Shanty Irish (10 page)

Tears for one for whom they cared not rolled down their old cheeks.

Their gray sparse hair became disheveled with the weeping.

“Oh—why—did—he—die?”

“Oh—why—did—he—die?”

“He was good to the poor—he prayed for the souls in purgatory—he helped the fallen women—

“Oh why did he die?”

“Oh why did he die?”

They walked in a circle about the body of the drunkard.

“He gave alms to the church—”

They hesitated, in trying to remember the good qualities of Webb. They repeated—

“He gave alms to the church.”

A voice yelled in imitation of the keeners—

“He had a big belly—”

“Oh why did he die?

“Oh why did he die?”

The keeners stopped for a moment.

“Go on—don't let no irriverence like that interfere,” advised Old Hughie. “It's the business of nobody's because he had a big belly—”

“He should o' used it for beer an' the snakes wouldn't o' got after him,” muttered Jack Raley to my grandfather.

The keeners cried:

“He wint to confession—

“He ate no mate on Friday—

“Oh why did he die?

“Oh why did he die?”

A man under the apple tree yelled—

“He never missed a drink!”

My grandfather grinned.

“It's thim Germans—they have no respect for the dead.”

“Oh why did he die?

“Oh why did he die?”

The body of William Webb slowly began to rise. His hands fell apart. His arms remained still and bent like a mummy's.

At first no one noticed.

His face had risen at least a foot before a keener shrieked and ran from the room. William Webb continued rising.

At last he sat erect in his shroud—glassy eyes staring. People ran screaming in all directions. Some jumped out of the windows.

A German saloon-keeper ran directly into the barrel which he had contributed.

“He's come to life,” he shouted, “he's gittin' up!”

Never did Germans and Irish run so swiftly.

They struck the middle of a deserted street, their heavy feet pounding.

The contributor of beer, with a belly larger than the late Webb's, led the retreating revellers.

Suddenly there swished by them three black forms.

The three old keeners were on their way home.

A half hour later Old Hughie, Jack Raley and John Crasby walked slowly homeward. They carried two quarts of whisky each.

“Well, well, well,” commented old Hughie, “Webb would laugh at that one. I thought the whisky would be gone before it happened.”

“Yis—and so did I,” returned Raley, “I niver had sich a job—the cellar was dark an' we pushed and pushed—it was like raisin' a horse.”

“Will ye be up in time for the funeral, Hughie?” John Crasby asked.

“Oh yis—the bist we can do for him that's gone is to show respect an' go early.”

A flat board had been placed under Webb's back. A long thin pole was attached to the board. A hole was drilled through the floor. It was raised from the cellar.

Funeral corteges often stopped at an outlying saloon on the way to the cemetery. No flowers had been purchased for Webb. Too late the sad oversight had been discovered.

“An' why do ye want flowers?” asked Old Hughie. “He didn't know one from a waid—an' he niver kin see thim now.”

“But it's respectful—don't you see—you wouldn't want to be tumbled in the ground without nobody thinkin' of you would you?” Jack Raley asked Old Hughie.

“Shure—I wouldn't give niver a damn—they don't aven nade to bury me if they don't wanta.”

Just then a group from another funeral cortege stopped at the saloon.

“The Lord be praised—business is good,” said my grandfather.

The new arrivals lined up at the bar and ordered whisky.

Old Hughie looked out of the saloon door at the other hearse. Inside was a coffin covered with wreaths of flowers. He opened the hearse door and took two wreaths and laid them on Webb's coffin.

“If it's flowers the poor divil nades—it's flowers he shall have,” he said.

He returned to the saloon.

Soon the different corteges went their way.

Old Hughie breathed hard against the frosted window of the carriage.… Inside were seated the four leading topers of the town.

“I wonder if William went to heaven,” said John Crasby, rubbing the red bulb on the end of his nose.

“Shure,” returned my grandfather—“where in the divil else would he go. For if iver they put ‘im in hell the alkihol in him would make the fire too hot for Old Nick himself.”

“So you believe in hell?” asked Crasby.

“I do for a man who can't hold his licker. I'd sind me own son there if he failed me in that.”

“Well he won't fail you,” put in Crasby.

“No—he's been brung up like a man,” said my grandfather.

The hearse stopped. The pall bearers carried all but the memory of Webb to the grave.

Old Hughie carried the two wreaths of flowers.

The undertaker rubbed his hands reverently. It was very cold. He scanned the inscriptions on the cards attached to the flowers. One read:

“To my darling mother asleep in Jesus.”

Upon the other card were the words:

“To my devoted wife these forty-two years.”

“R.I.P.”

Old Hughie looked at the letters and frowned.

“He called her a rip,” he said.

S
AVE
that he had a greater sense of drama, Old Hughie Tully was like a popular novelist. He gave his audience what it wanted.

He often began a story with “whin I was a pidler in the South—” After these words he would look about in the manner of a man who expected silence. It generally followed. He would then look from his empty glass to the bartender. More liquor was poured.

“You know gintlemen—when I was a pidler in the South—”

All were ready for the story. A drunken man entered, with a wooden leg.

“Please gentlemen,” he pleaded, “be so kind as to contribute money toward the expense of another wooden leg. I lost my leg at the battle of Bull Run aholdin' back the rebel hordes from the fair valleys of the North.”

Old Hughie looked sternly at the newcomer. The intrusion was unwarranted. “Who is the gintleman?” he asked.

“Oh—some one-legged hobo—they're always drunk,” returned John Crasby.

Old Hughie began again. “When I was a pidler in the South.” The voice rose higher—“Gentlemen—will you help an old man who lost a leg in humblin' his country's pride. I was the fastest runner at the battle of Bull Run, gentlemen. It was me that got General Jackson the name of Stonewall, gentlemen. He was gallopin' like hell on his horse with General Lee's daughter holdin' to him and I came dashin' by. General Lee yells out—‘That Yank's goin' so fast he makes Jackson look like a stone wall.'”

Grandfather Tully looked at him, with grim wrinkles of laughter about his eyes.

The man's leg was off above the knee. A piece of wood was fastened to it. It was like no other wooden leg ever made. Worn wood curved around an iron band at the bottom. His upper lip was shaved clean. His jaws were covered with bright red whiskers that hung at least a dozen inches and spread across his breast. His eyes were full of laughter. One forgot his thin upper lip in looking at them. He wore a heavy blue army coat which had brass buttons. Several brass medals half hidden by the whiskers, hung from the left side of his breast. They shone bright from the constant rubbing of hair upon them. His hair, perhaps once red, was of an indescribable color.

An old army hat was crumpled on his head. Several holes were torn through the crown.

He was very tall and very drunk. Whenever he took a step, the wooden leg crashed upon the floor with a resounding thud.

Old Hughie Tully looked away from him.

He began once again: “Now whin I was a pidler in the South—” The one-legged man faced my grandfather.

“Do you live in this town?” he asked.

Old Hughie rubbed his stubby whiskers. He looked slightly perturbed. “Indade—if it plazes yure insolence to know—I do.” The man with the wooden leg gazed with unconcern at a picture of Falstaff drinking beer.

Old Hughie, still nettled, snapped the words at his questioner. “And why did ye ask?”

“Oh—for no reason at all,” returned the man, throwing his left hand upward, “You just looked like a man who
would
live here.”

“I look like a bright man—I'd be for sayin'!” flared Old Hughie.

“Well maybe you do—but you deceive your looks,” came back the man with one leg.

“Say—who the livin' hell are you?”

“I'm a soldier, sir—home from the wars. The hero of battles never forgot—the inventor of unshed tears.” He pulled his whiskers aside.

“See these medals. I won them all. I am he that runs. It was my old friend Napoleon who said, ‘Give the fools medals'—but strange to say though, I'm a Union soldier, I won mine by getting Jackson a new name. Jefferson Davis said to George Washington that a man who can run like that deserves to be treated well…”

He laid a nickel on the bar. “Give me a mug of beer, bartender please.” The foaming liquid was placed before him.

“But gentlemen guzzlers, I digress—I would feign recite ere I inhale the amber fluid—

“Be so kind each and all to give me your attention—it will repay you well and give you a view of whisky drinkers on their way to the torment they have so richly earned—”

Striking the attitude of Bryan at a rustic gathering he began—

The gathering pressed closer to the man who begged for a leg.

The veteran grabbed at the glass from which the foam had gone.

“Bartender—put a head on it.”

The bartender poured more beer into the mug. The stranger blew the foam on the bar.

“Precious fluid—Balm in Gilead for us whose hearts are heavy from lost loves and present hates.” He slammed the empty mug on the bar.

“Now gentlemen—listen closely—I'll show you the devil himself and let you pinch his tail. He began again with terrifying gusto—

He turned to my grandfather.

“Turn yere head away from me,” shouted Old Hughie, as the stranger continued.

The audience gasped when the speaker finished. They looked at one another as though a preacher were among them.

“He's crazier'n a whole asylum,” Old Hughie volunteered to John Crasby.

“He'll land in the calaboose if he keeps that up,” was Crasby's comment.

“Bartender, won't you wet the speaker's whistle, please?” The bartender filled the mug.

The stranger drank it quickly, and rubbed his lower lip slightly.

“See that upper lip,” he said to the bartender, “I was years in learning to get rid of my mustache. It hindered my beer drinking. At last, came wisdom and I had it shaved off. So long does it take us to learn the simple things.” He sighed. “Men grow old and die before they learn how to drink a glass of beer.”

Hearing the man talk to the bartender, Old Hughie began once more, “Whin I was a pidler in the South …”

The one-legged man waved his arms.

“But, gentlemen—I would speak to you one and all. I am a wounded veteran long run home from the wars. May I ask a small collection from this august assembly. I am endeavoring as becomes the pride of a soldier—to get a new leg. So long as the great heroes of the Civil War lived, I was well supplied with the money for new legs. But now they are all gone—one by one they have joined, unwilling as they may have been, the bivouac of the dead.”

He thumped his leg on the floor.

Skeletons of valor under dead roses—fools dying for fools. Oh I am sad for dead heroes—

“For ah—

“Lord, what a lot of mush,” Old Hughie said to John Crasby.

“Maybe he'll be still now. Surely he can't talk after sich folly-de-rol.”

The stranger remained pensive, as if living over again the days when he vanished from glory. He suddenly drained his mug of beer.

“Whin I was a pidler in the South,” Old Hughie looked at his audience. They moved closer. “As I wuz sayin'—Whin I was a pid—”

The veteran shouted:

“Gentlemen who wave flags on the Fourth of July—I—a one-legged soldier—who retreated from Moscow with Napoleon—who has ever been far in the forefront in the wars of humanity—even though in that cause I have become legless—I ask the boon of a new leg.”

The swinging doors of the saloon opened and shut.

A group of well-dressed men entered. They were lead by Barney Russell, collector for a Kentucky distillery.

“Bellies to the bar, men,” he called, “bellies to the bar.”

Soon all in the place were lined up at the bar for a drink. All took whisky but the one-legged man. He asked for a large glass of beer. “The nerve of a man like that,” said John Crasby.

“Yis—” said Old Hughie, “only a hobo would act so ungrateful.”

Exasperated, Hughie said to the stranger, “What do you mane—dhrinkin' beer on a man who sills whisky?”

The one-legged man rubbed his upper lip and looked at my grandfather a moment.

“Do you know how Rockyfeller got rich?” he asked quietly.

“No—I do not,” replied old Hughie, nonplused.

“It was very simple,” replied the man, “he merely tended to his own business.”

Old Hughie swallowed twice.

“You are not a man I should pay attintion to—I don't aven know you.”

The stranger returned: “Neither does any man—I turn on daylight each morning—I clip the wings of angels if they fly too high—I started the myth that peace could be had in the world—” His eyes looked narrow at old Hughie. “If you knew me, my friend—you would not numb the shriveled worms in your skull with whisky—it is a drink for savages and saints.”

The bartender filled the glasses a second time. Russell was busy counting the bills which the saloon keeper handed him. Satisfied with the amount he called, “Fill 'em up again.” The glasses were filled the third time.

The one-legged soldier swallowed his beer before Old Hughie and John Crasby raised their glasses. He wiped his shaven upper lip again and turned to my grandfather, saying:

“This is what you ought to have—a lip like this—no beer lost. I figured it all out. Eighty-eight barrels of beer stuck to my mustache before I had brains enough to shave it off. It's the little things that count in beer drinking. My father was a brew-master in Poland. I worked in a brewery there until I was forty years old. I learned the beer business from the suds down.”

“Was that before you wint to the war,” asked Old Hughie.

“It was all during the wars,” the reply came quickly.

Old Hughie shook his head. The soldier looked at him.

“You know, stranger,” explained the one-legged man, “the drinking of beer is a lost art in this country or rather it is an art which barbaric whisky guzzlers have not learned.” He looked hard at my grandfather. “Now my father, after he returned from Siberia as brew-master to the Czar of Tasmania, explained to me that beer should never be tasted with the tongue—it should be swallowed—”

“Like castor oil,” put in Old Hughie.