"This is a different sort of present," he assured her. "This is a god."
"A what!" Cara was at the stern with the guiding paddle. The man leaned back, steadying the canoe with a hand on each gunwale, and smiled into her face.
"Yes," he said, "he is a god made out of clay with a countenance that is most unlovely and a complexion like an earthenware jar. I acquired him in the Andes for a few _centavos_. Since then we have been companions. In his day he had his place in a splendid temple of the Sun Worshipers. When I rescued him he was squatting cross-legged on a counter among silver and copper trinkets belonging to a civilization younger than his own. When you've been a god and come to be a souvenir of ruins and dead things--" the man paused for a moment, then with the ghost of a laugh went on "--it makes you see things differently. In the twisted squint of his small clay face one reads slight regard for mere systems and codes."
He paused so long that she prompted him in a voice that threatened to become unsteady. "Tell me more about him. What is his godship's name?"
"He looked so protestingly wise," Benton went on, "that I named him Jonesy. I liked that name because it fitted him so badly. Jonesy is not conventional in his ideas, but his morals are sound. He has seen religions and civilizations and dynasties flourish and decay, and it has all given him a certain perspective on life. He has occasionally given me good council."
He paused again, but, noting that the singing voices were drawing nearer, he continued more rapidly.
"In Alaska I used to lie flat on my cot before a great open fire and his god-ship would perch crosslegged on my chest. When I breathed, he seemed to shake his fat sides and laugh. When a pagan god from Peru laughs at you in a Yukon cabin, the situation calls for attention. I gave attention.
"Jonesy said that the major human motives sweep in deep channels, full-tide ahead. He said you might in some degree regulate their floods by rearing abutments, but that when you tried to build a dam to stop the Amazon you are dealing with folly. He argued that when one sets out to dam up the tides set flowing back in the tributaries of the heart it is written that one must fail. That is the gospel according to Jonesy."
He turned his face to the front and shot the canoe forward. There was silence except for the quiet dipping of their paddles, the dripping of the water from the lifted blades, and the song drifting down river.
Finally Benton added:
"I don't know what he will say to you, but perhaps he will give you good advice--on those matters which the centuries can't change."
Cara's voice came soft, with a hint of repressed tears.
"He has already given me good advice, dear--" she said, "good advice that I can't follow."
FOOTNOTE:
[95] Copyright, 1911, by W. J. Watt and Company.
GEORGE BINGHAM
George Bingham ("Dunk Botts"), newspaper humorist, was born near Wallonia, Kentucky, August 1, 1879. He quit school at the age of ten years to become "the devil" in a printing office at Eddyville, Kentucky. Two years later he removed to Mayfield, Kentucky, and accepted a position on _The Mirrow_. Shortly afterwards he wrote his first ficticious "news-letter" from an imaginary town called Boney Ridge, Kentucky, and submitted it to the critical eye of a tramp printer. This nomad at once saw the boy's design: to burlesque the letters received from the _Mirrow's_ crossroad correspondents; and he encouraged him. Mr. Bingham remained at Mayfield until he was twenty years of age, at which time he felt important enough to go out and see the world. Like most prodigals homesickness seized him for its very own; and he started home perched high on a freight train. Homeward bound he first had the name of his future paper suggested to him.
Battling through a tiny town in Tennessee he enquired of the brakeman as to its name.
"Walhalla," answered the "shack."
"Hogwallow?" repeated the young Kentuckian.
"Hell no! Who ever heard of a place called 'Hogwallow'?"
Upon reaching home Mr. Bingham decided to put the village of Hogwallow, Kentucky, on the map. His first letter from that town was printed in the old _Mayfield Monitor_, under the pen-name of "Dunk Botts," which he has retained hitherto. After having written several Hogwallow letters, he was compelled to accept a position on a small newspaper; then nothing more was heard of Hogwallow until 1901, when he wrote a letter every few weeks, for a year, and then went to California. He "arrived back home on June 1, 1905, had a chill a week later, and launched _The Hogwallow Kentuckian_ on July 15." He took the public into his confidence, telling them that his object was to conduct a burlesque newspaper, or, rather, a parody on one. He peopled his imaginary town and its environs with forty or more characters whose names summed them up without further ado; and he founded such important places as Rye Straw, Tickville, Hog Hill church and graveyard, Wild Onion schoolhouse, Gander Creek, and several other necessary hamlets and institutions. On May 15, 1909, Mr. Bingham suspended publication in order to make another trip to California. Two years later he returned to Kentucky for the sole purpose of resurrecting his paper. He resumed publication on June 17, 1911, at Paducah, but Irvin Cobb's town seemingly got on his nerves and, after three months, he tucked his "sheet" under his arm and returned to his first love, Mayfield, where he has remained ever since. _The Hogwallow Kentuckian_ is published every Saturday night, read in thirty-seven states, and copied by the leading newspapers of America and England.
Mr. Bingham has written more than five thousand "news items" for the paper, besides some five hundred short-stories, sketches, and paragraphs. He contributes considerable Hogwallow news to Charles Hamilton Musgrove's[96] page in _The Evening Post_ of Louisville; but he is an "outside contributor," doing his work at Mayfield.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. Letters from Mr. Bingham to the Author; the St.
Louis _Post-Dispatch_ (January 14, 1912).
HOGWALLOW NEWS
[From _The Hogwallow Kentuckian_ (December 21, 1912)]
Atlas Peck can't see why his left shoe wears out so much quicker than his right one, when his right one does just as much walking as his left.
Until times get better and the financial questions of the nation gets fully settled the Old Miser on Musket Ridge will live on two hickorynuts per day.
Sim Flinders has brought back with him from the Calf Ribs neighborhood a feather bed made of owl feathers. While coming home with it on his back the other night it was so soft and downy he fell to sleep while walking along the road.
Yam Sims appeared in public last Sunday with a new pair of pants and a striped necktie. They have made a wonderful change in his appearance, and until they wear out he will rank among our best people.
A dawg fight attracted a lot of attention and broke up the conversation at the Hog Ford moonshine still house the other day. One of the dawgs belonged to Poke Eazley and the other to Jefferson Potlocks, and the difficulty came up over some misunderstanding between their owners.
Ellick Hellwanger is fixing to celebrate his wooden wedding next week with a quart of wood alcohol.
Tobe Moseley's mule is able to walk around again after being propped up against a persimmon tree for several days.
Tobe Moseley took his jug over to the sorghum mill early Tuesday morning of last week after some molasses, and has not yet returned. No grave fears, however, are entertained on account of his protracted absence, as sorghum molasses run slow in cold weather.
Bullets have been falling in Hogwallow for the past few days. They are thought to be those Raz Barlow fired at the moon a few nights ago.
Luke Mathewsla has a good hawg pen for sale cheap. It would make a good front yard, and Luke may move his house up behind it.
Cricket Hicks has gone up to Tickville to get an almanac, as he is on the program for a lot of original jokes at Rye Straw Saturday night.
Isaac Hellwanger fell off of a foot lawg while watching a panel of fence float down Gander creek the other morning. He says it don't pay to get too interested in one thing.
Slim Pickens has received through the mails a bottle of dandruff cure, and he is taking two teaspoonfuls after each meal.
Poke Eazley has been puny this week with lumbago, and had to be excused from singing at the Dog Hill church Sunday, being too weak to carry a tune, or lift his voice.
Fit Smith is having his shoes remodeled, and will occupy them next week.
Columbus Allsop's head has been itching for several days. He says that is a sign Christmas is coming.
The Dog Hill Preacher will be surprised by his congregation next Sunday morning when they will give him a Christmas present, which they have already bought. The preacher is greatly surprised every time his congregation gives him anything.
Fletcher Henstep's geese are being fattened for Christmas, and have been turned loose in the Musket Ridge corn patches. They all wear lanterns as it is late before they get in at night.
FOOTNOTE:
[96] Mr. Musgrove, who is to leave _The Post_ at the end of 1912 to become humorist editor of _The Louisville Times_, was born in Kentucky, and is the author of a charming volume of verse, _The Dream Beautiful and Other Poems_ (Louisville; 1898). He is to issue in 1913 another book of poems, through a Louisville firm, to be entitled _Pan and Aeolus_. When Mr. Musgrove joins _The Times_ he will take _The Post's_ clever cartoonist, Paul Plaschke, with him; and they will occupy an office next to Colonel Henry Watterson's in the new Courier-Journal and Times building.
MABEL PORTER PITTS