Chapter 7: Among the Stars

Professor Longworth and Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, at once took their places in the little community, and Charles and Herbert rejoiced every day, because they had extended the invitation, and because it had been accepted. The Professor, despite his queer appearance, was a man of infinite wit and resource. He had been everywhere, he had seen everything, and he had done most things. Moreover, he retained a keen interest in daily life, and Jed was a perfect well of optimism. The union of the four greatly lightened the labors and vastly improved the comfort of all.

Jed took charge of the cooking, and the Professor prowled through the village, minutely examining everything. He was of the opinion that it had been abandoned many generations, and perhaps had not been visited by anyone in the last hundred years, except their own little party.

“The cliff dwellers have vanished, that’s certain,” he said. “The tribe that lived here is extinct, or a pitiful remnant of it may be hidden in the fastnesses of Northern Mexico, while their village in this place is protected from another invasion of Utes or Apaches by some sort of superstition. All savage tribes are greatly given to superstition, and certainly, as I have said before, there is no wilder or stranger country in the world than this.”

“No,” said Herbert, “I don’t believe there can be. It seems to me that we’re in a sort of an oasis on a mountain top.”

“Probably this is a peninsula of green and fertile country,” said the Professor, “running back for some distance and then dropping down into the desert, or hooked on by a narrow neck to the great Arizona pine belt. But whatever it is we might as well be on the crest of a lone peak of the Himalayas, so far as the rest of the civilized world is concerned.”

“But snug and comfortable,” said Herbert with enthusiasm.

“Yes, snug an’ comfortable, Herb,” said Jed, “with most o’ the comforts an’ not without some o’ the luxuries o’ civilization. Now there is the matter o’ music. Jest listen.”

He produced from under his coat a small accordion and suddenly began to play, while he sang the accompaniment, “Poor old Uncle Ned, he had no wool on top of his head.”

Professor Longworth promptly drew a revolver and made an ominous gesture.

“Now, that’s enough, Jed,” he said. “You’re a good man, a useful man and a friend of mine, but there are limits. Put up that accordion and quit singing.”

Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, put the instrument back under his coat.

“Genius is always bein’ squelched,” he said, “an’ gen’ally by those who pretend to be its best friends. Now when I git that big, red brick house o’ mine in the outskirts o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, I’m goin’ to have an organ built into the wall, one o’ the biggest in the world—I’ve heard tell o’ sich things. I’m not goin’ to play it myself, I guess it’s a little late fur me to be up with the topnotchers now, but I’m goin’ to hire the best D. M. thar is.”

“D. M.!” interrupted Herbert. “What’s that?”

“Doctor o’ music. All these learned an’ gifted fellers have letters before an’ after their names nowaday—the Purfessor has used up all the letters o’ the alphabet, an’ then some more—an’ every time I come into the house my D. M. will strike up, ‘See the conquering hero comes, oh, see him! see him!’ Now, how would that strike you. Herb, fur real bang-up style?”

“It strikes me pretty hard,” said Herbert.

“An’ I’d go aroun’ to the best hotel in Lexin’ton, K—y,” continued Jed, “an’ I’d hire the best room in the place, an’ I’d leave a call with the clerk for five o’clock in the mornin’. An’ when the man knocked on my door at the app’inted time, an’ called out, ‘Wake up, Mr. Simpson, it’s five o’clock,’ I’d call right back, ‘Git right out o’ this, I don’t have to.’ I tell you, Herb, thar’s nothin’ like bein’ rich. Then, an’ only then, you can be jest as sassy as you want to.”

“I’ll be willing to listen to your D. M., Jed,” said the Professor.

“An’ you don’t shoot him, neither, Purfessor, ef you don’t happen to like him,” said Jed. “You give me that promise right now.”

“I promise, Jed,” said the Professor earnestly.

Jed heaved a deep sigh of relief.

“Now,” said the Professor, smiling, “I’ll give you real music. I do not wish to discourage a worthy ambition, but Jedediah admits that he has begun late. Hence I have to restrain him with my revolver. Instead, I’ll let you hear some great singers.”

He went to one of the cliff houses and returned with a polished mahogany box from which jutted the mouth of a small brazen trumpet.

“This,” he said, “is a music box on the phonograph plan but beautifully condensed. Small as it is, it sings gloriously and, well—some great prima donnas are small, you know. I have with me thirty of my favorite records, and this little box has sung splendidly for Jedediah and me in many a strange place. You will not feel jealous, will you, Jedediah, you with your accordion, if I let it play a few airs for the boys?”

“Me jealous?” said Jed. “I wouldn’t think o’ sech a thing. I like that box as well as you do, Purfessor, so let ‘er rip.”

Professor Longworth put the box down on the terrace, touched a spring, and the strains of Wolfram’s Evening Song from “Tannhäuser” floated out for the first time over this wild corner of the Arizona mountains.

The great song has been heard by innumerable audiences but rarely in such a setting. It was only a mechanical box, but the wild mountains and the great gorge gave back the majestic strains in many a softened note. Applause followed and the Professor gave them several others, mostly songs from the greater operas, to all of which they listened with rapt interest that only such surroundings could furnish. Then the Professor carefully covered up the box with a cloth and put it away.

“We always take it with us on our travels,” he said, “and often it proves a great solace. It shall play for you again.”

It was a promise kept faithfully. Many another evening it played for them, and sometimes, when the Professor was absent, Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, pulled out a tune or two on his old accordion.

More pleasant days passed. The question of the gold still remained in abeyance. It was quite sure now that they would spend the winter in the village, and, before entering upon any elaborate quest for treasure, they meant to provide to the fullest extent against cold weather. More deer and wild turkeys were found, trout were caught in the stream, and in a way they lived luxuriously. Herbert developed rapidly both as a hunter and fisherman, and he grew wonderfully in strength, agility and knowledge of the wilderness. The Professor spent a great deal of his time prowling about the village, trying to reconstruct the past.

“It’s a difficult task, one of tremendous difficulty,” he said with a sigh. “In the Old World, history is practically continuous. One nation develops into another. We are Old World people ourselves, transplanted merely, but here in America the native races are all strange and new, and we do not know where to begin. About all we do know is that the cliff dwellers lived.”

The Professor spoke thus when they were sitting out one evening on the terrace, which they always preferred to the close rooms. The air was quite crisp after nightfall, and they had built a fire which could be seen at a considerable distance. But danger seemed so remote now that they preferred to be comfortable, and take the chances.

The blue gulf at their feet had turned into a black abyss, but overhead arched a beautiful blue sky in which countless stars sparkled and blazed. Jed was lying on his back, his head propped on a piece of wood, a picture of content.

“I ain’t botherin’ much about them cliff dwellers,” he said, “but I’m glad they left a house for me to live in when I want it. Did you ever see a brighter sky, Herb?”

“No, I don’t think I ever did,” replied Herbert, gazing up at the wonderful blue dome, shot with stars of blue and silver.

“Didn’t know I was an astronomer, did you, Herb?”

“No, I shouldn’t have suspected it.”

His irony, if irony it was, was lost on Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y.

“Well, I am,” he said. “I’ve learned a lot o’ things that are mighty cur’ous an’ interestin’ since I’ve been travelin’ the last ten years with the Purfessor. See that silver dot across thar, Herb? That’s old Jupe, the biggest in our bunch. He’s only about a billion miles away. You wouldn’t see him at all if he wasn’t so big. Mercury an’ Venus are a lot brighter, ‘cause they’re so close. People sometimes call each o’ ‘em the mornin’ an’ the evenin’ star, though they ain’t stars at all, but jest planets like ourselves. But they ain’t much more than marbles when it comes to size compared with old Jupe.”

“You do know a lot, Jed.”

“Shorely I do, but I learned it all from the Purfessor. He’s the fount o’ wisdom. After I’d traveled around a while with him, an’ had seen all the won’erful countries an’ seas an’ lakes an’ rivers I began to feel right pert an’ stuck up about this world o’ ours. Then the Purfessor took it all out o’ me, knocked me right into a heap by tellin’ me that we didn’t amount to shucks after all.”

“Don’t amount to shucks? Why, how is that, Jed?”

“It’s the Gospel truth, Herb. He showed me that the earth is jest a poor little one-cent postage stamp sort o’ a planet, an’ our whole bunch, even with old Jupe his-self at the head o’ it, are a purty small lot. Jest about fit fur one o’ the lowest-priced seats away off in the corner o’ the universe, whar nobody, likely to amount to anything, will ever see us. Thar ain’t anything at all strikin’ about us, ‘cept Saturn with his rings, which they say ain’t no rings at all, but jest strings o’ little moons or somethin’ o’ that kind hangin’ along in curves an’ close together. Maybe Saturn with them bright collars around his neck might git a passin’ notice, but the rest o’ our bunch ain’t in it, not even old Jupe hisself.”

“An’ do you know, Herb,” continued Jed, warming to his subject, “that the sun which you saw set an hour or two ago, an’ which you thought so gran’ an’ big an’ fine, all fire an’ gold, or maybe like a big diamond a million miles through, is jest a cheap little fourth-rate sun, one o’ the kind all soiled an’ dirty that they hand down from the back shelf an’ say, ‘Aw, take it along, you haven’t got more’n five cents, anyway’? Why, Herb, when you come to them real big suns you’re talkin’! Now there’s Canopy!”

“Canopus,” corrected the Professor. “How many times, Jedediah, have I given you the proper pronunciation of that name?”

“Well, Canopus. Do you know, Herb, that Canopy is ten thousand times bigger than our sun? An’ thar are a heap more in the class that he trots along at the head of. Thar’s Rigel, an’ Aldebaran an’ Sirius, that’s the Dog Star, an’ Antares, an’ Arctury an’ lots more, more than you can ever count. Why, Herb, when all them big, proud, haughty suns, Canopy at their head, go slidin’ by, their noses in the air, they don’t take any more notice o’ our little piker o’ a sun than ef it wasn’t above groun’ at all. Makes me think o’ the time when I was in New York with the Purfessor, an’ I stood on Fifth Avenue an’ watched all them big, proud-lookin’ women ridin’ by in their carriages an’ always lookin’ straight ahead. They never saw Yours Truly, Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’ton, K—y, a-standin’ on the sidewalk an’ not ridin’ at all.

“I tell you it knocked me all in a heap, when the Purfessor showed me what a poor little peanut lot we was, an’ me thinkin’ all the time that I was swingin’ round on a right fine planet, that most o’ the stars was settin’ up fur an’ lookin’ at an’ admirin’. Why, Herb, they don’t ever see us at all, or if they do it’s jest to laugh. I can see one o’ them fine, big, fust-class stars now, callin’ out to another, ‘Say, do you see that funny, teeny, weeny, little sun way down thar in the corner in the dark tryin’ to shine an’ tryin’ to pretend he’s a real sun?’ ‘Yes,’ says the other, ‘I caught sight o’ that thar obscure object once about a million years ago, but I thought it was only a chip off one o’ them fourth-rate suns, an’ that it had been dead nearly ever since. An’ does that thing call itself a sun? Makes me think o’ that old tale about the frog that wanted to be a bull, an’ kep’ puffin’ an’ puffin’ an’ swellin’ itself out till it busted.’ An’ then they both go wheelin’ on, laughin’ fit to kill.”

“And do you still feel that way, Jed?” asked Herbert, sympathetically.

“No. I was clean snowed under fur about two days, and then I got relief. Me an’ the Purfessor was in New York at that time, an’ the Purfessor took me to hear a Pole feller play the piano, knowin’ that I always liked music. Don’t ask me his name, but you take a big lot of x’s, k’s, c’s and z’s, put ‘em in a bag, shake well before takin’, an’ then empty ‘em out on the floor. Whatever way they fall will be his name. But, my eyes, Herb, the way he could play the piano! I didn’t dream that sech things could be. He began to hit them keys slow like, then he got fast, then he stopped so suddint you fell over on your toes, then a little bit o’ a key ‘bout as big as the voice o’ a baby two days old went whinin’ off into the air, but kept gittin’ a little louder an’ a little stronger till it got to tearin’ at your heart. Then I clean forgot all about the Pole feller with the name that used up the whole dictionary, and the Purfessor and the hall an’ everybody in it, and I saw ‘way back thar my father that had been dead twenty years, an’ my mother, jest a young woman, with soft face an’ smilin’ eyes, bendin’ over me, an’ all the little fellers that I played with when I was a boy, an’ the green grass in the medders, the greenest o’ the green, and the creek that me an’ the other little fellers swam in, that shore wuz the finest creek that flows on this earth, an’ the red apples, hangin’ on the apple trees, an’ the peaches with their rosy sides to the sun, an’ when I come to after a while, real tears wuz runnin’ down these horny cheeks o’ mine that hadn’t knowed sech irrigation fur twenty years afore, an’ the Purfessor he don’t scold me none, cause he was a-lookin’ purty solemn hisself.

“An’ when we goes out I says to the Purfessor, ‘Purfessor, you needn’t tell me any more about Canopy an’ Rigel an’ all them big overbearin’ suns. They don’t bother me no more. I guess it ain’t what you might be, but what you are, that counts. I was made to fit this here round, rollin’ earth o’ ours, an’ she looks mighty good to me. She’s got some fine big seas, and she’s got some fust-class continents, North Ameriky an’ Europe in partic’ler, worth all the others put together, an’ a power o’ smart islands, big an’ little, an’ lots o’ things mighty cur’ous an’ interestin’.’