Brother Against Brother; or, The Tompkins Mystery. Read online

  CHAPTER V.

  THE MUD MAN.

  Sixteen years, with all their joys and sorrows, all their pleasures andpains, have been numbered with the dead past. Boys have grown to be men,men in the full vigor of their prime have grown old, and creep aboutwith bent forms and heads whitening, while men who were old before nowslumber with the dead. Girls are women, and women have grown gray, yetfather Time has touched gently some of his children.

  Abner and Oleah Tompkins are no longer boys. Only the memory is leftthem of their childhood joys, when they played in the dark, cool woods,or by the brook in the wide, smooth lawn. Happy childhood days, whenneither care nor anxiety weighed on their young hearts, or shadowedtheir bright faces.

  Abner is twenty-five--a tall, powerful man, with dark-blue, fearlesseyes, light-haired, broad-chested and muscular.

  Oleah, two years younger, and not quite so tall, is yet in physicalstrength his brother's equal. He has the dark hair and large, dark,lustrous eyes of his Southern mother.

  The brothers were alike and yet dissimilar. They had shared equally thesame advantages; they had played together and studied together.Playmates in their childhood, friends as well as brothers in their youngmanhood, no one could question a doubt of their brotherly love. Whereone had been, the other had always been at his side. No slightestdifference had ever yet ruffled the smooth surface of their existence.Yet they were dissimilar in temperament. Abner was slow and cool, butperhaps more determined than his brother, and his reason predominatedover his prejudice. Oleah was rash, impetuous and bold, and more liableto be moved by prejudice or passion than by reason. Abner was the exactcounterpart of his Northern father, Oleah of his Southern mother.

  Their political sympathies were different as their dispositions.Although of the same family, they had actually been taught oppositepolitical creeds--one parent in a half-playful way, unconsciouslyadvocating one idea; the other as firmly and unconsciously upholdinganother, and it was quite natural that the children should follow them.But this difference of opinion had bred no discord.

  Sixteen years have wrought a wonderful change in Irene, the foundling.Her parentage is still a mystery, and she bears the name of her fosterparents. She is just budding into womanhood, and a beautiful woman shepromises to make--slender and graceful, her small, shapely head crownedwith dark brown hair, her cheeks dimpling with smiles, mouth and chinfirm and clear-cut and large, dark-gray eyes beneath arching brows andlong silken lashes filled with a world of tenderness.

  Irene could not have been loved more tenderly by the planter and hiswife had she been their own child. They lavished care and affection uponher and filled her life with everything that could minister to hercomfort and delight, and every one knew that they would make generousprovision for the little waif who had gained so sure a place in theirhearts.

  Sixteen years had made some change in the planter. His hair had grownwhiter, his brow more furrowed with care, and he went about with a heavycane; yet he was vigorous and energetic. He had grown more corpulent,and his movements were less brisk than of yore. Father Time had dealtleniently with his wife. Her soft, dark hair was scarcely touched withsilver; her cheeks were smooth and her eyes were still bright andlustrous. Her voice had lost none of its silver ring, her manner none ofits queenly grace.

  No ray of light had pierced the darkened mind of Crazy Joe. All theselong, weary years he had been waiting, waiting, waiting, for his fatherJacob to come down into Egypt, but he came not. He still talked as if itwas but yesterday that he had been cast into the pit by his brethren,and then taken out and sold into Egypt. He spent his time in turns atthe planter's and Uncle Dan's cabin. He was well known throughout theneighborhood, and pitied and kindly treated by all. His strangehallucination, although causing pain and perplexity to his shatteredmind, worked no change in his gentle disposition; his sad eyes neverflashed with anger; no emotion varied the melancholy monotone of hisvoice. When at the home of the planter, Joe divided his time between thestables, the garden and the library. He would have been a constantreader of the Bible, Josephus, Socrates, Milton's "Paradise Lost," hadit not been discovered by Mrs. Tompkins that these books only tended toincrease the darkness in which his mind was shrouded, and she had themkept from him. At Uncle Dan's mountain home he passed his time inhunting and trapping, becoming expert in both.

  Sixteen years had wrought a great change in Uncle Dan, bowing his talland sinewy form. His face, which he had always kept smooth shaven, hadgrown sharper and thinner, and his long hair hanging about hisshoulders, had turned from black to gray; yet his eye was as true andhis hand as steady as when, in his youthful days, he carried away theprize at the shooting match. His visits to the plantation became morefrequent and his stays longer, for the old man grew lonesome in his hut,and he was ever a welcome guest at the Tompkins mansion.

  Sixteen years had made a wonderful transformation in the politics of thecountry. The Whig party had been swallowed up by the Republican orAbolition organization. The seeds of freedom, sown by Clarkson, Brownand others, had taken root, and, in the Fall of 1860, bade fare to ripeninto a bounteous harvest. The Southern feeling against the North hadgrown more and more bitter, and the low, rumbling thunders of a mightystorm might have been heard--a storm not far distant, and whose furynaught but the blood of countless thousands could assuage.

  "In the beginning, God created Heaven and the earth, and all that was inthem, in six days, and rested on the seventh."

  The speaker was Crazy Joe, the time, midsummer of 1860, the place thebanks of a creek at the foot of the mountains, not more than two orthree hundred feet from Uncle Dan's cabin.

  "Then the book says God made man out of clay. Josephus says he calledthe first man Adam, because Adam means red, and He made him out of redclay. Now, if man could once be made out of clay, why not now? Maybe Godwill let me make a man, too."

  Filling his hands with mud, he set vigorously to work. No sculptor couldhave been more in earnest than was Crazy Joe. He rolled and patted themud into shape, first the feet, then the legs, then the body.Occasionally the body would tumble down, but he patiently set to workagain, persevering until he had body, arm and head all completed. Hismud man was a little over five feet in height, and greatly admired byhis maker and owner.

  "Now I have accomplished almost as much as God did," soliloquized Joe."I have made a man of clay; it only remains for him to speak and move,and he will be equal to any of us."

  He went to the cabin and acquainted Uncle Dan with the wonderful work hehad performed, and asked him to come and see it. The next day he went toview the object of poor Joe's two days' labor, greatly to Joe's delight.Uncle Dan then returned to his cabin for his gun, and Joe went toSnagtown, which was between Mr. Tompkins' plantation and the hunter'scabin.

  Joe there informed the storekeeper, the village postmaster, and a fewothers, of his remarkable piece of handiwork, and asked them to come andsee it. They promised to go the next day, if Joe would stay all night inthe village.

  Joe stayed, and that night there came a heavy rain. The creek overflowedand Joe's mud man was washed away. He conducted a party of hunters tothe spot next morning, but the man of clay had vanished.

  "He must have walked away," said Joe shaking his head in a puzzledmanner. "He has gone off, though I cautioned him to wait until I cameback."

  The hunting party explained to Joe that his mud man had become tired ofwaiting, and left, and went off themselves, leaving the mortified Joesearching about the soft soil for tracks of the missing mud man. Hissearch for the trail took him to Snagtown.

  Patrick Henry Diggs, whom we met in his boyhood as the youthful oratorat Mr. Tompkins' was, in 1860, a lawyer. His parents were dead, leavinghim a limited education, a superficial knowledge of law, and a verysmall property. The paternal homestead was mortgaged, but Mr. Diggsstill kept old Mose, for the sake of being a slaveholder and maintainingaristocratic appearance. Mr. Diggs had but little practice, and found ita difficult thing to make his own living. He was about twenty-eightyears
old, short and plump like his father. The most peculiar portion ofhis anatomy was his head. The forehead was low, and the small round headmore nearly resembled a cocoanut painted white, with hair on its top,than anything else to which we can compare it. The hair was very thickand cut very short. The eyebrows were heavy and close together, the eyesdark gray and restless, the nose small and straight. The most admirableportion of his physiognomy, Mr. Diggs thought, were his side-whiskers,which were short and dark, growing half-way down his small, red cheeksand coalescing with his short mustache. Mr. Diggs was exceedinglyaristocratic, and wore gold-rimmed spectacles on his short nose. Theseglasses, which gave him a ridiculous appearance, were removed when hewanted to read or exercise his unobstructed vision. His friends tried topersuade him to give them up, but in vain. And with his glasses on hisnose, his head thrown back in order to see persons of ordinary height,and his fat little hands in his pockets, he strutted about the streetsof Snagtown.

  Mr. Diggs, like his father, was a politician. In the campaign of 1860 hewas a candidate for the district attorneyship of his county. His dingylittle office, with its scant furniture and exceedingly small library,was deserted, and he spent most of his time on the streets, discussingthe political issues. On the day that Crazy Joe was in search of his mudman, Mr. Diggs, as usual was strutting about the streets, his hands inhis pockets, his glasses mounted on his nose, wherefrom a very evidentstring extended to his neck.

  "I tell you," said Mr. Diggs, closing his little fat right hand andstriking therewith the palm of his little fat left hand, "I tell you,sir, I--I do not favor outlawry, but I do believe one would be doing ourcountry a service by hanging every man who votes or attempts to vote theAbolition ticket."

  "Oh, no, Mr. Diggs," said Abner Tompkins, who chanced that day to be inSnagtown, and overheard the remark; "the ballot is a constitutionalprivilege, and no man should be deprived of his right."

  "Yes--ahem--ahem! but you see, when there is a man on the track who, ifelected, will set all _our_ niggers free, we should object. Youknow--no, you don't know, but _we lawyers_ all know--that privateproperty can not be taken for public use without a just compensation,and still the Abolition candidate will violate this portion of ourconstitutional law."

  "You don't know yet; Mr. Lincoln has not yet declared what he will do,"replied Abner.

  "Has not? Hem, hem, hem!" Mr. Diggs stumped about furiously, his headinclined backward in order to see his companion's face through hisornamental glasses, while he cleared his throat for a fresh burst ofthunder. "Has not, hey? Hem, hem! He might as well. We all know what hewill do if elected. And I'll tell you something more," he added, walkingback and forth, his hands plunged in his pockets, while seeming to growmore and more furious, "if Lincoln is elected there will be _war_!"(Great emphasis on the last word.)

  At this moment Crazy Joe, who had reached the village in search of hismud man, came up to the excited Diggs, and, laying his hand on his arm,in a very serious voice said:

  "Say, why didn't you stay where I put you until I showed you?"

  "What do you mean?" demanded Mr. Diggs, pausing in his agitated walk,and gazing furiously into the lunatic's face, for he suspected some oneof attempting to play a joke on him.

  "What made you go away before I showed you?" said Joe, earnestly, gazingdown upon the furious little fellow.

  "I--I don't understand what you mean," said the puzzled Mr. Diggs,drawing himself up to his full height, which was hardly imposing.

  "When I make a man of mud, and go off and leave him, to get people tocome and look at him, I don't want him to go off, as you did, before Icome back."

  Abner Tompkins, and several others, who had heard the story of Joe's mudman, were now almost bursting with suppressed merriment.

  "I can't tell what the deuce you mean?" said the angry Mr. Diggs.

  "I made you out of mud and clay, and left you standing by the big treeat the creek while I went to get some people to show you to, that Imight convince them that man was made out of clay, but before I got backyou walked off. Now, why didn't you stay until I showed you?"

  The men gathered about Mr. Diggs could no longer restrain themselves,and burst into peals of laughter, which made Mr. Diggs furious.

  "This is some trick you are playing," he cried, and, turning upon hisheel, he strutted away to his office, where he shut himself up for thenext two hours.

  The joke spread rapidly, and in two hours every one in the village knewthat Crazy Joe claimed Mr. Diggs as his mud man; while poor Joe,satisfied that he had found the object of his creation, consented to gohome with Abner.