From Cornfield Philosophy, by C. D. Strode, Illustrated, Chicago: The Blakely Printing Co., 1902; pp. 47-62.
[47]
THE HIDDEN CULLS
OR
THE SAW MILL MAN’S REVENGE
48
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
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I have often had it in mind to write a novel. I have started several, but could never make much headway. I never could control the characters of the story and get them to do what I wanted them to do. I remember one, the plot of which I had carefully outlined, but in which I made the mistake of creating the hero too strong and masterful. I thought the hero should be made strong and masterful and that’s the way I made him; but when it came to the point where he was to quarrel with the heroine, and fly to the uttermost ends of the earth and into strange and unusual adventures, I couldn’t do anything with him. Instead of quarreling with the heroine he laughed at her, called her a little goose and picked her up and kissed her; and she was so anxious to get married for fear she would never get another chance, that she sided right in with him, and in spite of all I could do they went up to Milwaukee and got married and brought the story to an end in the middle of the second chapter.
I was so disgusted over that attempt that I made up my mind I would never try it again; but when the Record decided to run a serial story, and stated it was not particular about the story, so it was cheap, I, like a fool, tried it again.
I took for a title “The Hidden Culls; or, the Saw Mill Man’s Revenge,” and in the following I give you the story just as it was handled by the paper. At the time I thought the publisher did to handle the story as he should, and I was much vexed about it; but time has healed my resentment and I believe know that he acted for the best.
I took for a title “The Hidden Culls; or, the Saw Mill Man’s Revenge,” and in the following I give you the story just as it was handled by the paper. At the time I thought the publisher did not handle the story as he should, and I was much vexed about it; but time has healed my resentment and I believe now that he acted for the best.
49
THE HIDDEN CULLS.
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THE SAW MILL MAN’S REVENGE.
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A NEW DEPARTURE.
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The Record has been preparing a surprise for its readers, a pleasant surprise. We have decided to follow the example set by the more progressive among our contemporaries and publish a serial story. The name of this story is “The Hidden Culls; or, the Saw Mill Man’s Revenge.” The author is William Freestone. As one of his critics happily expressed it, Mr. Freestone is a peach.
The scene of the story is laid in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee, and it is of thrilling interest. Just to show you what is in store for you, we will give you a portion of the first chapter:
A young man was riding slowly along a mountain road. Everything was quiet, when all at once the young 50 man stopped. Some young men stop in sections, but this young man stopped all at once. And as he sits so quietly on his horse we can see what kind of a man he is. In fact, that is what he stopped for.
(Here follows a description of the young man and his horse and the surrounding country, which is rather tedious, which we will omit; and we will say in advance that it is our intention to leave out all the tedious parts of the story.)
The young man’s name was Absalom, or rather his neame is Absalom, for he is still alive and hearty, thank goodness! The balance of his name we cannot tell you at present, because that is a secret which will be disclosed later. For the present we will call him the young man Absalom and let it go at that. After getting off his horse and tying it to a tree and opening a gate which happened to be there or thereabouts, the young man Absalom strode ——
But there! the name slipped out and we will keep it a secret no longer. It is, and was, Absalom Strode.
So the young man Absalom strode up the patch, switching absently at the flowers with a lithe, supple black cane.
There was a startling peculiarity about that cane — the young man Absalom had won it at a country fair by pitching a ring over it. But of that, more anon.
He rapped at the first door he came to. As he rapped there rang out a chorus of dog music of such volume that the young man knew he must be at the home of a saw mill man.
Presently a woman came to the door.
(Here follows a long description of the woman, which is rather tedious, except as to the eyes. Here is what it says of the eyes):
51Her eyes were black and inscrutable. Not the ordinary black of civilization, but the black which comes from sudden and violent contact with a hard substance, In fact, she had a pair of bum lamps.
But her tone and actions were friendly.
“What is it you want, young man?” she said.
“I want to see your husband about the district school,” he replied, his head proudly erect.
The woman reeled as though he had struck her, and for a moment could make no reply.
“Oh! my poor young man!” she gasped, “are you a school teacher? Come into the settin’ room.”
She led him in.
There was but one chair in the room and the woman sat on that.
“I’d give you the cheer,” she said, fastening her bum lamps upon him, “but it’s only got three legs, and if ye ain’t usened to settin’ in it it’ll throw you down.” And she waved him to a seat on the bed.
Scarcely had the young man Absalom taken his seat when he felt a stab in his leg — a strong, piercing stab, which penetrated his pantaloons and pierced the quivering flesh beneath. The young man sprang up with a shriek:
“Oh!” he cried, “I am stung! I am stabbed! Base woman, what have you done?”
But the woman only looked at him with her black, inscrutable eyes.
“It’s nothin’ but a settin’ hen,” she said.
And sure enough it was. The woman was not trying to deceive him. It was a hen setting in a soap box under the bed.
That was why the woman had called it the “settin’ room.”
52(From the foregoing our readers will see that the story will be of absorbing interest. Moreover, there is a prize scheme connected with it. Each of our subscribers will be entitled to guess once as to how the story comes out. The one who misses it the farthest will be given thirty cents.)
SECOND INSTALLMENT.
We left our hero, the young man Absalom, two weeks ago, standing on one leg clutching the calf of the other in his sunburnt hands, an expression of horror just beginning to fade from his face. Across the plainly furnished room sat the woman with the black eyes skilfully balanced on the crippled chair. Under the bed the hen was guarding her mess of eggs and out beneath the tree the hero’s horse, Rozinante, had its tail poised in the very act of switching a fly from its flank.
So, two weeks ago, we left the actors in this strange, unnatural, and yet thrillingly interesting romance, and now, at thought of again turning them loose upon a defenseless world, I feel a presentiment of evil. I somehow seem to know that something terrifying and unusual is going to happen, and a strange cold fear tugs at my vitals.
But never mind. Let her tug. We’ll go ahead. I remember I had the same kind of a feeling last week, and nothing came of it except that a man dunned me for 75 cents he said I owed him.
That the reader may miss nothing we will begin exactly where we left off. The way that some novelists have of jumping their readers around from one thing to another, and straining their intellects until they almost give way 53 trying to keep track of things, does not meet my approval. I am not that kind of novelist.
The young man Absalom brought his foot to the floor with a sigh of relief; the horse Rozinante brought his tail triumphantly around and brushed away the fly; the hen nestled more closely over her eggs, and the woman continued in a sudden and unexpected manner, to sit on the wounded chair and gaze reproachfully at the young man.
Outside everything resumed business at the same time. The pleasant autumn wind began anew its merry task of rustling the leaves; a squirrel, which was caught halfway up a tree when we shut down two weeks ago, scampered gleefully into its hole, and an acorn which had been arrested midway continued its downward course and struck the earth with a dull thud.
“Madam,” said the young man, “I beg your pardon.”
And when he thought of his useless alarm and how ridiculous it had made him appear he blushed furiously; and then, realizing that he was blushing like a schoolboy, he grew more and more embarrassed and blushed harder and harder. Then, in his embarrassment he got his legs twined around each other in an apparently hopeless tangle.
He struggled so hard to regain his self-possession that his muscles stood out like knotted cables.
“My God!” exclaimed the woman.
“It is nothing, madam,” said the young man. “I am better now; but what are we going to do next?”
The woman gazed straight before her with an expression of wistful retrospection in her eyes, as though she looked down a long vista of bygone years, standing in rows like soldiers.
“Mary Ellen!” she said.
“Hey?” said the young man.
54“Mary Ellen!” continued the woman.
Then it dawned on him for the first time that this strange, odd figure of a woman was calling someone.
“Mary Ellen!” Again the words sounded on the pure mountain air.
“Make the galoot go ’way, ma,” said a low, thrilling contralto voice.
“Jupiter Pluvius!” ejaculated Absalom. “She is under the bed.”
“Make the galoot go ’way, ma,” repeated the sweet, mellow voice.
“Come out, you ejit!” said the woman. “He won’t hurt you.”
Then a head covered with a mass of golden hair was shyly protruded from under the bed, then, with a twist and a turn there stood before the startled gaze of the young man the most beautiful creature he had ever seen.
And it was a woman at that.
It is night.
The air has grown chilly and damp with the promise of rain.
The night is dark because the clouds obscure the moon and stars. This makes it very dark in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee, for there are no street lamps there.
A man is walking slowly along the road, and it is so dark we can hardly see him.
He approaches a house standing somewhat back from the road. It is a small unpainted frame house with one room and an attic. In the room is a chair minus one leg, and a bed.
Under the bed, with a patient, pitiful persistence worthy of a better cause, a hen is setting, brooding over her 55 eggs as silently and uncomplainingly as the Sphinx broods over the Great Desert; only where the Sphinx hatches out naught but centuries of silence, the hen hatches out Plymouth Rock chickens.
And ever as the chickens are hatched they are deftly and silently removed and fresh eggs are substituted. And the hen sets on and on.
Poor, foolish hen!
But this is not a hen story and we must return to the young man Absalom. I confess, though, that the hen has a strange fascination for me.
So we climb the ladder which leads to the attic, for there the young man is sleeping. Yes, he so ingratiated himself in the hearts of these trusting people that they gave him a supper of hot biscuit and fat pork and now he is asleep in their attic. And as he sleeps he moans and turns restlessly. Either he has a guilty conscience or the hot biscuits and fat pork do not agree with him.
But ha! What is this?
Projecting from under the pillow is something with a metallic gleam. Looked at more closely, it proves to be the head of a lumber rule — one of the patent, adjustable kind, which may be slipped up the trousers leg or down the back and not be noticed.
Can it be? Is it possible, that this young man, with the fair hair falling back from his innocent looking face, is a lumber buyer in disguise? Can it be that he who was received in this simple family with such trusting and kindly hospitality as a country school teacher is what this rule would indicate?
It seems so. And even that is not the worst, for on closer examination of the board rule we make a startling discovery.
The figures are on the wrong side of the dot!
56Now, Tennesseean, hold your own,
No maiden’s arm is round you thrown;
Now, faithful hen, on your humble nest,
Hide your eggs your very best;
Now, maiden with the golden hair,
Beware the wily tempter’s snare.
For the young man, sleeping so securely in your attic, is a Chicago lumber buyer in disguise.
* * *
We have received several inquiries regarding this story and we answer them as follows:
E. L., Munising, Mich. — No, it is impossible at present to tell you how near you come to guessing the outcome of the story. The author himself doesn’t as yet know how it will come out.
Old Subscriber, Cairo, Ill. — We are sorry you do not like the story, but we cannot comply with your request and discontinue it. The policy of the Record is mapped out months in advance and is considered with great care. We cannot please everybody and aim to please the greatest number.
Indignant Reader, Nashville, Tenn. — No, this story is not meant as a reflection on Nashville nor any of its worthy citizens. The characters of the story are, it is true, taken from life, but you are mistaken in supposing that any allusion is intended to your plant. The fact that you have a number of dogs about and a hen setting under the bed are merely coincidences, nothing more.
57THIRD INSTALLMENT.
Note. — There are a lot of people picking flaws in this story. There are a lot of knockers going around over the country with their little hammers knocking the “Hidden Culls,” and I am getting pretty sore about it. If any of you people think you can write this story better than I can, I’ll give you the job of finishing it. I’ll tell you at the start, though, that it isn’t as easy as it looks. You think because you are a free and easy liar, in a general way, that you can make up a thrilling novel like this, but you will find that it isn’t so. Several of my friends have promised to donate a chapter each and if there is anybody else among the tens of thousands of people who read this paper who wish to donate a chapter, we will be glad to have them send it in.
* * *
You will remember, two weeks ago we left a man standing in the yard, outside of the house. The house, you know, was that house now grown famous, the house of one room and one bed, beneath which one hen is forever setting. You will excuse me for ringing in that hen again. I had intended to eliminate her entirely from the story by having her made up into a mess of chicken dumplings, but on consulting some of my dearest friends who are watching the progress of this story with great interest I have decided to allow her to remain, and may yet make her the heroine of the story. For the present we will leave her where she is, although Sam Burkholder told me at Indianapolis last week that throughout Indiana it is considered the meanest thing a man can do to steal chickens from under a hen and put fresh eggs under her.
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A PARTNER WITH CAPITAL
But to return to the man. I have not meant to leave him standing in the year all this two weeks, but the matter slipped my mind entirely. So I will begin by asking his pardon for the oversight. If my memory serves me right it was raining, and I forgot to stop it, so that now, after standing there two weeks in the rain, the man is very angry. He approaches the door of the house aforesaid, and, finding it locked, pounds upon it vigorously. The woman with the black eyes, which by this time have become a greenish yellow, opens the door cautiously.
“Is that you, John?”
“Of course it’s John,” he says.
Here he bursts violently into the room, strikes at the woman, but misses her, and approaches the fire to dry himself. Come to think of it, though, I don’t remember that there was any fire, but let it go.
He leans against the mantel and is soon lost in deep thought.
“John,” his wife says to him. (And that’s something else I had forgotten. I had forgotten to tell you that this woman was his wife.) “John,” she says, “when will you give up this terrible business?”
John makes no reply, except to strike at her again in an absent-minded manner. Then he approaches the table, draws two heavy sacks from his pocket and drops them down upon the table. They fall with a heavy, chinking sound. Then he goes into his inside pocket and draws out great packages of money and throws them upon the table.
“My God! John,” exclaims his wife. “Where did you get all this money?” But John makes no reply except to cross his arms upon the table and drop his head on them.
60“John,” his wife says finally, “tell me the worst. Have you been robbing a bank?”
“No,” says John, raising his head proudly and allowing a glad light from his countenance to irradiate the room, “I’ve got another partner with capital.”
“Who is it?” asks his wife, breathlessly.
“The devil,” says John. “I’ve gone into partnership with the devil! Yes,” he continues, excitedly, “I’ve sold myself to the devil for money enough to run that cursed saw mill for ten years.”
There was a smothered moan, followed by a crash. The woman had fainted and fallen on the bed; the bed had busted and mashed the hen.
FOURTH INSTALLMENT.
I guess we will give the “Hidden Culls” a rest for a while. There were three men who promised to donate a chapter each for this issue and I waited and waited. At last I wired each of them: “Where is that chapter for the Hidden Culls?” One of them replied: “Impossible to furnish it; have been sick.”
Another replied: “Have done my best, but it won’t work.” The other simply said: “Search me.”
So we will have to let the story go. It lasted longer than I thought it would. We won’t throw it away entirely, but just store it in that great garret where people put the things they are going to finish when they get time. It wasn’t much of a story, anyhow. If any of you had become interested in it and wonder how it would come out, I am sorry for you, for I haven’t the slightest idea as to how it was going to come out myself. I saw it was getting entirely beyond my control and it is better 61 to break off right here than to let it go cavorting around like a mad bull.
I am sorry about it, but I believe I am acting for the best. I was beginning to get interested in the young man, Absalom, the woman with the black eyes, the horse Rozinante and the hen under the bed, but let them go.
One is forever stepping in and out of stories without ever knowing how they come out. Fate drops you down somewhere in the center of a story that a lot of people are living out, and just as your interest is becoming aroused and the tendrils of your affections are beginning to twine around the people, Fate picks you up unceremoniously and with your interest unsatisfied and your tendrils all busted loose, drops you down into some other story. After this has been repeated several times you pretty nearly run out of interest and your tendrils get all frazzled out and won’t cling to anything.
Sometimes, years after, you learn how the story came out, or was continued, and it is always depressing; for in the end all the people die.
No story ever has a happy ending save in the books. And even then the happy result is only obtained by seizing a favorable opportunity and breaking away. To keep on they must show how the dashing hero grew old and full of cricks and pains; how his hair fell out until he had to comb what was left forward and up instead of backward and down; how he gradually had to take on liver pads and chest protectors; how his teeth fell out until he had nothing left but a few old yellow snags; how he lost control of his nerves so that his jaws waggled when he talked and he had to go “tee-heeing” around on a cane, a senile, slobbering, unlovely old man. And how he finally died and everybody said it was a blessing.
No, we will just cut the “Hidden Culls” out for the 62 present. We leave the people in reasonably good shape. The young man Absalom is asleep and he can’t gouge anybody out of lumber while he is asleep. It seems a shame to cut a young man off that way in the midst of his youth, with his heart full of hopes and his head full of plans for the future. But, never mind. Most of his plans would miscarry, anyhow, for the saw mill men are getting onto these lumber buyers. The horse, Rozinante, is tied up in the stable, patiently waiting for morning to come so he will get some more oats, and is moderately happy. The woman with the black eyes is lying in the broken bed in a faint, knowing neither joy nor sorrow. The hen is weltering in a mess of blood and scrambled eggs, and naught that is human can harm her or do her good. The man standing beside the table heaped high with gold, doubtless will feel aggrieved and chagrined to have the story stop here, but he should not, for a partner with capital is only a temporary relief to a saw mill man.
And the girl with the golden hair! Ah, me! I had forgotten the girl with the golden hair. And that suggests something.
There was a prize arrangement with the story whereby the one guessing the most nearly how the story would come out was to receive thirty cents. We have received a number of guesses already and many more of our readers have signified their intention to compete as soon as the plot should be further developed. The rather abrupt termination of the story, of course, puts an end to that prize scheme. We have not as yet, however, told what became of the girl with the golden hair, and in order that our readers may not be bilked out of their prize we will transfer it and bestow it on the one who comes nearest to guessing where the girl with the golden hair went, what she went for and what luck she is having.
