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The Whirligig of Life

Short Stories

"Fox-in-the-Morning"

A Bird of Bagdad

A Blackjack Bargainer

A Call Loan

A Chaparral Christmas Gift

A Chaparral Prince

A Comedy in Rubber

A Cosmopolite in a Cafe

A Departmental Case

A Dinner at--------*

A Double-Dyed Deceiver

A Fog in Santone

A Harlem Tragedy

A Lickpenny Lover

A Little Local Colour

A Little Talk about Mobs

A Madison Square Arabian Night

A Matter of Mean Elevation

A Midsummer Knight's Dream

A Midsummer Masquerade

A Municipal Report

A Newspaper Story

A Night in New Arabia

A Philistine in Bohemia

A Poor Rule

A Ramble in Aphasia

A Retrieved Reformation

A Ruler of Men

A Sacrifice Hit

A Service of Love

A Snapshot at the President

A Strange Story

A Technical Error

A Tempered Wind

According to Their Lights

After Twenty Years

An Adjustment of Nature

An Afternoon Miracle

An Apology

An Unfinished Christmas Story

An Unfinished Story

Aristocracy Versus Hash

Art and the Bronco

At Arms With Morpheus

Babes in the Jungle

Best-Seller

Between Rounds

Bexar Scrip No. 2692

Blind Man's Holiday

Brickdust Row

Buried Treasure

By Courier

Calloway's Code

Caught

Cherchez La Femme

Christmas by Injunction

Compliments of the Season

Confessions of a Humorist

Conscience in Art

Cupid a La Carte

Cupid's Exile Number Two

Dickey

Dougherty's Eye-Opener

Elsie in New York

Extradited from Bohemia

Fickle Fortune or How Gladys Hustled

Friends in San Rosario

From Each According to His Ability

From the Cabby's Seat

Georgia's Ruling

Girl

He Also Serves

Hearts and Crosses

Hearts and Hands

Helping the Other Fellow

Holding Up a Train

Hostages to Momus

Hygeia at the Solito

Innocents of Broadway

Jeff Peters as a Personal Magnet

Jimmy Hayes and Muriel

Law and Order

Let Me Feel Your Pulse

Little Speck in Garnered Fruit

Lord Oakhurst's Curse

Lost on Dress Parade

Madame Bo-Peep, of the Ranches

Makes the Whole World Kin

Mammon and the Archer

Man About Town

Masters of Arts

Memoirs of a Yellow Dog

Modern Rural Sports

Money Maze

Nemesis and the Candy Man

New York by Camp Fire Light

Next to Reading Matter

No Story

October and June

On Behalf of the Management

One Dollar's Worth

One Thousand Dollars

Out of Nazareth

Past One at Rooney's

Phoebe

Proof of the Pudding

Psyche and the Pskyscraper

Queries and Answers

Roads of Destiny

Roses, Ruses and Romance

Rouge et Noir

Round the Circle

Rus in Urbe

Schools and Schools

Seats of the Haughty

Shearing the Wolf

Ships

Shoes

Sisters of the Golden Circle

Smith

Sociology in Serge and Straw

Sound and Fury

Springtime a La Carte

Squaring the Circle

Strictly Business

Strictly Business

Suite Homes and Their Romance

Telemachus, Friend

The Admiral

The Adventures of Shamrock Jolnes

The Assessor of Success

The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

The Badge of Policeman O'Roon

The Brief Debut of Tildy

The Buyer From Cactus City

The Caballero's Way

The Cactus

The Caliph and the Cad

The Caliph, Cupid and the Clock

The Call of the Tame

The Chair of Philanthromathematics

The Champion of the Weather

The Church with an Overshot-Wheel

The City of Dreadful Night

The Clarion Call

The Coming-Out of Maggie

The Complete Life of John Hopkins

The Cop and the Anthem

The Count and the Wedding Guest

The Country of Elusion

The Day Resurgent

The Day We Celebrate

The Defeat of the City

The Detective Detector

The Diamond of Kali

The Discounters of Money

The Dog and the Playlet

The Door of Unrest

The Dream

The Duel

The Duplicity of Hargraves

The Easter of the Soul

The Emancipation of Billy

The Enchanted Kiss

The Enchanted Profile

The Ethics of Pig

The Exact Science of Matrimony

The Ferry of Unfulfilment

The Fifth Wheel

The Flag Paramount

The Fool-Killer

The Foreign Policy of Company 99

The Fourth in Salvador

The Friendly Call

The Furnished Room

The Gift of the Magi

The Girl and the Graft

The Girl and the Habit

The Gold That Glittered

The Greater Coney

The Green Door

The Guardian of the Accolade

The Guilty Party - An East Side Tragedy

The Halberdier of the Little Rheinschloss

The Hand that Riles the World

The Handbook of Hymen

The Harbinger

The Head-Hunter

The Hiding of Black Bill

The Higher Abdication

The Higher Pragmatism

The Hypotheses of Failure

The Indian Summer of Dry Valley Johnson

The Lady Higher Up

The Last Leaf

The Last of the Troubadours

The Lonesome Road

The Lost Blend

The Lotus And The Bottle

The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein

The Making of a New Yorker

The Man Higher Up

The Marionettes

The Marquis and Miss Sally

The Marry Month of May

The Memento

The Missing Chord

The Moment of Victory

The Octopus Marooned

The Passing of Black Eagle

The Pendulum

The Phonograph and the Graft

The Pimienta Pancakes

The Plutonian Fire

The Poet and the Peasant

The Pride of the Cities

The Princess and the Puma

The Prisoner of Zembla

The Proem

The Purple Dress

The Ransom of Mack

The Ransom of Red Chief

The Rathskeller and the Rose

The Red Roses of Tonia

The Reformation of Calliope

The Remnants of the Code

The Renaissance at Charleroi

The Roads We Take

The Robe of Peace

The Romance of a Busy Broker

The Rose of Dixie

The Rubaiyat of a Scotch Highball

The Rubber Plant's Story

The Shamrock and the Palm

The Shocks of Doom

The Skylight Room

The Sleuths

The Snow Man

The Social Triangle

The Song and the Sergeant

The Sparrows in Madison Square

The Sphinx Apple

The Tale of a Tainted Tenner

The Theory and the Hound

The Thing's the Play

The Third Ingredient

The Trimmed Lamp

The Unknown Quantity

The Unprofitable Servant

The Venturers

The Vitagraphoscope

The Voice of the City

The Whirligig of Life

The World and the Door

Thimble, Thimble

Tictocq

To Him Who Waits

Tobin's Palm

Tommy's Burglar

Tracked to Doom

Transformation of Martin Burney

Transients in Arcadia

Two Recalls

Two Renegades

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

Ulysses and the Dogman

Vanity and Some Sables

What You Want

While the Auto Waits

Whistling Dick's Christmas Stocking

Witches' Loaves







Justice-of-the-Peace Benaja Widdup sat in the door of his office
smoking his elder-stem pipe. Half-way to the zenith the Cumberland
range rose blue-gray in the afternoon haze. A speckled hen swaggered
down the main street of the "settlement," cackling foolishly.

Up the road came a sound of creaking axles, and then a slow cloud of
dust, and then a bull-cart bearing Ransie Bilbro and his wife. The
cart stopped at the Justice's door, and the two climbed down. Ransie
was a narrow six feet of sallow brown skin and yellow hair. The
imperturbability of the mountains hung upon him like a suit of armour.
The woman was calicoed, angled, snuff-brushed, and weary with unknown
desires. Through it all gleamed a faint protest of cheated youth
unconscious of its loss.

The Justice of the Peace slipped his feet into his shoes, for the sake
of dignity, and moved to let them enter.

"We-all," said the woman, in a voice like the wind blowing through pine
boughs, "wants a divo'ce." She looked at Ransie to see if he noted any
flaw or ambiguity or evasion or partiality or self-partisanship in her
statement of their business.

"A divo'ce," repeated Ransie, with a solemn nod. "We-all can't git
along together nohow. It's lonesome enough fur to live in the
mount'ins when a man and a woman keers fur one another. But when
she's a-spittin' like a wildcat or a-sullenin' like a hoot-owl in the
cabin, a man ain't got no call to live with her."

"When he's a no-'count varmint," said the woman, "without any especial
warmth, a-traipsin' along of scalawags and moonshiners and a-layin' on
his back pizen 'ith co'n whiskey, and a-pesterin' folks with a pack o'
hungry, triflin' houn's to feed!"

"When she keeps a-throwin' skillet lids," came Ransie's antiphony,
"and slings b'ilin' water on the best coon-dog in the Cumberlands, and
sets herself agin' cookin' a man's victuals, and keeps him awake o'
nights accusin' him of a sight of doin's!"

"When he's al'ays a-fightin' the revenues, and gits a hard name in the
mount'ins fur a mean man, who's gwine to be able fur to sleep o'
nights?"

The Justice of the Peace stirred deliberately to his duties. He
placed his one chair and a wooden stool for his petitioners. He
opened his book of statutes on the table and scanned the index.
Presently he wiped his spectacles and shifted his inkstand.

"The law and the statutes," said he, "air silent on the subjeck of
divo'ce as fur as the jurisdiction of this co't air concerned. But,
accordin' to equity and the Constitution and the golden rule, it's a
bad barg'in that can't run both ways. If a justice of the peace can
marry a couple, it's plain that he is bound to be able to divo'ce 'em.
This here office will issue a decree of divo'ce and abide by the
decision of the Supreme Co't to hold it good."

Ransie Bilbro drew a small tobacco-bag from his trousers pocket. Out
of this he shook upon the table a five-dollar note. "Sold a b'arskin
and two foxes fur that," he remarked. "It's all the money we got."

"The regular price of a divo'ce in this co't," said the Justice, "air
five dollars." He stuffed the bill into the pocket of his homespun
vest with a deceptive air of indifference. With much bodily toil
and mental travail he wrote the decree upon half a sheet of foolscap,
and then copied it upon the other. Ransie Bilbro and his wife
listened to his reading of the document that was to give them freedom:

"Know all men by these presents that Ransie Bilbro and his wife,
Ariela Bilbro, this day personally appeared before me and promises
that hereinafter they will neither love, honour, nor obey each other,
neither for better nor worse, being of sound mind and body, and accept
summons for divorce according to the peace and dignity of the State.
Herein fail not, so help you God. Benaja Widdup, justice of the peace
in and for the county of Piedmont, State of Tennessee."

The Justice was about to hand one of the documents to Ransie. The
voice of Ariela delayed the transfer. Both men looked at her. Their
dull masculinity was confronted by something sudden and unexpected in
the woman.

"Judge, don't you give him that air paper yit. 'Tain't all settled,
nohow. I got to have my rights first. I got to have my ali-money.
'Tain't no kind of a way to do fur a man to divo'ce his wife 'thout
her havin' a cent fur to do with. I'm a-layin' off to be a-goin' up
to brother Ed's up on Hogback Mount'in. I'm bound fur to hev a pa'r
of shoes and some snuff and things besides. Ef Rance kin affo'd a
divo'ce, let him pay me ali-money."

Ransie Bilbro was stricken to dumb perplexity. There had been no
previous hint of alimony. Women were always bringing up startling and
unlooked-for issues.

Justice Benaja Widdup felt that the point demanded judicial decision.
The authorities were also silent on the subject of alimony. But the
woman's feet were bare. The trail to Hogback Mountain was steep and
flinty.

"Ariela Bilbro," he asked, in official tones, "how much did you 'low
would be good and sufficient ali-money in the case befo' the co't."

"I 'lowed," she answered, "fur the shoes and all, to say five dollars.
That ain't much fur ali-money, but I reckon that'll git me to up
brother Ed's."

"The amount," said the Justice, "air not onreasonable. Ransie Bilbro,
you air ordered by the co't to pay the plaintiff the sum of five
dollars befo' the decree of divo'ce air issued."

"I hain't no mo' money," breathed Ransie, heavily. "I done paid you
all I had."

"Otherwise," said the Justice, looking severely over his spectacles,
"you air in contempt of co't."

"I reckon if you gimme till to-morrow," pleaded the husband, "I mout
be able to rake or scrape it up somewhars. I never looked for to be
a-payin' no ali-money."

"The case air adjourned," said Benaja Widdup, "till to-morrow, when
you-all will present yo'selves and obey the order of the co't.
Followin' of which the decrees of divo'ce will be delivered." He sat
down in the door and began to loosen a shoestring.

"We mout as well go down to Uncle Ziah's," decided Ransie, "and spend
the night." He climbed into the cart on one side, and Ariela climbed
in on the other. Obeying the flap of his rope, the little red bull
slowly came around on a tack, and the cart crawled away in the nimbus
arising from its wheels.

Justice-of-the-peace Benaja Widdup smoked his elder-stem pipe. Late
in the afternoon he got his weekly paper, and read it until the
twilight dimmed its lines. Then he lit the tallow candle on his
table, and read until the moon rose, marking the time for supper. He
lived in the double log cabin on the slope near the girdled poplar.
Going home to supper he crossed a little branch darkened by a laurel
thicket. The dark figure of a man stepped from the laurels and
pointed a rifle at his breast. His hat was pulled down low, and
something covered most of his face.

"I want yo' money," said the figure, "'thout any talk. I'm gettin'
nervous, and my finger's a-wabblin' on this here trigger."

"I've only got f-f-five dollars," said the Justice, producing it
from his vest pocket.

"Roll it up," came the order, "and stick it in the end of this here
gun-bar'l."

The bill was crisp and new. Even fingers that were clumsy and
trembling found little difficulty in making a spill of it and
inserting it (this with less ease) into the muzzle of the rifle.

"Now I reckon you kin be goin' along," said the robber.

The Justice lingered not on his way.


The next day came the little red bull, drawing the cart to the
office door. Justice Benaja Widdup had his shoes on, for he was
expecting the visit. In his presence Ransie Bilbro handed to his
wife a five-dollar bill. The official's eye sharply viewed it.
It seemed to curl up as though it had been rolled and inserted into
the end of a gun-barrel. But the Justice refrained from comment.
It is true that other bills might be inclined to curl. He handed
each one a decree of divorce. Each stood awkwardly silent, slowly
folding the guarantee of freedom. The woman cast a shy glance
full of constraint at Ransie.

"I reckon you'll be goin' back up to the cabin," she said, along 'ith
the bull-cart. There's bread in the tin box settin' on the shelf. I
put the bacon in the b'ilin'-pot to keep the hounds from gittin' it.
Don't forget to wind the clock to-night."

"You air a-goin' to your brother Ed's?" asked Ransie, with fine
unconcern.

"I was 'lowin' to get along up thar afore night. I ain't sayin' as
they'll pester theyselves any to make me welcome, but I hain't nowhar
else fur to go. It's a right smart ways, and I reckon I better be
goin'. I'll be a-sayin' good-bye, Ranse--that is, if you keer fur to
say so."

"I don't know as anybody's a hound dog," said Ransie, in a martyr's
voice, "fur to not want to say good-bye--'less you air so anxious to
git away that you don't want me to say it."

Ariela was silent. She folded the five-dollar bill and her decree
carefully, and placed them in the bosom of her dress. Benaja Widdup
watched the money disappear with mournful eyes behind his spectacles.

And then with his next words he achieved rank (as his thoughts ran)
with either the great crowd of the world's sympathizers or the little
crowd of its great financiers.

"Be kind o' lonesome in the old cabin to-night, Ranse," he said.

Ransie Bilbro stared out at the Cumberlands, clear blue now in the
sunlight. He did not look at Ariela.

"I 'low it might be lonesome," he said; "but when folks gits mad and
wants a divo'ce, you can't make folks stay."

"There's others wanted a divo'ce," said Ariela, speaking to the wooden
stool. "Besides, nobody don't want nobody to stay."

"Nobody never said they didn't."

"Nobody never said they did. I reckon I better start on now to
brother Ed's."

"Nobody can't wind that old clock."

"Want me to go back along 'ith you in the cart and wind it fur you,
Ranse?"

The mountaineer's countenance was proof against emotion. But he
reached out a big hand and enclosed Ariela's thin brown one. Her soul
peeped out once through her impassive face, hallowing it.

"Them hounds shan't pester you no more," said Ransie. "I reckon I
been mean and low down. You wind that clock, Ariela."

"My heart hit's in that cabin, Ranse," she whispered, "along 'ith you.
I ai'nt a-goin' to git mad no more. Le's be startin', Ranse, so's we
kin git home by sundown."

Justice-of-the-peace Benaja Widdup interposed as they started for the
door, forgetting his presence.

"In the name of the State of Tennessee," he said, "I forbid you-all to
be a-defyin' of its laws and statutes. This co't is mo' than willin'
and full of joy to see the clouds of discord and misunderstandin'
rollin' away from two lovin' hearts, but it air the duty of the co't
to p'eserve the morals and integrity of the State. The co't reminds
you that you air no longer man and wife, but air divo'ced by regular
decree, and as such air not entitled to the benefits and 'purtenances
of the mattermonal estate."

Ariela caught Ransie's arm. Did those words mean that she must lose
him now when they had just learned the lesson of life?

"But the co't air prepared," went on the Justice, "fur to remove the
disabilities set up by the decree of divo'ce. The co't air on hand to
perform the solemn ceremony of marri'ge, thus fixin' things up and
enablin' the parties in the case to resume the honour'ble and
elevatin' state of mattermony which they desires. The fee fur
performin' said ceremony will be, in this case, to wit, five dollars."

Ariela caught the gleam of promise in his words. Swiftly her hand went
to her bosom. Freely as an alighting dove the bill fluttered to the
Justice's table. Her sallow cheek coloured as she stood hand in hand
with Ransie and listened to the reuniting words.

Ransie helped her into the cart, and climbed in beside her. The
little red bull turned once more, and they set out, hand-clasped, for
the mountains.

Justice-of-the-peace Benaja Widdup sat in his door and took off his
shoes. Once again he fingered the bill tucked down in his vest
pocket. Once again he smoked his elder-stem pipe. Once again the
speckled hen swaggered down the main street of the "settlement,"
cackling foolishly.




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