The Ethics of Pig
On an east-bound train I went into the smoker and found JeffersonPeters, the only man with a brain west of the Wabash River who can usehis cerebrum cerebellum, and medulla oblongata at the same time.
Jeff is in the line of unillegal graft. He is not to be dreaded bywidows and orphans; he is a reducer of surplusage. His favoritedisguise is that of the target-bird at which the spendthrift or thereckless investor may shy a few inconsequential dollars. He is readilyvocalized by tobacco; so, with the aid of two thick and easy-burningbrevas, I got the story of his latest Autolycan adventure.
"In my line of business," said Jeff, "the hardest thing is to find anupright, trustworthy, strictly honorable partner to work a graft with.Some of the best men I ever worked with in a swindle would resort totrickery at times.
"So, last summer, I thinks I will go over into this section of countrywhere I hear the serpent has not yet entered, and see if I can find apartner naturally gifted with a talent for crime, but not yetcontaminated by success.
"I found a village that seemed to show the right kind of a layout. Theinhabitants hadn't found that Adam had been dispossessed, and weregoing right along naming the animals and killing snakes just as ifthey were in the Garden of Eden. They call this town Mount Nebo, andit's up near the spot where Kentucky and West Virginia and NorthCarolina corner together. Them States don't meet? Well, it was in thatneighborhood, anyway.
"After putting in a week proving I wasn't a revenue officer, I wentover to the store where the rude fourflushers of the hamlet lied, tosee if I could get a line on the kind of man I wanted.
"'Gentlemen,' says I, after we had rubbed noses and gathered 'roundthe dried-apple barrel. 'I don't suppose there's another community inthe whole world into which sin and chicanery has less extensivelypermeated than this. Life here, where all the women are brave andpropitious and all the men honest and expedient, must, indeed, be anidol. It reminds me,' says I, 'of Goldstein's beautiful balladentitled "The Deserted Village," which says:
'Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,What art can drive its charms away?The judge rode slowly down the lane, mother.For I'm to be Queen of the May.'
"'Why, yes, Mr. Peters,' says the storekeeper. 'I reckon we air aboutas moral and torpid a community as there be on the mounting, accordingto censuses of opinion; but I reckon you ain't ever met Rufe Tatum.'
"'Why, no,' says the town constable, 'he can't hardly have ever. Thatair Rufe is shore the monstrousest scalawag that has escaped hangin'on the galluses. And that puts me in mind that I ought to have turnedRufe out of the lockup before yesterday. The thirty days he got forkillin' Yance Goodloe was up then. A day or two more won't hurt Rufeany, though.'
"'Shucks, now,' says I, in the mountain idiom, 'don't tell me there'sa man in Mount Nebo as bad as that.'
"'Worse,' says the storekeeper. 'He steals hogs.'
"I think I will look up this Mr. Tatum; so a day or two after theconstable turned him out I got acquainted with him and invited him outon the edge of town to sit on a log and talk business.
"What I wanted was a partner with a natural rural make-up to play apart in some little one-act outrages that I was going to book with thePitfall & Gin circuit in some of the Western towns; and this R. Tatumwas born for the role as sure as nature cast Fairbanks for the stuffthat kept /Eliza/ from sinking into the river.
"He was about the size of a first baseman; and he had ambiguous blueeyes like the china dog on the mantelpiece that Aunt Harriet used toplay with when she was a child. His hair waved a little bit like thestatue of the dinkus-thrower at the Vacation in Rome, but the color ofit reminded you of the 'Sunset in the Grand Canon, by an AmericanArtist,' that they hang over the stove-pipe holes in the salongs. Hewas the Reub, without needing a touch. You'd have known him for one,even if you'd seen him on the vaudeville stage with one cottonsuspender and a straw over his ear.
"I told him what I wanted, and found him ready to jump at the job.
"'Overlooking such a trivial little peccadillo as the habit ofmanslaughter,' says I, 'what have you accomplished in the way ofindirect brigandage or nonactionable thriftiness that you could pointto, with or without pride, as an evidence of your qualifications forthe position?'
"'Why,' says he, in his kind of Southern system of procrastinatedaccents, 'hain't you heard tell? There ain't any man, black or white,in the Blue Ridge that can tote off a shoat as easy as I can withoutbein' heard, seen, or cotched. I can lift a shoat,' he goes on, 'outof a pen, from under a porch, at the trough, in the woods, day ornight, anywhere or anyhow, and I guarantee nobody won't hear a squeal.It's all in the way you grab hold of 'em and carry 'em atterwards.Some day,' goes on this gentle despoiler of pig-pens, 'I hope tobecome reckernized as the champion shoat-stealer of the world.'
"'It's proper to be ambitious,' says I; 'and hog-stealing will do verywell for Mount Nebo; but in the outside world, Mr. Tatum, it would beconsidered as crude a piece of business as a bear raid on Bay StateGas. However, it will do as a guarantee of good faith. We'll go intopartnership. I've got a thousand dollars cash capital; and with thathomeward-plods atmosphere of yours we ought to be able to win out afew shares of Soon Parted, preferred, in the money market.'
"So I attaches Rufe, and we go away from Mount Nebo down into thelowlands. And all the way I coach him for his part in the grafts I hadin mind. I had idled away two months on the Florida coast, and wasfeeling all to the Ponce de Leon, besides having so many new schemesup my sleeve that I had to wear kimonos to hold 'em.
"I intended to assume a funnel shape and mow a path nine miles widethough the farming belt of the Middle West; so we headed in thatdirection. But when we got as far as Lexington we found BinkleyBrothers' circus there, and the blue-grass peasantry romping into townand pounding the Belgian blocks with their hand-pegged sabots asartless and arbitrary as an extra session of a Datto Bryan drama. Inever pass a circus without pulling the valve-cord and coming down fora little Key West money; so I engaged a couple of rooms and board forRufe and me at a house near the circus grounds run by a widow ladynamed Peevy. Then I took Rufe to a clothing store and gent's-outfittedhim. He showed up strong, as I knew he would, after he was rigged upin the ready-made rutabaga regalia. Me and old Misfitzky stuffed himinto a bright blue suit with a Nile green visible plaid effect, andriveted on a fancy vest of a light Tuskegee Normal tan color, a rednecktie, and the yellowest pair of shoes in town.
"They were the first clothes Rufe had ever worn except the ginghamlayette and the butternut top-dressing of his native kraal, and helooked as self-conscious as an Igorrote with a new nose-ring.
"That night I went down to the circus tents and opened a small shellgame. Rufe was to be the capper. I gave him a roll of phony currencyto bet with and kept a bunch of it in a special pocket to pay hiswinnings out of. No; I didn't mistrust him; but I simply can'tmanipulate the ball to lose when I see real money bet. My fingers goon a strike every time I try it.
"I set up my little table and began to show them how easy it was toguess which shell the little pea was under. The unlettered hindsgathered in a thick semicircle and began to nudge elbows and banterone another to bed. Then was when Rufe ought to have single-footed upand called the turn on the little joker for a few tens and fives toget them started. But, no Rufe. I'd seen him two or three timeswalking about and looking at the side-show pictures with his mouthfull of peanut candy; but he never came nigh.
"The crowd piked a little; but trying to work the shells without acapper is like fishing without a bait. I closed the game with onlyforty-two dollars of the unearned increment, while I had been countingon yanking the yeomen for two hundred at least. I went home at elevenand went to bed. I supposed that the circus had proved too alluringfor Rufe, and that he had succumbed to it, concert and all; but Imeant to give him a lecture on general business principles in themorning.
"Just after Morpheus had got both my shoulders to the shuck mattress Ihears a houseful of unbecoming and ribald noises like a youngsterscreeching with green-apple colic. I opens my door and calls out inthe hall for the widow lady, and when she sticks her head out, I says:'Mrs. Peevy, ma'am, would you mind choking off that kid of yours sothat honest people can get their rest?'
"'Sir,' says she, 'it's no child of mine. It's the pig squealing thatyour friend Mr. Tatum brought home to his room a couple of hours ago.And if you are uncle or second cousin or brother to it, I'd appreciateyour stopping its mouth, sir, yourself, if you please.'
"I put on some of the polite outside habiliments of external societyand went into Rufe's room. He had gotten up and lit his lamp, and waspouring some milk into a tin pan on the floor for a dingy-white, half-grown, squealing pig.
"'How is this, Rufe?' says I. 'You flimflammed in your part of thework to-night and put the game on crutches. And how do you explain thepig? It looks like back-sliding to me.'
"'Now, don't be too hard on me, Jeff,' says he. 'You know how longI've been used to stealing shoats. It's got to be a habit with me. Andto-night, when I see such a fine chance, I couldn't help takin' it.'
"'Well,' says I, 'maybe you've really got kleptopigia. And maybe whenwe get out of the pig belt you'll turn your mind to higher and moreremunerative misconduct. Why you should want to stain your soul withsuch a distasteful, feeble-minded, perverted, roaring beast as that Ican't understand.'
"'Why, Jeff,' says he, 'you ain't in sympathy with shoats. You don'tunderstand 'em like I do. This here seems to me to be an animal ofmore than common powers of ration and intelligence. He walked halfacross the room on his hind legs a while ago.'
"'Well, I'm going back to bed,' says I. 'See if you can impress itupon your friend's ideas of intelligence that he's not to make so muchnoise.'
"'He was hungry,' says Rufe. 'He'll go to sleep and keep quiet now.'
"I always get up before breakfast and read the morning paper wheneverI happen to be within the radius of a Hoe cylinder or a Washingtonhand-press. The next morning I got up early, and found a Lexingtondaily on the front porch where the carrier had thrown it. The firstthing I saw in it was a double-column ad. on the front page that readlike this:
FIVE THOUSAND DOLLARS REWARD
The above amount will be paid, and no questions asked, for thereturn, alive and uninjured, of Beppo, the famous Europeaneducated pig, that strayed or was stolen from the side-show tentsof Binkley Bros.' circus last night.
Geo. B. Tapley, Business Manager.At the circus grounds.
"I folded up the paper flat, put it into my inside pocket, and went toRufe's room. He was nearly dressed, and was feeding the pig the restof the milk and some apple-peelings.
"'Well, well, well, good morning all,' I says, hearty and amiable. 'Sowe are up? And piggy is having his breakfast. What had you intendeddoing with that pig, Rufe?'
"'I'm going to crate him up,' says Rufe, 'and express him to ma inMount Nebo. He'll be company for her while I am away.'
"'He's a mighty fine pig,' says I, scratching him on the back.
"'You called him a lot of names last night,' says Rufe.
"'Oh, well,' says I, 'he looks better to me this morning. I was raisedon a farm, and I'm very fond of pigs. I used to go to bed at sundown,so I never saw one by lamplight before. Tell you what I'll do, Rufe,'I says. 'I'll give you ten dollars for that pig.'
"'I reckon I wouldn't sell this shoat,' says he. 'If it was any otherone I might.'
"'Why not this one?' I asked, fearful that he might know something.
"'Why, because,' says he, 'it was the grandest achievement of my life.There ain't airy other man that could have done it. If I ever have afireside and children, I'll sit beside it and tell 'em how their daddytoted off a shoat from a whole circus full of people. And maybe mygrandchildren, too. They'll certainly be proud a whole passel. Why,'says he, 'there was two tents, one openin' into the other. This shoatwas on a platform, tied with a little chain. I seen a giant and a ladywith a fine chance of bushy white hair in the other tent. I got theshoat and crawled out from under the canvas again without himsqueakin' as loud as a mouse. I put him under my coat, and I must havepassed a hundred folks before I got out where the streets was dark. Ireckon I wouldn't sell that shoat, Jeff. I'd want ma to keep it, sothere'd be a witness to what I done.'
"'The pig won't live long enough,' I says, 'to use as an exhibit inyour senile fireside mendacity. Your grandchildren will have to takeyour word for it. I'll give you one hundred dollars for the animal.'
"Rufe looked at me astonished.
"'The shoat can't be worth anything like that to you,' he says. 'Whatdo you want him for?'
"'Viewing me casuistically,' says I, with a rare smile, 'you wouldn'tthink that I've got an artistic side to my temper. But I have. I'm acollector of pigs. I've scoured the world for unusual pigs. Over inthe Wabash Valley I've got a hog ranch with most every specimen on it,from a Merino to a Poland China. This looks like a blooded pig to me,Rufe,' says I. 'I believe it's a genuine Berkshire. That's why I'dlike to have it.'
"'I'd shore like to accommodate you,' says he, 'but I've got theartistic tenement, too. I don't see why it ain't art when you cansteal a shoat better than anybody else can. Shoats is a kind ofinspiration and genius with me. Specially this one. I wouldn't taketwo hundred and fifty for that animal.'
"'Now, listen,' says I, wiping off my forehead. 'It's not so much amatter of business with me as it is art; and not so much art as it isphilanthropy. Being a connoisseur and disseminator of pigs, I wouldn'tfeel like I'd done my duty to the world unless I added that Berkshireto my collection. Not intrinsically, but according to the ethics ofpigs as friends and coadjutors of mankind, I offer you five hundreddollars for the animal.'
"'Jeff,' says this pork esthete, 'it ain't money; it's sentiment withme.'
"'Seven hundred,' says I.
"'Make it eight hundred,' says Rufe, 'and I'll crush the sentiment outof my heart.'
"I went under my clothes for my money-belt, and counted him out fortytwenty-dollar gold certificates.
"'I'll just take him into my own room,' says I, 'and lock him up tillafter breakfast.'
"I took the pig by the hind leg. He turned on a squeal like the steamcalliope at the circus.
"'Let me tote him in for you,' says Rufe; and he picks up the beastunder one arm, holding his snout with the other hand, and packs himinto my room like a sleeping baby.
"After breakfast Rufe, who had a chronic case of haberdashery eversince I got his trousseau, says he believes he will amble down toMisfitzky's and look over some royal-purple socks. And then I got asbusy as a one-armed man with the nettle-rash pasting on wall-paper. Ifound an old Negro man with an express wagon to hire; and we tied thepig in a sack and drove down to the circus grounds.
"I found George B. Tapley in a little tent with a window flap open. Hewas a fattish man with an immediate eye, in a black skull-cap, with afour-ounce diamond screwed into the bosom of his red sweater.
"'Are you George B. Tapley?' I asks.
"'I swear it,' says he.
"'Well, I've got it,' says I.
"'Designate,' says he. 'Are you the guinea pigs for the Asiatic pythonor the alfalfa for the sacred buffalo?'
"'Neither,' says I. 'I've got Beppo, the educated hog, in a sack inthat wagon. I found him rooting up the flowers in my front yard thismorning. I'll take the five thousand dollars in large bills, if it'shandy.'
"George B. hustles out of his tent, and asks me to follow. We wentinto one of the side-shows. In there was a jet black pig with a pinkribbon around his neck lying on some hay and eating carrots that a manwas feeding to him.
"'Hey, Mac,' calls G. B. 'Nothing wrong with the world-wide thismorning, is there?'
"'Him? No,' says the man. 'He's got an appetite like a chorus girl at1 A.M.'
"'How'd you get this pipe?' says Tapley to me. 'Eating too many porkchops last night?'
"I pulls out the paper and shows him the ad.
"'Fake,' says he. 'Don't know anything about it. You've beheld withyour own eyes the marvelous, world-wide porcine wonder of the four-footed kingdom eating with preternatural sagacity his matutinal meal,unstrayed and unstole. Good morning.'
"I was beginning to see. I got in the wagon and told Uncle Ned todrive to the most adjacent orifice of the nearest alley. There I tookout my pig, got the range carefully for the other opening, set hissights, and gave him such a kick that he went out the other end of thealley twenty feet ahead of his squeal.
"Then I paid Uncle Ned his fifty cents, and walked down to thenewspaper office. I wanted to hear it in cold syllables. I got theadvertising man to his window.
"'To decide a bet,' says I, 'wasn't the man who had this ad. put inlast night short and fat, with long black whiskers and a club-foot?'
"'He was not,' says the man. 'He would measure about six feet by fourand a half inches, with corn-silk hair, and dressed like the pansiesof the conservatory.'
"At dinner time I went back to Mrs. Peevy's.
"'Shall I keep some soup hot for Mr. Tatum till he comes back?' sheasks.
"'If you do, ma'am,' says I, 'you'll more than exhaust for firewoodall the coal in the bosom of the earth and all the forests on theoutside of it.'
"So there, you see," said Jefferson Peters, in conclusion, "how hardit is ever to find a fair-minded and honest business-partner."
"But," I began, with the freedom of long acquaintance, "the ruleshould work both ways. If you had offered to divide the reward youwould not have lost--"
Jeff's look of dignified reproach stopped me.
"That don't involve the same principles at all," said he. "Mine was alegitimate and moral attempt at speculation. Buy low and sell high--don't Wall Street endorse it? Bulls and bears and pigs--what's thedifference? Why not bristles as well as horns and fur?"
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