West High School - Occident Yearbook (Columbus, OH)

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28 Tl-IE I followed his eyes and saw that the dog, despite its utter exhaustion of the afternoon, was up on all feet, stretch- ing and straining at the rope, which strangled it cruelly. Its eyes were as large as dollars and foam flecked its mouth. It bit at the rope and snapped at the furniture around it and as Rol- lins drew near, it failed to distinguish him in its agony, slashing about indis- criminately. Get out of the way there and open the door, commanded Rollins. I can't see the poor beast choke to death. I'm going to cut the rope. Look out that he don't get you, I warned. That's not distemper, you know. That's rabies. Rabies nothing! Can't you see he's holding his head right over a pan of water? It was so. But if it was not rabies, what in the name of common sense was it? I gave Rollins a wide berth as he dragged his tortured beast from the room. His negro J anvrin followed him to the outhouse. When Rollins returned he said that the beast apparently suf- fered no longer. I don't know what was wrong, un- less he was afraid, he said. But what was he afraid of? He's seen the same thing a dozen times. And yet he's no coward. Once he came mighty near burning his inquisitive nose against the furnace. Outside in the shed J anvrin shut off the motor and its chug-chugging ceased abruptly. More slowly the whir of the dynamo died away, to leave us in the silence of the swampland. Then the negro came back after some water and food for the dog, and proceeded to the outhouse to make the creature com- fortable. We scraped off and collected several ounces of gold from the hot mouth of the furnace-and Rollins declared it was gold of the purest composition. After a brief visit to the outhouse he returned reassured and became talkative once more. He ran his fingers through the glittering mass on the table and I noticed that he trembled occasionally with suppressed emotion. Glorious stuff, he exclaimed. Those old fellows who have been pre- OCCIDEN T tending all down the ages to despise gold were really philosophical because they couldn't be rich. Or if they were rich, what they were despising was not gold, but life itself. For gold is the breath of life, Carney. There lies all existence-liberty, health, friendship, love, security, and all the ardent devel- opment of manhood-all wrapped up in this magic pile. It's the passport to joyous activity, enterprise, society, knowledge, and service. Is there any- thing so pitiful as a penniless lover? His materialism gave me an odd feeling. You couldn't have bought a sound pair of lungs, you know, I reminded him. But that's precisely what I did. A never-to-be-suificiently-blessed relative died and left me-what amounted to a. double handful of gold, Carney. Or I should be coughing my last cough in Brooklyn by this time. Now, how about it '? He chuckled boyishly at my discom- fort. 'Better than silver or gold. ' he quoted. There was a big leak in old Solomon's philosophy when he said that. Gold is freedom and power. And what else is life? Come, Mister Biolo- gist! I'll cast this stuff into an ingot since you saw it made. The one you re- fused will make a nice ring and things for Hilda. I was not in sympathy with his phil- osophy and I suppose the incident of the dog had rasped me a little for this last idea irritated me beyond my pa-- tience. He seemed so self-confident. sitting there on the edge of the table piling up the gold. What I might have said I don't know, for at that moment the man J anvrin burst into the room. Bustah, boss, he gabbled. Dat dawg, suh, he done died. He-all done- turn red an' die, boss. We trooped around to the outhouse, and it was as the colored man had said. What remained of Rollins's companion was not pleasant to contemplate. The colored man muttered snatches of prayer, and the lamp shook in his hand, as he held it over the animal. 'Tain't nachrul, he repeated per- sistently. He done been conjured,

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THE OCCIDENT 27 goods. He started on seeing me and dropped a number of them. Ma goodness, but you skeered me l he said and laughed nervously. Rollins got up and lit the lamp. Janvrin is always a bit leery about coming near the apparatus, he ex- plained. At first he wouldn't come near until he had half filled his shoes with salt and pepper, so that I couldn't put the hokus-pokus on him. He thinks I'm a pretty respectable sort of hoodoo man now. We went outside and smoked while the negro cleaned up and prepared sup- per. The grove was bathed in a dark purple and a musical breeze rustled thru the trees and seemed to be whispering of the many things it had passed dur- ing the day. Probably it was the dreaminess of the night which caused Rollins to reopen the subject of the girl up North. It was one look she gave me, he remarked, that fixed itself in my mem- ory more than anything else about her. I had a fit of coughing and I looked up suddenly after the paroxysm was over to find her standing there. You can't :imagine the pity that was in those eyes. ,And I think there was something else. But that was not for a penniless lunger like me. Now! Why man, I feel younger and better than I did when I was going to college. And I've got -plenty of money, with the means to make more. And I don't look as if I 'needed a doctor, do I? My! What a -difference. I thrust my hand out impulsively. Good luck, old man. I said. And I'll offer my congratulations in ad- Vance. He clasped my hand warmly and said, The man who can win the love of a girl like Hilda Templeton is luckier than the man who can make gold. It was the first time that he had men- tioned her name and as he did so, I remembered her. She was one of those girls who are different. Golden-brown hair and blue eyes, not very tall but just full of lifeg never a hard word for anybody, always a smile. And when she smiled you just felt glad and you'd think that the world might be fit to live in after all. We sat and ate in silence and after the meal the man Janvrin went out to the shed and I soon heard the nervous put-put of a gasoline engine followed by the steady whir of a dynamo. For the next ten minutes Rollins and the colored man were busy mixing up some substances from the array of bottles that lined the shelf. I took up my sta- tion near the switch on the wall to turn he had suggested. at intervals about on the current as Rollins still talked ions and atoms and what he considered a proven fact, that all substances were composed of the same base, only differ- ing in their complex arrangement of particles. I listened without in the least com- prehending what he was talking about, when the idiotic idea came into my head that if I turned on the current I should kill Rollins. He stepped away from the furnace and the negro scampered over near the door. Let her go, said Rollins, and I pushed up on the big switch. There was an instant sputtering in the fur- nace and the metals in the track of the arc became white hot, melted, and finally started to vaporize. Rollins then turned the four big lamps on the furnace and they began their fierce bombardment of Beta emanations. I remarked a queer pattering on the floor that sounded like rain. Only spiders and things, said Rol- lins. We sweep up a handful of them every time we turn on this laboratory chafing dish. The metals in the furnace fumed and sputtered and a strange, intense green light filled the cabin. Just changing the pattern, chuckled Rollins. We're the first to see it done since the atoms were swept together and made into a world. He came toward me and turned off the current. The greenish glare died rapidly and we were again in the dim lamplight, waiting for our eyes to get used to the change. The metal in the furnace now gleamed with the yellow luster of pure gold. Fo' de land sake, gasped the col- ored man near the door, what am de matter wid dat dawg? Rollins uttered a sharp exclamation.

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THE OCCIDENT 29 boss. Yassuh, boss, he done been con- jured. He just swole up an' die. He was trembling so violently that we had to take the lamp from him, and Rollins just got possession of it in time. Even as his hand closed over it, the un-- happy Janvrin collapsed over the dog and lay motionless on his face. We dragged him around to the cabin and dosed him with the usual antidote, but it soon became obvious that his trouble was not malaria. Rollins grabbed the pillows from his own bed, and put them under J anvrin's head, and for a time we stood looking at him, unable to explain the semi-coma into which he had fallen. Only the fellow's eyes moved, and they were distended with fear. Suddenly Rollins had an idea and after thrashing about in some trash in the corner he lugged out a microscope case. You're a bacteriologist, he said. Perhaps you can throw some light on this. Something queer about that dog, you know-watch Janvrin till I come back. I heard him stride around to the out- house, and presently he returned with a glass slide in his hand, and on it was some thin, serous fluid. Breathlessly we fixed up the instrument and clipped the glass under the objective. You look, he said. I did so, but saw nothing. Touch it up with some iodine, I su ested gg - While I hung in suspense over the eyepiece, he hunted on the shelves, and all at once under my gaze the field of the microscope rushed up a brilliant yellow-and in it were countless mi- crobes. Rabies '? jerked out Rollins. I-I don't know, I stammered. I never saw anything like it in my life. It's certainly not rabies. And it's too globular for the fevers ..... It looks like strings of beads. Here, look at the things! Good Heavens! exclaimed Rollins after a single glance. He left the instru- ment to gaze on Janvrin in a kind of sick wonder. The man was quite still and remained an inert mass of suffer- ing. I don't know what's the matter with him, Rollins kept repeating. It's the same thing that got the dog. He turned away abruptly and made an effort to speak calmly. We've got to identify it, he said. It may be I don't know all the possi- bilities of those lamps of mine. Things have been happening right along that I can't explain. Are you sure you don't know the things ? Never before saw the germ, I as- sured him. You were rather a microbe shark, eh! That must mean tnat it's some- thing outside scientific experience. I should say it was. He became thoughtful. You remember, he said, there was that woman in Paris, I forget her name. She was a pupil of Pasteur. She used ultra-violet rays on the anthrax germs, and changed them into an entirely new germ, producing a new disease. The new bacillus didn't look like anthrax, and when they inoculated some guinea pigs with the stuff, it didn't give them anthrax. They died of something else. You mean Madame Labardere? when a light broke upon me. That sounds like it. It was all in one of the magazines. No doubt 1 should have screened those rays. I've always had-doubts. The colored man stirred jerkily, and all at once he was on his feet, pointing at Rollins with a queer contorted ges- ture. His eyes were starting from their sockets, and he mumbled mean- ingless sounds. Pretty soon he reeled toward the door. You stav here. Janvrin. com- manded Rollins. You've got nothing but a dog bite. The man lurched toward the door and waved his hand vaguely. He never, he said thickly. Bus- tah ain't bite me. You-all conjured me. I ain't gwine stay wid you-all no longer. And he set off across the clearing, running and staggering, until the darkness swallowed him. It will pass, said Rollins. He'll be all right in the morning and then he'll come back. But I could see that he was striving to reassure himself against his fears.