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The Trailer for Room No. 8
by
He was leaning on the trailer’s shoulder and waiting for his turn in the line in front of the ticket window, when a tall, gawky, good- looking country lad sprang out of it and at him with an expression of surprise and anxiety. “Father,” he said, “father, what’s wrong? What are you doing here? Is anybody ill at home? Are you ill?”
“Abraham,” said the old man, simply, and dropped heavily on the younger man’s shoulder. Then he raised his head sternly and said: “I thought you were murdered, but better that than a thief, Abraham. What brought you here? What did you do with that rascal’s letter? What did you do with his money?”
The trailer drew cautiously away; the conversation was becoming unpleasantly personal.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Abraham, calmly. “The Deacon gave his consent the other night without the $2,000, and I took the $200 I’d saved and came right on in the fust train to buy the ring. It’s pretty, isn’t it?” he said, flushing, as he pulled out a little velvet box and opened it.
The old man was so happy at this that he laughed and cried alternately, and then he made a grab for the trailer and pulled him down beside him on one of the benches.
“You’ve got to come with me,” he said, with kind severity. “You’re a good boy, but your folks have let you run wrong. You’ve been good to me, and you said you would get me back my boy and save him from those thieves, and I believe now that you meant it. Now you’re just coming back with us to the farm and the cows and the river, and you can eat all you want and live with us, and never, never see this unclean, wicked city again.”
Snipes looked up keenly from under the rim of his hat and rubbed one of his muddy feet over the other as was his habit. The young countryman, greatly puzzled, and the older man smiling kindly, waited expectantly in silence. From outside came the sound of the car-bells jangling, and the rattle of cabs, and the cries of drivers, and all the varying rush and turmoil of a great metropolis. Green fields, and running rivers, and fruit that did not grow in wooden boxes or brown paper cones, were myths and idle words to Snipes, but this “unclean, wicked city” he knew.
“I guess you’re too good for me,” he said, with an uneasy laugh. “I guess little old New York’s good enough for me.”
“What!” cried the old man, in the tones of greatest concern. “You would go back to that den of iniquity, surely not,–to that thief Perceval?”
“Well,” said the trailer, slowly, “and he’s not such a bad lot, neither. You see he could hev broke your neck that time when you was choking him, but he didn’t. There’s your train,” he added hurriedly and jumping away. “Good-by. So long, old man. I’m much ‘bliged to you jus’ for asking me.”
Two hours later the farmer and his son were making the family weep and laugh over their adventures, as they all sat together on the porch with the vines about it; and the trailer was leaning against the wall of a saloon and apparently counting his ten toes, but in reality watching for Mr. Wolfe to give the signal from the window of room No. 8.