The Atavism of John Tom Little Bear

by O. Henry

  


I saw a light in Jeff Peters's room over the Red Front Drug Store. Ihastened toward it, for I had not known that Jeff was in town. He is aman of the Hadji breed, of a hundred occupations, with a story to tell(when he will) of each one. I found Jeff repacking his grip for a run down to Florida to look at anorange grove for which he had traded, a month before, his mining claimon the Yukon. He kicked me a chair, with the same old humorous, profoundsmile on his seasoned countenance. It had been eight months since we hadmet, but his greeting was such as men pass from day to day. Time isJeff's servant, and the continent is a big lot across which he cuts tohis many roads. For a while we skirmished along the edges of unprofitable talk whichculminated in that unquiet problem of the Philippines. "All them tropical races," said Jeff, "could be run out better withtheir own jockeys up. The tropical man knows what he wants. All he wantsis a season ticket to the cock-fights and a pair of Western Unionclimbers to go up the bread-fruit tree. The Anglo-Saxon man wants him tolearn to conjugate and wear suspenders. He'll be happiest in his ownway." I was shocked. "Education, man," I said, "is the watchword. In time they will rise toour standard of civilization. Look at what education has done for theIndian." "O-ho!" sang Jeff, lighting his pipe (which was a good sign). "Yes, theIndian! I'm looking. I hasten to contemplate the redman as a standardbearer of progress. He's the same as the other brown boys. You can'tmake an Anglo-Saxon of him. Did I ever tell you about the time my friendJohn Tom Little Bear bit off the right ear of the arts of culture andeducation and spun the teetotum back round to where it was when Columbuswas a little boy? I did not? "John Tom Little Bear was an educated Cherokee Indian and an old friendof mine when I was in the Territories. He was a graduate of one of themEastern football colleges that have been so successful in teaching theIndian to use the gridiron instead of burning his victims at the stake.As an Anglo-Saxon, John Tom was copper-colored in spots. As an Indian,he was one of the whitest men I ever knew. As a Cherokee, he was agentleman on the first ballot. As a ward of the nation, he was mightyhard to carry at the primaries. "John Tom and me got together and began to make medicine--how to get upsome lawful, genteel swindle which we might work in a quiet way so asnot to excite the stupidity of the police or the cupidity of the largercorporations. We had close upon $500 between us, and we pined to make itgrow, as all respectable capitalists do. "So we figured out a proposition which seems to be as honorable as agold mine prospectus and as profitable as a church raffle. And inside ofthirty days you find us swarming into Kansas with a pair of fluenthorses and a red camping wagon on the European plan. John Tom is ChiefWish-Heap-Dough, the famous Indian medicine man and Samaritan Sachem ofthe Seven Tribes. Mr. Peters is business manager and half owner. Weneeded a third man, so we looked around and found J. Conyngham Binklyleaning against the want column of a newspaper. This Binkly has adisease for Shakespearian roles, and an hallucination about a 200nights' run on the New York stage. But he confesses that he never couldearn the butter to spread on his William S. roles, so he is willing todrop to the ordinary baker's kind, and be satisfied with a 200-mile runbehind the medicine ponies. Besides Richard III, he could dotwenty-seven coon songs and banjo specialties, and was willing to cook,and curry the horses. We carried a fine line of excuses for takingmoney. One was a magic soap for removing grease spots and quarters fromclothes. One was a Sum-wah-tah, the great Indian Remedy made from aprairie herb revealed by the Great Spirit in a dream to his favoritemedicine men, the great chiefs McGarrity and Siberstein, bottlers,Chicago. And the other was a frivolous system of pick-pocketing theKansasters that had the department stores reduced to a decimal fraction.Look ye! A pair of silk garters, a dream book, one dozen clothespins, agold tooth, and `When Knighthood Was in Flower' all wrapped up in agenuine Japanese silkarina handkerchief and handed to the handsome ladyby Mr. Peters for the trivial sum of fifty cents, while Professor Binklyentertains us in a three-minute round with the banjo. "'Twas an eminent graft we had. We ravaged peacefully through the State,determined to remove all doubt as to why 'twas called bleeding Kansas.John Tom Little Bear, in full Indian chief's costume, drew crowds awayfrom the parchesi sociables and government ownership conversaziones.While at the football college in the East he had acquired quantities ofrhetoric and the art of calisthenics and sophistry in his classes, andwhen he stood up in the red wagon and explained to the farmers,eloquent, about chilblains and hyperaesthesia of the cranium, Jeffcouldn't hand out the Indian Remedy fast enough for 'em. "One night we was camped on the edge of a little town out west ofSalina. We always camped near a stream, and put up a little tent.Sometimes we sold out of the Remedy unexpected, and then ChiefWish-Heap-Dough would have a dream in which the Manitou commanded him tofill up a few bottles of Sum-wah-tah at the most convenient place. 'Twasabout ten o'clock, and we'd just got in from a street performance. I wasin the tent with the lantern, figuring up the day's profits. John Tomhadn't taken off his Indian make-up, and was sitting by the campfireminding a fine sirloin steak in the pan for the Professor till hefinished his hair-raising scene with the trained horses. "All at once out of dark bushes comes a pop like a firecracker, and JohnTom gives a grunt and digs out of his bosom a little bullet that hasdented itself against his collar-bone. John Tom makes a dive in thedirection of the fireworks, and comes back dragging by the collar a kidabout nine or ten years young, in a velveteen suit, with a littlenickel-mounted rifle in his hand about as big as a fountain-pen. "'Here, you pappoose,' says John Tom, 'what are you gunning for withthat howitzer? You might hit somebody in the eye. Come out, Jeff, andmind the steak. Don't let it burn, while I investigate this demon withthe pea shooter.' "'Cowardly redskin,' says the kid like he was quoting from a favoriteauthor. 'Dare to burn me at the stake and the paleface will sweep youfrom the prairies like--like everything. Now, you lemme go, or I'lltell mamma.' "John Tom plants the kid on a camp-stool, and sits down by him. 'Now,tell the big chief,' he says, 'why you try to shoot pellets into yourUncle John's system. Didn't you know it was loaded?' "'Are you a Indian?' asks the kid, looking up cute asyou please at John Tom's buckskin and eagle feathers. "'I am,' says John Tom. 'Well, then, that's why,' answers the boy,swinging his feet. I nearly let the steak burn watching the nerve ofthat youngster. "'O-ho!' says John Tom, 'I see. You're the Boy Avenger. And you'vesworn to rid the continent of the savage redman. Is that about the wayof it, son?' "The kid halfway nodded his head. And then he looked glum. 'Twasindecent to wring his secret from his bosom before a single brave hadfallen before his parlor-rifle. "'Now, tell us where your wigwam is, pappoose,' says John Tom--'whereyou live? Your mamma will be worrying about you being out so late. Tellme, and I'll take you home.' "The kid grins. 'I guess not,' he says. 'I live thousands and thousandsof miles over there.' He gyrated his hand toward the horizon. 'I come onthe train,' he says, 'by myself. I got off here because the conductorsaid my ticket had ex-pirated.' He looks at John Tom with suddensuspicion 'I bet you ain't a Indian,' he says. 'You don't talk like aIndian. You look like one, but all a Indian can say is "heap good" and"paleface die." Say, I bet you are one of them make-believe Indians thatsell medicine on the streets. I saw one once in Quincy.' "'You never mind,' says John Tom, 'whether I'm a cigar-sign or a Tammanycartoon. The question before the council is what's to be done with you.You've run away from home. You've been reading Howells. You've disgracedthe profession of boy avengers by trying to shoot a tame Indian, andnever saying: "Die, dog of a redskin! You have crossed the path of theBoy Avenger nineteen times too often." What do you mean by it?' "The kid thought for a minute. 'I guess I made a mistake,' he says. 'Iought to have gone farther west. They find 'em wild out there in thecanyons.' He holds out his hand to John Tom, the little rascal. 'Pleaseexcuse me, sir,' says he, 'for shooting at you. I hope it didn't hurtyou. But you ought to be more careful. When a scout sees a Indian in hiswar-dress, his rifle must speak.' Little Bear give a big laugh with awhoop at the end of it, and swings the kid ten feet high and sets him onhis shoulder, and the runaway fingers the fringe and the eagle feathersand is full of the joy the white man knows when he dangles his heelsagainst an inferior race. It is plain that Little Bear and that kid arechums from that on. The little renegade has already smoked the pipe ofpeace with the savage; and you can see in his eye that he is figuring ona tomahawk and a pair of moccasins, children's size. "We have supper in the tent. The youngster looks upon me and theProfessor as ordinary braves, only intended as a background to the campscene. When he is seated on a box of Sum-wah-tah, with the edge of thetable sawing his neck, and his mouth full of beefsteak, Little Bearcalls for his name. 'Roy,' says the kid, with a sirloiny sound to it.But when the rest of it and his post-office address is referred to, heshakes his head. 'I guess not,' he says. 'You'll send me back. I want tostay with you. I like this camping out. At home, we fellows had a campin our back yard. They called me Roy, the Red Wolf! I guess that'll dofor a name. Gimme another piece of beefsteak, please.' "We had to keep that kid. We knew there was a hullabaloo about himsomewheres, and that Mamma, and Uncle Harry, and Aunt Jane, and theChief of Police were hot after finding his trail, but not another wordwould he tell us. In two days he was the mascot of the Big Medicineoutfit, and all of us had a sneaking hope that his owners wouldn't turnup. When the red wagon was doing business he was in it, and passed upthe bottles to Mr. Peters as proud and satisfied as a prince that'sabjured a two-hundred-dollar crown for a million-dollar parvenuess. OnceJohn Tom asked him something about his papa. 'I ain't got any papa,' hesays. 'He runned away and left us. He made my mamma cry. Aunt Lucy sayshe's a shape.' 'A what?' somebody asks him. 'A shape,' says the kid;`some kind of a shape--lemme see--oh, yes, a feendenuman shape. Idon't know what it means.' John Tom was for putting our brand on him,and dressing him up like a little chief, with wampum and beads, but Ivetoes it. 'Somebody's lost that kid, is my view of it, and they maywant him. You let me try him with a few stratagems, and see if I can'tget a look at his visiting-card.' "So that night I goes up to Mr. Roy Blank by the camp-fire, and looks athim contemptuous and scornful. 'Snickenwitzel!' says I, like the wordmade me sick; 'Snickenwitzel! Bah! Before I'd be named Snickenwitzel!' "'What's the matter with you, Jeff?" says the kid, opening his eyeswide. "'Snickenwitzel!' I repeats, and I spat, the word out. 'I saw a manto-day from your town, and he told me your name. I'm not surprised youwas ashamed to tell it. Snickenwitzel! Whew!' "'Ah, here, now,' says the boy, indignant and wriggling all over,'what's the matter with you? That ain't my name. It's Conyers. What'sthe matter with you?' "'And that's not the worst of it,' I went on quick, keeping him hot andnot giving him time to think. 'We thought you was from a nice,well-to-do family. Here's Mr. Little Bear, a chief of the Cherokees,entitled to wear nine otter tails on his Sunday blanket, and ProfessorBinkly, who plays Shakespeare and the banjo, and me, that's got hundredsof dollars in that black tin box in the wagon, and we've got to becareful about the company we keep. That man tells me your folks live'way down in little old Hencoop Alley, where there are no sidewalks, andthe goats eat off the table with you.' "That kid was almost crying now. ''Taint so,' he splutters. 'He--hedon't know what he's talking about. We live on Poplar Av'noo. I don't'sociate with goats. What's the matter with you?' "'Poplar Avenue,' says I, sarcastic. 'Poplar Avenue! That's a street tolive on! It only runs two blocks and then falls off a bluff. You canthrow a keg of nails the whole length of it. Don't talk to me aboutPoplar Avenue.' "'It's--it's miles long,' says the kid. 'Our number's 862 and there'slots of houses after that. What's the matter with--aw, you make metired, Jeff.' "'Well, well, now,' says I. 'I guess that man made a mistake. Maybe itwas some other boy he was talking about. If I catch him I'll teach himto go around slandering people.' And after supper I goes up town andtelegraphs to Mrs. Conyers, 862 Poplar Avenue, Quincy, Ill., that thekid is safe and sassy with us, and will be held for further orders. Intwo hours an answer comes to hold him tight, and she'll start for him bynext train. "The next train was due at 6 p.m. the next day, and me and John Tom wasat the depot with the kid. You might scour the plains in vain for thebig Chief Wish-Heap-Dough. In his place is Mr. Little Bear in the humanhabiliments of the Anglo-Saxon sect; and the leather of his shoes ispatented and the loop of his necktie is copyrighted. For these thingsJohn Tom had grafted on him at college along with metaphysics and theknockout guard for the low tackle. But for his complexion, which is someyellowish, and the black mop of his straight hair, you might havethought here was an ordinary man out of the city directory thatsubscribes for magazines and pushes the lawn-mower in his shirt-sleevesof evenings. "Then the train rolled in, and a little woman in a gray dress, with sortof illuminating hair, slides off and looks around quick. And the BoyAvenger sees her, and yells 'Mamma,' and she cries 'O!' and they meet ina clinch, and now the pesky redskins can come forth from their caves onthe plains without fear any more of the rifle of Roy, the Red Wolf. Mrs.Conyers comes up and thanks me an' John Tom without the usualextremities you always look for in a woman. She says just enough, in away to convince, and there is no incidental music by the orchestra. Imade a few illiterate requisitions upon the art of conversation, atwhich the lady smiles friendly, as if she had known me a week. And thenMr. Little Bear adorns the atmosphere with the various idioms into whicheducation can fracture the wind of speech. I could see the kid's motherdidn't quite place John Tom; but it seemed she was apprised in hisdialects, and she played up to his lead in the science of making threewords do the work of one. "That kid introduced us, with some footnotes and explanations that madethings plainer than a week of rhetoric. He danced around, and punched usin the back, and tried to climb John Tom's leg. 'This is John Tom,mamma,' says he. 'He's a Indian. He sells medicine in a red wagon. Ishot him, but he wasn't wild. The other one's Jeff. He's a fakir, too.Come on and see the camp where we live, won't you, mamma?' "It is plain to see that the life of the woman is in that boy. She hasgot him again where her arms can gather him, and that's enough. She'sready to do anything to please him. She hesitates the eighth of a secondand takes another look at these men. I imagine she says to herself aboutJohn Tom, 'Seems to be a gentleman, if his hair don't curl.' And Mr.Peters she disposes of as follows: 'No ladies' man, but a man who knowsa lady.' "So we all rambled down to the camp as neighborly as coming from a wake.And there she inspects the wagon and pats the place with her hand wherethe kid used to sleep, and dabs around her eyewinkers with herhandkerchief. And Professor Binkly gives us 'Trovatore' on one strong ofthe banjo, and is about to slide off into Hamlet's monologue when one ofthe horses gets tangled in his rope and he must go look after him, andsays something about 'foiled again.' "When it got dark me and John Tom walked back up to the Corn ExchangeHotel, and the four of us had supper there. I think the trouble startedat that supper, for then was when Mr. Little Bear made an intellectualballoon ascension. I held on to the tablecloth, and listened to himsoar. That redman, if I could judge, had the gift of information. Hetook language, and did with it all a Roman can do with macaroni. Hisvocal remarks was all embroidered over with the most scholarly verbs andprefixes. And his syllables was smooth, and fitted nicely to the jointsof his idea. I thought I'd heard him talk before, but I hadn't. And itwasn't the size of his words, but the way they come; and 'twasn't hissubjects, for he spoke of common things like cathedrals and football andpoems and catarrh and souls and freight rates and sculpture. Mrs.Conyers understood his accents, and the elegant sounds went back andforth between 'em. And now and then Jefferson D. Peters would intervenea few shop-worn, senseless words to have the butter passed or anotherleg of the chicken. "Yes, John Tom Little Bear appeared to be inveigled some in his bosomabout that Mrs. Conyers. She was of the kind that pleases. She had thegood looks and more, I'll tell you. You take one of these cloak modelsin a big store. They strike you as being on the impersonal system. Theyare adapted for the eye. What they run to is inches around andcomplexion, and the art of fanning the delusion that the sealskin wouldlook just as well on the lady with the warts and the pocket-book. Now,if one of them models was off duty, and you took it, and it would say'Charlie' when you pressed it, and sit up at the table, why, then youwould have something similar to Mrs. Conyers. I could see how John Tomcould resist any inclination to hate that white squaw. "The lady and the kid stayed at the hotel. In the morning, they say,they will start for home. Me and Little Bear left at eight o'clock, andsold Indian Remedy on the courthouse square till nine. He leaves me andthe Professor to drive down to camp, while he stays up town. I am notenamored with that plan, for it shows John Tom is uneasy in hiscomposures, and that leads to firewater, and sometimes to the green corndance and costs. Not often does Chief Wish-Heap-Dough get busy with thefirewater, but whenever he does there is heap much doing in the lodgesof the palefaces who wear blue and carry the club. "At half-past nine Professor Binkly is rolled in his quilt snoring inblank verse, and I am sitting by the fire listening to the frogs. Mr.Little Bear slides into camp and sits down against a tree. There is nosymptoms of firewater. "'Jeff,' says he, after a long time, 'a little boy came West to huntIndians.' "'Well, then?' says I, for I wasn't thinking as he was. "'And he bagged one,' says John Tom, 'and 'twas not with a gun, and henever had on a velveteen suit of clothes in his life.' And then I beganto catch his smoke. "'I know it,' says I. 'And I'll bet you his pictures are on valentines,and fool men are his game, red and white. "'You win on the red,' says John Tom, calm. 'Jeff, for how many poniesdo you think I could buy Mrs. Conyers?' "'Scandalous talk!' I replies. ''Tis not a paleface custom.' John Tomlaughs loud and bites into a cigar. 'No,' he answers; ''tis the savageequivalent for the dollars of the white man's marriage settlement. Oh, Iknow. There's an eternal wall between the races. If I could do it, Jeff,I'd put a torch to every white college that a redman has ever set footinside. Why don't you leave us alone,' he says, 'to our own ghost-dancesand dog-feasts, and our dingy squaws to cook our grasshopper soup anddarn our moccasins?' "'Now, you sure don't mean disrespect to the perennial blossom entitlededucation?' says I, scandalized, 'because I wear it in the bosom of myown intellectual shirt-waist. I've had education,' says I, 'and nevertook any harm from it.' "'You lasso us,' goes on Little Bear, not noticing my prose insertions,'and teach us what is beautiful in literature and in life, and how toappreciate what is fine in men and women. What have you done to me?'says he. 'You've made me a Cherokee Moses. You've taught me to hate thewigwams and love the white man's ways. I can look over into the promisedland and see Mrs. Conyers, but my place is--on the reservation.' "Little Bear stands up in his chief's dress, and laughs again. 'But,white man Jeff,' he goes on, 'the paleface provides a recourse. 'Tis atemporary one, but it gives a respite and the name of it is whiskey.'And straight off he walks up the path to town again. 'Now,' says I in mymind, 'may the Manitou move him to do only bailable things this night!'For I perceive that John Tom is about to avail himself of the whiteman's solace. "Maybe it was 10:30, as I sat smoking, when I hear pit-a-pats on thepath, and here comes Mrs. Conyers running, her hair twisted up any way,and a look on her face that says burglars and mice and theflour's-all-out rolled in one. 'Oh, Mr. Peters,' she calls out, as theywill, 'oh, oh!' I made a quick think, and I spoke the gist of it outloud. 'Now,' says I, 'we've been brothers, me and that Indian, but I'llmake a good one of him in two minutes if--' "'No, no, she says, wild and cracking her knuckles, 'I haven't seen Mr.Little Bear. 'Tis my--husband. He's stolen my boy. Oh,' she says,'just when I had him back in my arms again! That heartless villain!Every bitterness life knows,' she says, 'he's made me drink. My poorlittle lamb, that ought to be warm in his bed, carried of by thatfiend!' "'How did all this happen?' I ask. 'Let's have the facts.' "'I was fixing his bed,' she explains, 'and Roy was playing on the hotelporch and he drives up to the steps. I heard Roy scream, and ran out. Myhusband had him in the buggy then. I begged him for my child. This iswhat he gave me.' She turns her face to the light. There is a crimsonstreak running across her cheek and mouth. 'He did that with his whip,'she says. "'Come back to the hotel,' says I, 'and we'll see what can be done.' "On the way she tells me some of the wherefores. When he slashed herwith the whip he told her he found out she was coming for the kid, andhe was on the same train. Mrs. Conyers had been living with her brother,and they'd watched the boy always, as her husband had tried to steal himbefore. I judge that man was worse than a street railway promoter. Itseems he had spent her money and slugged her and killed her canary bird,and told it around that she had cold feet. "At the hotel we found a mass meeting of five infuriated citizenschewing tobacco and denouncing the outrage. Most of the town was asleepby ten o'clock. I talks the lady some quiet, and tells her I will takethe one o'clock train for the next town, forty miles east, for it islikely that the esteemed Mr. Conyers will drive there to take the cars.'I don't know,' I tells her, 'but what he has legal rights; but if Ifind him I can give him an illegal left in the eye, and tie him up for aday or two, anyhow, on a disturbal of the peace proposition.' "Mrs. Conyers goes inside and cries with the landlord's wife, who isfixing some catnip tea that will make everything all right for the poordear. The landlord comes out on the porch, thumbing his one suspender,and says to me: "'Ain't had so much excitements in town since Bedford Steegall's wifeswallered a spring lizard. I seen him through the winder hit her withthe buggy whip, and everything. What's that suit of clothes cost you yougot on? 'Pears like we'd have some rain, don't it? Say, doc, that Indianof yorn's on a kind of a whizz to-night, ain't he? He comes along justbefore you did, and I told him about this here occurrence. He gives acur'us kind of a hoot, and trotted off. I guess our constable 'll havehim in the lock-up 'fore morning.' "I thought I'd sit on the porch and wait for the one o'clock train. Iwasn't feeling saturated with mirth. Here was John Tom on one of hissprees, and this kidnapping business losing sleep for me. But then, I'malways having trouble with other people's troubles. Every few minutesMrs. Conyers would come out on the porch and look down the road the waythe buggy went, like she expected to see that kid coming back on a whitepony with a red apple in his hand. Now, wasn't that like a woman? Andthat brings up cats. 'I saw a mouse go in this hole,' says Mrs. Cat;'you can go prize up a plank over there if you like; I'll watch thishole.' "About a quarter to one o'clock the lady comes out again, restless,crying easy, as females do for their own amusement, and she looks downthat road again and listens. 'Now, ma'am,' says I, 'there's no usewatching cold wheel-tracks. By this time they're halfway to--' 'Hush,'she says, holding up her hand. And I do hear something coming`flip-flap' in the dark; and then there is the awfulest war-whoop everheard outside of Madison Square Garden at a Buffalo Bill matinee. And upthe steps and on to the porch jumps the disrespectable Indian. The lampin the hall shines on him, and I fail to recognize Mr. J. T. LittleBear, alumnus of the class of '91. What I see is a Cherokee brave, andthe warpath is what he has been travelling. Firewater and other thingshave got him going. His buckskin is hanging in strings, and his feathersare mixed up like a frizzly hen's. The dust of miles is on hismoccasins, and the light in his eye is the kind the aborigines wear. Butin his arms he brings that kid, his eyes half closed, with his littleshoes dangling and one hand fast around the Indian's collar. "'Pappoose!' says John Tom, and I notice that the flowers of the whiteman's syntax have left his tongue. He is the original proposition inbear's claws and copper color. 'Me bring,' says he, and he lays the kidin his mother's arms. 'Run fifteen mile,' says John Tom--'Ugh! Catchwhite man. Bring pappoose.' "The little woman is in extremities of gladness. She must wake up thatstir-up trouble youngster and hug him and make proclamation that he ishis mamma's own precious treasure. I was about to ask questions, but Ilooked at Mr. Little Bear, and my eye caught the sight of something inhis belt. 'Now go to bed, ma'am,' says I, 'and this gadabout youngsterlikewise, for there's no more danger, and the kidnapping business is notwhat it was earlier in the night.' "I inveigled John Tom down to camp quick, and when he tumbled overasleep I got that thing out of his belt and disposed of it where the eyeof education can't see it. For even the football colleges disapprove ofthe art of scalp-taking in their curriculums. "It is ten o'clock next day when John Tom wakes up and looks around. Iam glad to see the nineteenth century in his eyes again. "'What was it, Jeff?" he asks. "'Heap firewater,' says I. "John Tom frowns, and thinks a little. 'Combined,' says he directly,'with the interesting little physiological shake-up known as reversionto type. I remember now. Have they gone yet?' "'On the 7:30 train,' I answers. "'Ugh!' says John Tom; 'better so. Paleface, bring big ChiefWish-Heap-Dough a little bromo-seltzer, and then he'll take up theredman's burden again.'"


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