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The Nice People · Classic Humorous Short Stories from America

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Speaker 1: Story eleven of the Best American Humorous short Stories by
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Speaker 1: Alexander Jessop editor. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: Story eleven The Nice People eighteen ninety by Henry Kyler
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Speaker 1: Bunner from Puck July thirtieth, eighteen ninety republished in the
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Speaker 1: volume Short Sixes Stories to Be Read While the Candle
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Speaker 1: Burns eighteen ninety one by Henry Kyler Bunner copyright eighteen
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Speaker 1: ninety by Alice Larnet Bunner. Reprinted by permission of the
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Speaker 1: publishers Charles Scribner's sons. They certainly are nice people. I
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Speaker 1: assented to my wife's observation, using the colloquial phrase with
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Speaker 1: a consciousness that it was anything but nice English. And
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Speaker 1: I'll bet that their three children are better brought up
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Speaker 1: than most of two children, corrected my wife. Three, he
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Speaker 1: told me, My dear, she said there were two. He
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Speaker 1: said three. You've simply forgotten. I'm sure she told me
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Speaker 1: they only had two, a boy and a girl. Well,
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Speaker 1: I didn't enter into particulars, no, dear, and you couldn't
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Speaker 1: have understood him. Two children, all right, I said, But
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Speaker 1: I did not think it was all right as a
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Speaker 1: near sighted man learns by enforced observation to recognize persons
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Speaker 1: at a distance when the face is not visible to
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Speaker 1: the normal eye. So the man with a bad memory
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Speaker 1: learns almost unconsciously, to listen carefully and report accurately. My
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Speaker 1: memory is bad, but I had not had time to
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Speaker 1: forget that. Mister Brewster Brede had told me that afternoon
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Speaker 1: that he had three children at present, left in the
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Speaker 1: care of his mother in law while he and Missus
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Speaker 1: Breed took their summer vacation. Two children, repeated my wife,
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Speaker 1: and they are staying with his aunt Jenny, he told me,
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Speaker 1: with his mother in law, I put in. My wife
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Speaker 1: looked at me with a serious expression. Men may not
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Speaker 1: remember much of what they are told about children, but
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Speaker 1: any man knows the difference between an aunt and a
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Speaker 1: mother in law. But don't you think they're nice, people,
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Speaker 1: asked my wife. Oh, certainly, I replied, Only they seem
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Speaker 1: to be a little mixed up about their children. That
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Speaker 1: isn't a nice thing to say, returned my wife. I
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Speaker 1: could not deny it. And yet the next morning, when
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Speaker 1: the Breeds came down and seated themselves opposite us at table,
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Speaker 1: beaming and smiling in their natural, pleasant, well bred fashion.
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Speaker 1: I knew to a social certainty that they were nice people.
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Speaker 1: He was a nice looking fellow in his neat tennis flannels, slim, graceful,
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Speaker 1: twenty eight or thirty years old, with a frenchy pointed beard.
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Speaker 1: She was nice in all her pretty clothes, and she
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Speaker 1: herself was pretty, with that type of prettiness which outwears
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Speaker 1: most other types, the prettiness that lies in a rounded figure,
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Speaker 1: a dusky skin, plump rosy cheeks, white teeth, and black eyes.
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Speaker 1: She might have been twenty five, you guessed that she
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Speaker 1: was prettier than she was at twenty, and that she
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Speaker 1: would be prettier still at forty. And nice people were
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Speaker 1: all we wanted to make us happy. In mister Jacobus's
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Speaker 1: summer boarding house on top of Orange Mountain for a week,
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Speaker 1: we had come down to breakfast each morning wondering why
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Speaker 1: we wasted the precious days of idleness with the company
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Speaker 1: gathered around the Jacobus board. What joy of human companionship
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Speaker 1: was to be had out of Missus Tabb and miss Hoogencamp,
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Speaker 1: the two middle aged gossips from Scranton, Pennsylvania. Out of
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Speaker 1: mister Missus Biggle an indurated head bookkeeper, and his prim
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Speaker 1: and censorious wife out of old Major Halcott, a retired
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Speaker 1: businessman who, having once sold a few shares on commissions,
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Speaker 1: wrote for circulars of every stock company that was started,
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Speaker 1: and tried to induce everyone to invest who would listen
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Speaker 1: to him. We looked around at those dull faces, the
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Speaker 1: truthful indices of mean and barren minds, and decided that
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Speaker 1: we would leave that morning. Then we ate missus Jacobus's
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Speaker 1: biscuit light as Aurora's Cloudlet's drank her honest coffee, inhaled
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Speaker 1: the perfume of the late azaleas with which she decked
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Speaker 1: her table, and decided to postpone our departure one more day.
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Speaker 1: And then we wandered out to take our morning glance
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Speaker 1: at what we called our view. And it seemed to
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Speaker 1: us as if Tab and hoogen Camp and Halcott and
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Speaker 1: the Biggleses could not drive us away in a year.
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Speaker 1: I was not surprised when, after breakfast, my wife invited
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Speaker 1: the breeds to walk with us to our view. The
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Speaker 1: hoogen Camp, Biggle Tab Halcott contingent never stirred off Jacobus's veranda,
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Speaker 1: but we both felt that the breeds would not profane
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Speaker 1: that sacred scene. We strolled slowly across the fields, passed
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Speaker 1: through the little belt of woods, and as I heard
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Speaker 1: missus Brede's little cry of startled rapture, I motioned to
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Speaker 1: Breed to look up. By Jove, he cried, Heavenly. We
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Speaker 1: looked off from the brow of the mountain, over fifteen
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Speaker 1: miles of billowing green, to where far across a far
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Speaker 1: stretch of pale blue lay a dim purple line that
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Speaker 1: we knew was staten Island. Towns and villages lay before us,
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Speaker 1: and under us. There were ridges and hills, uplands and lowlands,
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Speaker 1: woods and plains, all massed and mingled in that great,
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Speaker 1: silent sea of sunlit green. For silent it was to us,
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Speaker 1: standing in the silence of a high place, silent with
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Speaker 1: a sunday stillness that made us listen without taking thought
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Speaker 1: for the sound of bells coming up from the spires
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Speaker 1: that rose above the tree tops, the tree tops that
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Speaker 1: lay as far beneath us as the light clouds were
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Speaker 1: above us, that dropped great shadows upon our heads, and
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Speaker 1: faint specks of shade upon the broad sweep of land
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Speaker 1: at the mountain's foot. And so that is your view,
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Speaker 1: asked missus Breed. After a moment, you are very generous
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Speaker 1: to make it ours too. Then we lay down on
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Speaker 1: the grass, and Breed began to talk in a gentle voice,
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Speaker 1: as if he felt the influence of the place he
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Speaker 1: had paddled. A knew in his earlier days, he said,
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Speaker 1: And he knew every river and creek in that vast
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Speaker 1: stretch of landscape. He found his landmarks, and pointed out
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Speaker 1: to us where the Passaic and the Hackensack flowed invisible
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Speaker 1: to us, hidden behind great ridges that in our sight
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Speaker 1: were but combings of the green waves upon which we
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Speaker 1: looked down. And yet on the further side of those
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Speaker 1: broad ridges and rises were scores of villages, a little
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Speaker 1: world of country life lying unseen under our eyes. A
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Speaker 1: good deal like looking at humanity, he said. There is
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Speaker 1: such a thing as getting so far above our fellow
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Speaker 1: men that we see only one side of them. Ah,
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Speaker 1: how much better was this sort of talk than the
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Speaker 1: chatter and gossip of the tab and the Hoogen Camp,
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Speaker 1: than the Major's dissertations upon his everlasting circulars. My wife
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Speaker 1: and I exchanged glances. Now when I went up the
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Speaker 1: Madder horn. Mister Breed began, Why, dear, interrupted his wife.
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Speaker 1: I didn't know you ever went up the madd horn.
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Speaker 1: It oh, it was five years ago, said mister Bred hurriedly.
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Speaker 1: I I didn't tell you when I was on the
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Speaker 1: other side. You know, it was rather dangerous. Well, as
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Speaker 1: I was saying, it looked, oh, it didn't look at
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Speaker 1: all like this. A cloud floated overhead, throwing its great
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Speaker 1: shadow over the field where we lay. The shadow passed
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Speaker 1: over the mountain sprow, and reappeared far below, a rapidly
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Speaker 1: decreasing blot, flying eastward over the golden green. My wife
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Speaker 1: and I exchanged glances once more. Somehow the shadow lingered
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Speaker 1: over us all as we went home. The Breeds went
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Speaker 1: side by side along the narrow path, and my wife
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Speaker 1: and I walked together. Should you think, she asked me
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Speaker 1: that a man would climb the matter horn the very
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Speaker 1: first year he was married. I don't know, my dear,
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Speaker 1: I answered evasively. This isn't the first year I have
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Speaker 1: been married, not by a good many, and I wouldn't
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Speaker 1: climb it for a farm. You know what I mean?
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Speaker 1: She said, I did. When we reached the boarding house,
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Speaker 1: mister Jacobus took me aside. You know, he began his discourse.
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Speaker 1: My wife, she used to live in New York. I
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Speaker 1: didn't know, but I said, yes. She says, the numbers
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Speaker 1: on the streets runs crisscross, like thirty fours on one
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Speaker 1: side of the street and thirty five on t'other. How's
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Speaker 1: that that is the invariable rule? I believe. Then, I say,
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Speaker 1: these here new folks that you and your wife seem
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Speaker 1: so mighty taken up with, do you know anything about em?
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Speaker 1: I know nothing about the character of your borders, mister Jacobus,
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Speaker 1: I replied, conscious of some irritability if I choose to
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Speaker 1: associate with any of them. Just so, just so, broke
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Speaker 1: in Jacobus, I hain't nothing to say against your sociability.
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Speaker 1: But do you know them? Why? Certainly not? I replied, Well,
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Speaker 1: that was all I was asking you. You see, when
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Speaker 1: he come here to take the rooms, you wasn't here.
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Speaker 1: Then he told my wife that he lived at number
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Speaker 1: thirty four in his street, and yesterday she told her
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Speaker 1: that they lived at number thirty five. He said he
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Speaker 1: lived in an apartment house. Not there can't be no
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Speaker 1: apartment house on two sides of the same street, can
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Speaker 1: they what street was it, I inquired, wearily. Hundred and
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Speaker 1: twenty first Street. May be, I replied, still more wearily,
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Speaker 1: that's Harlem. Nobody knows what people will do in Harlem.
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Speaker 1: Went up to my wife's room. Don't you think it's
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Speaker 1: she asked me. I think we'll have to talk with
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Speaker 1: that young man to night, I said, and see if
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Speaker 1: he can give some account of himself. But my dear,
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Speaker 1: my wife said gravely, she doesn't know whether they've had
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Speaker 1: the measles or not. Why, great Scott, I exclaimed, they
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Speaker 1: must have had them when they were children. Please don't
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Speaker 1: be stupid, said my wife. I meant their children after
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Speaker 1: dinner that night, or rather after supper, for we had
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Speaker 1: dinner in the middle of the day at Jacobus's. I
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Speaker 1: walked down the long Verandah to ask Breed, who was
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Speaker 1: placidly smoking at the other end, to accompany me on
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Speaker 1: a twilight stroll. Half Way down, I met Major Halcott.
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Speaker 1: That friend of yours, he said, indicating the unconscious figure
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Speaker 1: at the further end of the house, seems to be
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Speaker 1: a queer sort of a dick. He told me that
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Speaker 1: he was out of business and just looking round for
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Speaker 1: a chance to invest his capital. And I've been telling
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Speaker 1: him what an everlasting big show he had to take
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Speaker 1: stock in the Capitol Line Trust Company. It starts next month,
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Speaker 1: four million capital. I told you all about it. Oh well,
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Speaker 1: he said, Let's wait and think about it. Wait, says I.
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Speaker 1: The Capitol Line Trust Company won't wait for you, my boy.
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Speaker 1: This is letting you in on the ground floor, says I.
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Speaker 1: And it's now or never. Oh, let it wait, says he.
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Speaker 1: I don't know what's in to the man. I don't
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Speaker 1: know how well he knows his own business. Major, I said,
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Speaker 1: as I started again for Breeds into the verandah. But
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Speaker 1: I was troubled none the less. The major could not
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Speaker 1: have influenced the sale of one share of stock in
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Speaker 1: the Capitol Line Company. But that stock was a great investment,
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Speaker 1: a rare chance for a purchaser with a few thousand dollars.
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Speaker 1: Perhaps it was no more remarkable that Breed should not
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Speaker 1: invest than that I should not. And yet it seemed
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Speaker 1: to add one circumstance more to the other suspicious circumstances.
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Speaker 1: When I went upstairs that evening, I found my wife
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Speaker 1: putting her hair to bed. I don't know how I
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Speaker 1: can better describe an operation familiar to every married man.
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Speaker 1: I waited until the last tress was coiled up, and
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Speaker 1: then I spoke. I've talked with Breed, I said, and
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Speaker 1: I didn't have to catechise him. He seemed to feel
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Speaker 1: that some sort of explanation was looked for, and he
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Speaker 1: was very outspoken. You were right about the children, that is,
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Speaker 1: I must have misunderstood him. There are only two. But
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Speaker 1: the Matterhorn episode was simple enough. He didn't realize how
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Speaker 1: dangerous it was until he had got so far into
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Speaker 1: it that he couldn't back out. And he didn't tell
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Speaker 1: her because he'd left her here, you see, and under
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Speaker 1: the circumstances, left her here, cried my wife. I've been
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Speaker 1: sitting with her the whole afternoon sewing, and she told
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Speaker 1: me that he left her at Geneva and came back
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Speaker 1: and took her to Basle and the baby was born there.
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Speaker 1: Now I'm sure, dear, because I asked her. Perhaps I
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Speaker 1: was mistaken when I thought he said she was on
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Speaker 1: this side of the water, I suggested, with bitter biting irony,
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Speaker 1: You poor dear, did I abuse you? Said my wife?
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Speaker 1: But do you know missus? Tabb said that she didn't
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Speaker 1: know how many lumps of sugar he took in his coffee.
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Speaker 1: Now that seems queer, doesn't it. It did. It was
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Speaker 1: a small thing, but it looked queer, very queer. The
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Speaker 1: next morning it was clear that war was declared against
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Speaker 1: the Breeds. They came down to breakfast somewhat late, and
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Speaker 1: as soon as they arrived, the Biggleses swooped up the
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Speaker 1: last fragments that remained on their plates and made a
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Speaker 1: stately march out of the dining room. Then Miss Hoogencamp
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Speaker 1: arose and departed, leaving a whole fish ball on her plate.
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Speaker 1: Even as Atlanta might have dropped an apple behind her
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Speaker 1: to tempt her pursuer to check his speed. So Miss
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Speaker 1: Hoogencamp left that fish ball behind her and between her
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Speaker 1: maiden self and contamination. We had finished our breakfast, my
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Speaker 1: wife and I, before the Breeds appeared. We talked it
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Speaker 1: over and agreed that we were glad that we had
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Speaker 1: not been obliged to take sides upon such insufficient testimony.
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Speaker 1: After breakfast, it was the custom of the mail half
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Speaker 1: of the Jacobus household to go around the corner of
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Speaker 1: the building and smoke their pipes and cigars, where they
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Speaker 1: would not annoy the ladies. We sat under a trellis
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Speaker 1: covered with a grape vine that had borne no grapes
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Speaker 1: in the memory of man. This vine, however, bore leaves,
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Speaker 1: and these on that pleasant summer morning, shielded us from
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Speaker 1: two persons who were in earnest conversation in the straggling,
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Speaker 1: half dead flower garden at the side of the house.
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Speaker 1: I don't want, we heard mister Jacobus say, to enter
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Speaker 1: in no man's privacy, but I do want to know
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Speaker 1: who it may be like that I have in my house.
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Speaker 1: Now what I ask of you, and I don't want
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Speaker 1: you to take it as in no ways personal? Is
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Speaker 1: Have you your marriage license with you? No? We heard
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Speaker 1: the voice of mister Breed reply, have you yours? I think
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Speaker 1: it was a chance shot, but it told all the
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Speaker 1: same the major he was a widower, and mister Biggle
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Speaker 1: and I looked at each other, and mister Jacobus on
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Speaker 1: the other side of the grape trellis looked at I
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Speaker 1: don't know what, and was as silent as we were.
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Speaker 1: Where is your marriage license? Married? Reader? Do you know?
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Speaker 1: Four men, not including mister Breed, stood or sat on
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Speaker 1: one side or the other of that grape trellis, and
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Speaker 1: not one of them knew where his marriage license was.
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Speaker 1: Each of us had had one, the major had had three.
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Speaker 1: But where were they? Where is yours? Tucked in your
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Speaker 1: best man's pocket, deposited in his desk, or washed to
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Speaker 1: a pulp in his white waistcoat. If white waistcoats be
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Speaker 1: the fashion of the hour, washed out of existence, can
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Speaker 1: you tell where it is? Can you? Unless you are
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Speaker 1: one of those people who framed that interesting document and
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Speaker 1: hang it upon their drawing room walls. Mister Breed's voice arose,
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Speaker 1: after an awful stillness of what seemed like five minutes
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Speaker 1: and was probably thirty seconds. Mister Jacobus, will you make
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Speaker 1: out your bill at once and let me pay it.
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Speaker 1: I shall leave by the six o'clock train, and will
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Speaker 1: you also send the wagon for my trunks? I hain't said,
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Speaker 1: I wanted to have ye leave, began mister Jacobus, but
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Speaker 1: Breed cut him short. Bring me your bill, but remonstrated, Jacobus.
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Speaker 1: If ye hate, bring me your bill, said mister Breed.
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Speaker 1: My wife and I went out for our morning's walk.
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Speaker 1: But it seemed to us when we looked at our view,
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Speaker 1: as if we could only see those invisible villages of
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Speaker 1: which Breed had told us that other side of the
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Speaker 1: ridges and rises of which we catch no glimpse from
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Speaker 1: lofty hills or from the heights of human self esteem.
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Speaker 1: We meant to stay out until the Breeds had taken
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Speaker 1: their departure, but we returned just in time to see Pete,
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Speaker 1: the Jacobus Darkie, the blacker of boots, the brasher of coats,
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Speaker 1: the general handyman of the house, loading the breed trunks
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Speaker 1: on the Jacobus wagon. And as we stepped upon the verandah,
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Speaker 1: down came Missus Breed, leaning on mister Breed's arm as
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Speaker 1: though she were ill, and it was clear that she
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Speaker 1: had been crying. There were heavy rings around her pretty
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Speaker 1: black eyes. My wife took a step toward her. Look
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Speaker 1: at that dress, dear, she whispered. She never thought anything
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Speaker 1: like this was going to happen when she put that on.
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Speaker 1: It was a pretty delicate, dainty dress, a graceful, narrow
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Speaker 1: striped affair. Her hat was trimmed with a narrow striped
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Speaker 1: silk of the same colors maroon and white. And in
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Speaker 1: her hand she held a parasol that matched her dress.
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Speaker 1: She's had a new dress on twice a day, said
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Speaker 1: my wife. And that's the prettiest yet. Oh, somehow, I'm
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Speaker 1: awfully sorry they're going, But going they were. They moved
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Speaker 1: toward the steps. Missus Breed looked toward my wife, and
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Speaker 1: my wife moved Missus bred but the ostracized woman, as
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Speaker 1: though she felt the deep humiliation of her position, turned
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Speaker 1: sharply away and opened her parasol to shield her eyes
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Speaker 1: from the sun. A shower of rice, a half pound
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Speaker 1: shower of rice, fell down over her pretty hat and
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Speaker 1: her pretty dress, and fell in a spattering circle on
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Speaker 1: the floor, outlining her skirts. And there it lay in
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Speaker 1: a broad, uneven band, bright in the morning sun. Missus
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Speaker 1: Brede was in my wife's arms, sobbing, as if her
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Speaker 1: young heart would break. Oh you, poor, dear silly children,
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Speaker 1: my wife cried, as Missus bred sobbed on her shoulder.
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Speaker 1: Why didn't you tell us wo wo wi wie? Did
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Speaker 1: it didn't want to be? Did to take it for
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Speaker 1: a b above a bridal couple? Sobbed Missus bred And
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Speaker 1: we didn't dream that awful lies would have to tell,
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Speaker 1: and all the awful mixed up mess of it, Oh,
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Speaker 1: dear dear dear Pete commanded, mister Jacobus, put back them trunks.
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Speaker 1: These folks stays here as long as they want to.
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Speaker 1: Mister Breed, he held out a large, hard hand. I've artured,
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Speaker 1: known better, he said, and my last doubt of mister
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Speaker 1: Breed vanished as he shook that grimy hand in manly fashion.
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Speaker 1: The two women were walking off toward our view, each
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Speaker 1: with an arm upon the other's waist, touched by a
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Speaker 1: sudden sisterhood of sympathy. Gentlemen, said mister Bred, addressing Jacobus, Biggle,
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Speaker 1: the Major and me, there is a hostelry down the
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Speaker 1: street where they sell honest New Jersey beer. I recognize
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Speaker 1: the obligations of the situation. We five men filed down
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Speaker 1: the street. The two women went toward the pleasant slope,
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Speaker 1: where the sunlight gilded the forehead of the great hill.
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Speaker 1: On mister Jacobus Veranda lay a spattered circle of shining
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Speaker 1: grains of rice. Two of mister Jacoba's pigeons flew down
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Speaker 1: and picked up the shining grains, making grateful noises far
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Speaker 1: down in their throats. End of story eleven