Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

mourned a dead child, or hid “him in the rushes" none know. Excommunication was strongly urged, but the more merciful saved him churchfellowship by plea of well known simpleness. Yet at this time Darwin was collecting data that should later wring acknowledgment of legitimacy for the repudiated child, from our wise-men. Henceforward he ceased to be more than the town-fool, a man a little beneath our contempt but whose silly stories, all unguessed by us, were saving us from the dry-rot of self-consuming, and lifting the lid of morbid introspection by throwing in the priming for a hearty laugh. Certainly we were ashamed, nevertheless the dangerous pressure was eased.

We did not call his stories humorous. Indeed we hardly knew humor when it was introduced by a proper sponsor, but we never met him without going away with merriment which comforted us for days, but how we pitied "Poor Uncle Joe' whose mind was like the crackling of thorns under a pot. When one passing a house heard shrieking guffaws which seemed likely to burst. the windows, he knew Uncle Joe was within telling a story, and business was urgent or sorrow heavy if the group was not increased by another listener.

If you saw a group milling round an object in the centre, tossing up their hats, and stamping their feet, it meant not always a dog-fight, for Uncle Joe was perhaps the hub, and you hastened your steps. It were a memory-star, if you were present in the crowded general-store, when Uncle Joe was giving an impromptu storytelling.

We would come away from these upliftings, with the pity, which is more than half contempt, "Poor fool! he never knows he is telling a funny story, but how can such an illiterate make or remember so many incidents which interest even us, who appreciate higher things, and against our wills disturb our gravity, and how seldom he repeats. Uncle Joe is a simple and a puzzle, and our grief. We might almost believe him in league with the

powers of darkness, who through him plunge us into unseemly and profitless conversation. Would God, he were far away! It is true he seemed not to know, and when billows of mirth were breaking from him and drenching us in laughter, a look of almost pained surprise flickered on his almost expressionless countenance, but he encored with a tale so excruciating it left us faint; his was the great actor's art heightening the effect, and we dolts, suspected it not.

I know now this buffoonery was but a curtain, hiding his wonderful thoughts, which Monson had proven she could not or would receive, because the giver was uneducated, and had been caught in one heresy, beside. That great mind wrote us at our true value, and gave us the chaff (all we would accept) and yet, in his modesty, acquiesced in our estimate of himself, allowing our puny minds to limit the expansion, and diffusion of the revelation of Genius!

Great Uncle Joe! in the dust of humiliation, let one make atonement for a world crime.

In saying Uncle Joe told no tale twice, possibly I should except the story of his arm, but it was through no fault of his own that we heard it often.

"Uncle Joe's Arm," after Monson had shamelessly surrendered to his charm was it most valued asset, for it had long since passed out of Uncle Joe's possession, and was held in trust by a stock company (each townsman holding one share) for the exclusive benefit of any stranger who came our way whose curiosity could be tickled to the questioning stage. At other times we kept it carefully laid in its box, Exhibit A, for the next inquiring pilgrim. Only one peep was taken, and the peeper always paid the price, but he could not complain for our terms were C.O.D. and the price humiliation! Some were enraged, others startled, but none disappointed. Perhaps a few regret, to this day, their consent to attend the exhibition, and yet there was

[graphic][merged small][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][subsumed][ocr errors][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][ocr errors]
[graphic][merged small]
[graphic][merged small]
[graphic][subsumed][subsumed][merged small]
« AnteriorContinuar »