

Madison crossed the lawn at a thoughtful pace, turned into the wagon
track, and, in the shelter of the woods now, whimsically felt his pulse;
then, lighting a cigar, tramped on with a buoyant stride.

"There's only one answer, of course," he mused. "The Patriarch's got a
brain kink on faith--it's the natural outcome of living alone for sixty
years. Outside of that and his books, he's as simple and innocent and
trusting as a babe. I suppose the thing's kind of grown on him--Hiram
said it had taken forty years--which isn't sudden unless you say it
quick. Hanged if I don't like the old sport though, and if Helena isn't
the best ever to him I'll stop her chewing gum allowance." Madison
looked up through the arched, leafless branches overhead. "Beautiful
night, isn't it?" said he pleasantly.

A little later he reached the main road and paused a moment on the
bridge, as though to sum up the thoughts and imaginings that had
occupied him on the way along.

"It's a queer world," said John Garfield Madison profoundly to the
turbid little stream that flowed beneath his feet. "I wonder why some
of us are born with brains--and some are born just plain damned fools!"

He went on again, arrived at the Congress Hotel, and, discovering
through the window that the leading citizens of Needley were still in
session, negotiated the back entrance. On the way upstairs he
stumbled--quite inadvertently--and stopped to listen.

"There he be now," announced Hiram Higgins' voice excitedly. "Goin' up
to his room to meditate. Knew he'd come back feelin' like that. I be
goin' out there to-morrow to see the Patriarch myself."

Madison smiled, mounted the remaining stairs, entered his room, and
lighted his lamp.

"Having got my hand in at writing," he remarked, "I guess I'd better
keep it up and write Helena--Vail."

He extracted a pad of writing paper and an envelope from the tray of his
trunk, his fountain pen from his pocket, and, drawing his chair to the
table and laying down his cigar reluctantly at his elbow, began to
write. At the end of fifteen minutes, he tilted back his chair,
relighted the stub of his cigar, and critically read over his epistle.

"Dear Kid," it ran. "Do not be anxious about me--I am feeling better
already. Have had my first treatment, and am now eating fried eggs and
ham regularly three times a day. A Sunday-school picnic taking to
washboilers full of thin coffee and the left-over cakes kindly
contributed by Deacon Jones' household, is nothing to the way the boobs
will take to the Patriarch--who has kindly consented to go blind to make
our thorny paths as smooth as possible for us.

"Do you get that, Helena--he's going blind! In just a few days, my dear,
you will be with me, have patience. The meteorological bureau is a
little hazy yet on the exact date of the total eclipse, but it's due to
happen any minute. Now listen. Your name is Helena Vail. You're the
Patriarch's grand-niece, and you're coming to live alone with him and
soothe his declining years; but you can't come yet because I've got to
find you first, and besides, until he's blind, he'll stick to a nasty
habit he's got of asking questions on his little slate. You needn't have
any hesitation about coming on the score of propriety, I assure you it
is perfectly proper--he is running Methuselah pretty near a dead heat.
And, as far as the town is concerned, apart from the fact that you are a
grand-niece, orphaned, you don't have to know anything about yourself,
either--that's part of the Patriarch's dark, mysterious past, where the
lights go out and the fiddles get rickets.

"That's about all. I'll let you know when to come. Remember me to Mr.
Coogan and Harry, and keep my picture under your pillow. Ever thine,
J.G.M."

Madison picked up his pen again and added another line:

"P.S. Better buy a cook-book."

He folded the pages, inserted them in the envelope, sealed the envelope
and addressed it to Miss Helena Smith--street and number not far from
the tenderloin district of New York.

Then Madison yawned pleasantly, tucked the letter in his pocket--and
prepared for bed.

--VI--

OFFICIALLY ENDORSED

Ten days had passed, bringing with them many changes. The snow was gone,
and the warm, balmy airs of springtime had brought the buds upon the
trees almost to leaf. It seemed indeed a new land, and one now full of
charm and delight--the desolate, straggling hamlet, once so barren,
frozen and hopeless looking, was now a quaint, alluring little village
nestling picturesquely in its hollow, framed in green fields and
majestic woods. Quiet, restful, peaceful it was--like a dream place,
untroubled. Upon the farms about men plowed their furrows, calling to
each other and to their horses; in the homes the doors and windows were
thrown hospitably wide to the sweet, fresh, vernal airs, and the thrifty
housewives were busy at their cleaning.

And there had been other changes, too. The ten days had found Madison
more and more a constant visitor, and finally a most intimate one, at
the Patriarch's cottage--while to the circle in the hotel office his
voice no longer rose in even feeble protest, he was one of them. And,
perhaps most vital change of all, the Patriarch was nearly blind--so
nearly blind that conversation now was limited to but little more than
a single word at a time upon the slate.

It was morning, in the Patriarch's sitting-room, and Madison was seated
in his usual place beside the table facing the other. For upwards of an
hour, it had taken him that long, he had been engaged, having decided
that the time was ripe, in telling the Patriarch that his grand-niece
had been found and that now it was only necessary to write and ask her
to come to Needley.

The Patriarch's fine old face was aglow with pleasure as he finally
understood. Letter writing was beyond him now, a thing of the past, so
upon the slate he scrawled:

"You write."

Madison shook his head; and again with gentle patience explained that
perhaps it would be better if the letter came from some one holding an
official position in the village, rather than from one who, even in an
abstract way, would be unknown to her--the postmaster, for instance.

And the Patriarch, patting Madison's sleeve gratefully, agreed.

Out in the garden behind the cottage, where for the first time in sixty
seasons the work must be done by other hands, Hiram Higgins, the
volunteer for the moment, was busy at his "spell."

Madison stepped to the door and called him in.

"Mr. Higgins," he said, "the Patriarch has just told me that he has a
grand-niece living in New York, and he wants you to write to her and ask
her to come to him."

"Be that so!" exclaimed Mr. Higgins, gazing earnestly at the Patriarch.
"Well, 'tain't no surprise to me--always calc'lated he must have folks
somewheres. An' I'm right glad now he needs 'em he's made up his mind to
have 'em come. Wants me to write, does he?"

"He can't write any more himself," said Madison. "He seems to think that
you, as the postmaster, as well as the town police official, are the
proper person to do it--and I quite agree with him."

"So I be," declared Mr. Higgins importantly. "I'll write it on the town
paper, an' comin' from the postmaster there won't be no doubt in her
mind that it's any of them bunco games or the lurin' of young women away
such as I've read about, for I reckon perhaps she ain't never heerd of
him before--never knew _him_ to write a letter, an' I calc'late to see
most everything that goes out."

Mr. Higgins picked up the slate and wrote the word "grand-niece?" upon
it in enormous characters; then, amplifying his interrogation by many
gestures of his hands, deft from long practice, he held the slate up to
the Patriarch.

The Patriarch nodded, and Hiram Higgins nodded back encouragingly.

"Where be her address?" Mr. Higgins inquired of Madison.

Madison stepped to the bookshelves out of view of the Patriarch around
the fireplace, but in full view of Mr. Higgins, and, reaching down the
Bible from the topmost shelf, extracted from inside its cover the aged,
yellow slip of paper that he had deposited there when he had entered the
cottage that morning, and on which was inscribed Helena's name and
address in a stiff, old-fashioned, angular hand resembling the
Patriarch's--an effect that Madison had stayed up half the night to
produce.

"I guess this must be it," he said. "He said it was here--we'll make
sure though"--and he handed it to the Patriarch.

Long and painfully the Patriarch studied it, anxiously deciphering the
words that he had never seen before, anxious to know all and whatever
this might tell him about his niece--then again he nodded his head and
expressed his gratitude by, patting Madison's sleeve.

Madison's smile modestly disavowed any thanks, as he passed the slip to
Mr. Higgins.

"Reckon that be it," Mr. Higgins agreed. "An' now, I guess I'll go right
back to town an' write it--I allow that the sooner we get her down here
the better. Folks'll be glad to hear this--the women folks was figurin'
on takin' spells an' helpin' out in the house same as the men in the
garden--'pears now there won't be no need of it."

Madison accompanied Mr. Higgins outside and helped him to harness up.

"Look here, Mr. Madison," said Hiram Higgins, as he made ready to go and
climbed into the democrat, "would you allow that the Patriarch's goin'
blind was goin' to interfere any with his power of curin' folks? It'll
be a powerful blow to the town if it does."

"Why, of course not!" said Madison decisively. "Certainly not! Indeed, I
wouldn't be surprised if it enhanced his power--it's purely mental, you
know. They say that the loss of any one or more of the senses generally
tends to make the others only the more acute--it's the--er--law of
compensation."

"Glad to hear you say so," said Mr. Higgins, with a sigh of relief,
"'cause I got another letter to write 'sides this one for the Patriarch.
It come last night, an' I was figurin' on speakin' to you about it." Mr.
Higgins dropped the reins on the dashboard, and dove into first one
pocket and then another. "Shucks!" said he disgustedly. "Now if I ain't
gone an' left it to home after all. But I dunno as it makes much
difference. It was from a fellow up your way by the name of Michael
Coogan, an' was addressed to the postmaster. 'Pears he read a piece in
the papers about the Patriarch which he sent along with the letter.
Allows he's been ailin' quite a spell, though he don't say what's the
matter with him, an' wants to know if what's in that piece is all gospel
truth, 'cause if 'tis he's comin' down. That's why I'm right glad to
have heerd you say what you just said. Bein' postmaster an' writin'
'fficially, I got to be conscientious and pretty partic'lar."

"Yes, of course--naturally," said Madison. "And what are you going to
say to him?" "Why," returned Mr. Higgins, "there ain't no trouble about
it now. Goin' to tell him that if the Patriarch can't help him there
ain't nobody on earth can--thought of mentionin' your name, too."

"By all means," assented Madison cordially. "I feel like a new man since
I've come here. I only wish more people knew about the Patriarch--it
makes your heart ache to think of the suffering and sickness that people
endure so hopelessly when there isn't any need of it."

"Yes, so it do," said Mr. Higgins. He picked up the reins. "So it do,"
he said heartily.

Madison watched the democrat as it started off behind the ambling
horse--watched with a sort of fascination at the inebriate, sideways
stagger of the wheels, a sort of wonder that the rear ones didn't shut
up like a jack-knife under the body of the vehicle and the democrat
promptly sit down on its tail-board; then, smiling, he walked back into
the cottage. The Patriarch was still sitting in the armchair beside the
table. Madison halted before the other.

"Well," said he confidentially to the Patriarch, "that's settled and I
don't mind admitting that it's a load off my mind. I hate to think of
what we'd have done without Hiram Higgins--in fact, it distresses me to
think of it. Let us think of something else. Day after to-morrow
Helena'll be along. Helena is the one and only--but you'll find that out
for yourself. I don't mind telling you though that she wears a number
two shoe, and you can guess the rest without any help from me. Then a
day or so later the Flopper and Pale Face Harry'll be along--you'll
enjoy them--things aren't going to be a bit slow from now on. I expect
the Flopper will bring some friends with him, too, so's to make a nice
little house-party--I wrote him about it, and--" Madison stopped
abruptly.

The Patriarch, evidently catching a movement of Madison's lips, was
gesticulating violently toward his ears, while he smiled half
tolerantly, half protestingly.

Madison nodded quickly and smiled deprecatingly in return.

"By Jove!" he said apologetically. "I always keep forgetting that you
can't hear. I was suggesting that perhaps you might like to go for a
walk--Mr. Higgins says it's a fine day." Madison picked up the slate and
in huge letters that sprawled from one end of the slate to the other
wrote the word: "WALK?"

The Patriarch rose from his chair with a pleased expression, and Madison
helped him solicitously to the door.

They passed out into the sunshine and headed for the beach--the
Patriarch, erect and strong, guiding himself with his hand on Madison's
arm.

Reaching the beach, the Patriarch paused and turned his face toward the
ocean, while he drew in great breaths of the invigorating air--and
Madison involuntarily stepped a little aside to look at the other
critically, as one might seek a vantage ground from which to view a
picture in all its variant lights and shades. Against the crested,
breaking surf, the fume-sprayed ledges of rock, the Patriarch stood out
a majestic, almost saintly figure--tall, stately, grand with the true
grandeur of simplicity, simple in dress, simple in attitude and mien,
patience, sweetness and trust illumining his face, his silver-crowned
head thrown back.

"I can shut my eyes," said Madison softly, "and see the Flopper being
cured right now--and the Flopper couldn't help it if he wanted to!"

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15