The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson

“Good mornin’, Roweny” – hand-shake.

“Good morning, Mr. Higgins – present you to Count Angelo Capello.” Hand-shake, admiring stare, “Glad to see ye,” – courteous nod, smily “Most happy!” and Higgins passes on.

and supreme joy. Napoleon and all his kind stood accounted for – and justifi ed.

The Judge laid himself out hospitably to make them have a good time, and if there was a defect anywhere it was not his fault. He told them a good many humorous anecdotes, and always forgot the nub, but they were always able to furnish it, for these yarns were of a pretty early vintage, and they had had many a rejuvenating pull at them before. And he told them all about his several dignities, and how he had held this and that and the other place of honor or profi t, and had once been to the legislature, and was now president of the Society of Free-thinkers. He said the so­ciety had been in existence four years, and already had two mem­bers, and was fi rmly established. He would call for the brothers in the evening if they would like to attend a meeting of it.

Toward the middle of the evening they found themselves on the road to his house. Pudd’nhead was at home waiting for them and putting in his time puzzling over a thing which had come under his notice that morning. The matter was this: He happened to be up very early – at dawn, in fact; and he crossed the hall which divided his cottage through the cen­ter, and entered a room to get something there. The win­dow of the room had no curtains, for that side of the house had long been unoccupied, and through this window he caught sight of something which surprised and interested him. It was a young woman – a young woman where properly no young woman belonged; for she was in Judge Driscoll’s house, and in the bedroom over the Judge’s private study or sitting-room. This was young Tom Driscoll’s bedroom. He and the Judge, the Judge’s widowed sister Mrs. Pratt and three negro servants were the only people who belonged in the house. Who, then, might this young lady be? The two houses were separated by an ordinary yard, with a low fence running back through its middle from the street in front to the lane in the rear. The dis­tance was not great, and Wilson was able to see the girl very well, the window-shades of the room she was in being up, and

the window also. The girl had on a neat and trim summer dress, patterned in broad stripes of pink and white, and her bonnet was equipped with a pink veil. She was practising steps, gaits and attitudes, apparently; she was doing the thing gracefully, and was very much absorbed in her work. Who could she be, and how came she to be in young Tom Driscoll’s room?

Wilson had quickly chosen a position from which he could watch the girl without running much risk of being seen by her, and he remained there hoping she would raise her veil and betray her face. But she disappointed him. After a matter of twenty minutes she disappeared, and although he stayed at his post half an hour longer, she came no more.

Toward noon he dropped in at the Judge’s and talked with Mrs. Pratt about the great event of the day, the levee of the dis­tinguished foreigners at Aunt Patsy Cooper’s. He asked after her nephew Tom, and she said he was on his way home, and that she was expecting him to arrive a little before night; and added that she and the Judge were gratifi ed to gather from his letters that he was conducting himself very nicely and credit­ably – at which Wilson winked to himself privately. Wilson did not ask if there was a newcomer in the house, but he asked questions that would have brought light-throwing answers as to that matter if Mrs. Pratt had had any light to throw; so he went away satisfi ed that he knew of things that were going on in her house of which she herself was not aware.

with the offi cers, and exceedingly proud of their joking and friendly way with her.

During eight years she served three parts of the year on that boat, and the winters on a Vicksburg packet. But now for two months she had had rheumatism in her arms, and was obliged to let the wash-tub alone. So she resigned. But she was well fi xed – rich, as she would have described it; for she had lived a steady life, and had banked four dollars every month in New Orleans as a provision for her old age. She said in the start that she had “put shoes on one bar’footed nig­ger to tromple on her with,” and that one mistake like that was enough; she would be independent of the human race thenceforth forevermore if hard work and economy could ac­complish it. When the boat touched the levee at New Orleans she bade good-by to her comrades on the Grand Mogul and moved her kit ashore.

By the time she reached Dawson’s Landing she was her old self again; her blues were gone, she was in high feather. She would get along, surely; there were many kitchens where the servants would share their meals with her, and also steal sugar and apples and other dainties for her to carry home – or give her a chance to pilfer them herself, which would answer just as well. And there was the church. She was a more rabid and devoted Methodist than ever, and her piety was no sham, but was strong and sincere. Yes, with plenty of creature com­forts and her old place in the amen-corner in her possession again, she would be perfectly happy and at peace thencefor­ward to the end.