The Last Joke of Joker Joe by Hapsburg Liebe Read online

  Adventure, January, 18, 1920

  IT WASN’T that he didn’t care for Annie about it, and they wondered whether he would Belle as he should have cared for her, for he ever dare to play jokes on his very

  did; he held her in a light that was little less magnificent young wife. In point of fact, they than idolatrous. He played pranks at her wondered so hard that they laid bets on the expense just as he played pranks at the matter.

  expense of everybody else.

  The affirmatives said that, as Joe had Some of those who knew him best said played pranks with his mother and his sisters that it was a family trait and called to mind the as victims, he would play them with his wife fact that all the Seavers of Bay Horse for a victim after he had come to know her Mountain were jokers and had been since the better. He couldn’t help it, they said, any more oldest inhabitant could remember. Others who than an ordinary man could help breathing.

  knew him just as well were reasonably sure And this was the side that won.

  that it was a birthmark.

  Joker Joe Seaver hadn’t been double

  “Joker

  Joe”

  Seaver

  was big, strong and

  for two weeks before he had put salt in the good-looking enough, and he had a way that sugar-bowl, sugar in the salt-shaker, vanilla in caught with women; that is why, no doubt, the coffee and a baby rabbit in the flour-bin; Annie Belle Hanson of the Bay Horse also he scared Annie with an artificial mouse Mountain Hansons married him. Joe had a once. At the first, Annie Belle pretended that good job as fireman of a battery of three big she enjoyed it and perhaps she really did; but boilers in the great sawmill in the valley it soon became tiresome. The young woman below, a job that had employed two men had wisely realized that there was something before his advent, and he made good money.

  far more serious in life than the mere foolish He had, when he married Annie Belle, playing of pranks.

  a cozy cabin all furnished nicely, with She told Joe over and over that it was everything paid for. Annie Belle soon made a silly. But Joe only laughed. Joe was a great home of the little house of logs; she washed laugher. Then he played the joke that should and scrubbed and tidied, arranged and have been his last, and wasn’t. But it was the rearranged until Joe himself hardly knew the next to the last.

  place when he came home from his second Now Seaver was a good actor, a

  day’s work as a married man. Joe told people splendid actor, as are nearly all really

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  2

  proficient jokers. He had what people in the hickory withe. Joe tried to take her into his certain circles describe more or less arms, but the look she gave him was enough picturesquely as a “poker face;” which is to to cause him to relinquish that intention.

  say, of course, that you couldn’t possibly tell

  “Fo’give

  me,

  honey,” he pleaded

  by his countenance anything about what was somewhat sheepishly. “I was only jest a going on in the inside of him.

  foolin’.”

  Joker Joe strode solemnly and Annie Belle

  continued to stare at him.

  frowningly into the lean-to kitchen of his

  “Don’t ye never,” she admonished

  cabin one evening early in June and soberly, “try to play another joke on me.”

  deliberately placed on the top of the home She suffered him to kiss her on the

  made cupboard a hickory withe five feet long; forehead. Joe laughed a laugh that could have it was of the kind that is used in the whipping made a horse blush. The spell was broken and of horses. Then he turned that grave poker he was again happy.

  face of his toward Annie Belle, who was frying bacon for supper.

  IT WAS on the following morning that Joker

  “What’s that big switch for, Joe?” Joe Seaver played his last joke. It was a very Annie asked smilingly.

  little thing—at first. He got a grin out of it,

  “The fust time my breakfas’ is late,”

  and that was all—just then. Annie Belle said Joe, his voice a bearish growl, “ye’ll find smiled; it was the kind of smile one gives out what it’s for.”

  when one can do no better.

  There are times when, as anybody

  Seaver went down to the big mill in

  knows, people whose moral and physical the valley and relieved the watchman of the stamina is ordinarily of the best find their charge of the three powerful boilers. At once nerves on edge and taut. Annie Belle’s nerves he began to heave slabs into the roaring were on edge and taut. All that day she had furnaces. The whistle blew, and the great steel been lonesome for the home she had left and band-saw on the second floor of the mill for her father and mother and her brothers and began its daily work of slashing monster logs sisters. She did not, therefore, quite catch the into boards.

  spirit of fun, of the moment. Her face went a An hour afterward Seaver made a

  little pale, and the fork fell clattering to the round of the steam-gages and water-gages, floor. Joker Joe tried to laugh then, but it was saw that everything was going smoothly and somehow a sorry thing. The joke had fallen turned to the doorway for a breath of fresh air.

  short.

  He noted that the mill foreman stood there

  “Do ye mean, Joe—” came the low,

  eying him solemnly.

  unsteady voice of his wife— “do ye mean—

  “What’s the matter, Joker?” said.

  —”

  Brinkley, advancing a step.

  “I don’t mean nothin’!” cried Joe and

  “Matter?” grinned Seaver. “Nothin’!

  his smile was as poor as his laugh of a Why?”

  moment before. “I was jest a-foolin’ ye, Annie

  “Ye don’t look jest right. Ain’t sick, Belle! Haw-haw-haw! But ye shore looked are ye?”

  like as ef ye’d seed a ghost. Haw-haw-haw!”

  “Sick!” laughed Seaver. “Me? Never

  Annie Belle stood stock-still and stared felt better in my life. Over where I’m from hard. Apparently she was rather inclined they haf to kill a man to start a graveyard.

  toward believing that her prank-playing young What made ye think it, Brinkley?”

  husband had been in earnest in the matter of

  “All the same,” Brinkley muttered,

  The Last Joke of Joker Joe 3

  turning toward a balky sawdust-conveyor, “ye b’ilers, Joker. Want me to bring Doc don’t look jest right. Ye’re sort o’ green Hoskins?”

  around the eyes.”

  Hoskins was the company’s doctor.

  “Haw-haw-haw!” Seaver roared. Seaver had played a hundred pranks on the

  “Green around the eyes! Haw-haw-haw!”

  huge, flat-footed physician, and Hoskins was He turned his attention once more to fairly pining to settle the score.

  the furnaces.

  “Dang Doc Hoskins!” exploded

  Ten minutes later the mill’s roustabout Seaver.

  came in. He drew up short before the big

  “I don’t need Doc Hoskins. I don’t

  fireman and eyed him stolidly.

  need nothin’. What’s gone wrong wi’ you,

  “What’s wrong wi’ ye, Joker?” he Wat — you and Brinkley and Hilton? Why, asked, his voice grave.

  I—I cain’t be sick. It ain’t in me to be sick. I

  “Me?” Joker Joe shrugged his never was sick for a minute in my life, Wat!”

  shoulders. “Haw-haw-haw! Nothin’ ever was Watson shook his head, gave Seaver a wro
ng wi’ me, Hilton. Why?”

  glance that seemed both pitying and

  “I dunno,” said Hilton, turning away.

  sympathetic and went back to the engine-

  “But ye’re a little pale around the gills, seems room. Seaver bit his lips, one after the other.

  to me.”

  Then he felt of his forehead and he felt of his When the roustabout had gone, Joker

  pulse. His pulse was, he had to admit, Joe folded his arms and muttered to himself: decidedly too fast, while his forehead was

  “Green around the eyes! Pale around

  somehow clammy.

  the gills! I wonder ef I am?”

  “Green around the eyes,” he drawled

  Seaver had just finished filling the to himself. “Pale around the gills. As white as three furnaces again when the engineer a new dinner plate. I wisht—I had a lookin’-

  entered the boiler-room. The engineer caught glass here for jest a minute. I wisht——”

  Seaver by a shoulder and turned his sweat-beaded face to the light of the doorway. He A MASCULINE voice, booming, cut short his gave Joker Joe, a searching look and shook his soliloquy. He jumped as if somebody had head half tragically.

  stabbed him with a horse-nettle. There before

  “Go and set down, Joker,” said he. “Ye him stood strapping “Dink” Hanson, his don’t haf to work when ye’re sick, o’ course.”

  wife’s youngest and favorite brother.

  Seaver straightened. He threw out his

  “Glad to see ye, Joker, shore!” Hanson giant chest.

  said. “I riz afore daylight and got here about a

  “Sick ——!” he bellowed.

  hour ago. Wanted to see how you and Annie

  “What’s the matter wi’ ye, Watson?

  was a-makin’ it. Brung ye a hick’ry-cyored W’y, I never was sick for a single, lonesome ham and a middlin’. I— say, Joker, what in minute in my life!”

  the name o’ ‘Big Bill’ Butler’s busted baseball

  “When a man’s well,” Watson replied

  bat is the matter wi’ you?”

  easily, “he ain’t got no call to be as pyore Joker Joe took a step backward. He felt white as a new dinner plate. The right thing to dizzy now. There was a sort of farewell-do would be to send for the doctor, Joker.”

  forever feeling at the pit of his stomach. His

  “Send for [the doctor?” echoed Joker hands felt all trembly, and his knees seemed Joe.

  weak. Something kept coming up in his throat

  “I shore said it. Send for the doctor. A and had to be swallowed back.

  man can be found to take yore place at the

  “Dink,” he muttered, “Dink, do I—do I

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  reelly look bad?”

  Hoskins.

  “Look bad!” echoed Dink Hanson.

  “If I save you, I’ve got to go at it in an

  “Joker, ef ye’d been buried for two weeks and intelligent way. I think Annie’s out o’ danger

  ’en dug up, ye’d look no wuss ’an ye look now, though I can’t perzactly tell; but you—

  now. Looky here—hadn’t I better go for Doc my heavens, Dinkie, did ever you see a man Hoskins and for Annie Belle? Or—or could ye look like that before, hey?”

  make out to walk home, Joker? Ef I’d he’p ye

  “I shore never!” Hanson answered

  along, eh?”

  promptly. “I——”

  “The doctor—Annie Belle—walk ho-

  Joker

  Joe

  interrupted;

  ho-home—” stuttered the now almost wholly

  “Have ye done all ye could do for

  overcome Joker Joe. “Say, D-Dink, how—

  Annie, Doc—why don’t ye talk—what’re a how do I look bad?”

  standin’ there that away for, anyhow? Have ye

  “Green around the eyes, pale around

  done all ye could do for Annie, Doc?”

  the throat and as white as a sheet. That’s how.

  “Sssh!” Hoskins lifted a hand. “Sssh!

  Say, Joe, you got to do somethin’ for yeself! I Let’s get at the bottom of the trouble, Joe. The ain’t a-goin’ to have my sister a widder cause, that’s it. Joe, did you empty a pepper-throwed on the goodness o’ the people afore shaker before breakfast this morning and fill it she’s been married a month, jest on ’count o’

  with something out of a small pasteboard the pyore cussedness o’ you! I’m a goin’ right box?”

  now for the doctor, and you got to go home

  “Ground cloves, yeuh,” Joker Joe

  and go to bed, and that’s gawspel!”

  tremulously admitted.

  Joker Joe sank to the boiler-room Hoskins nodded.

  door-sill, put his elbows on his knees and bent

  “Ground cloves; that’s what was

  his face, which now seemed clammier than printed on the outside o’ the box, but on the ever, to his hands. Dink Hanson had not taken inside —really, I reckon Annie Belle ought o’

  a dozen steps when he bumped squarely into told you, Joe, about putting rat-pizen in that Hoskins. Hoskins was coming around a corner ground cloves box——”

  of the boiler-room.

  “Rat-pizen! Rat-pizen!” yelled Joker

  “Huh!” said Hoskins. “What’s the Joe. Again he leaped to his feet. “Why, I et matter, Dinkie, hey?”

  some of it, Doc, and it shore tasted jest like

  “Joker’s shore sick!” cried Dink ground cloves. Did ye say rat-pizen, Doc?”

  Hanson.

  “I most certainly did, Joe.”

  Another half minute and the

  The combined strength of Hoskins and company’s doctor was on his knees before Joe Dink Hanson was finally sufficient to bring Seaver, who was still sitting in the doorway.

  Seaver to a sitting posture once more.

  “My heavens!” exclaimed Hoskins as

  “Ca’m yourself now, Joe. We’re

  Seaver lifted his troubled face. “It’s the same intelligently at the bottom of the whole thing that’s the matter with Annie Belle! I’ve unforchunit matter at last. Wait until I shoot just left your house, Joe; I was on my way this hypodermic into your arm, Joe, and you’ll here to tell you, when I butted slam-bang into maybe feel a little better. It tasted like ground Dinkie. It seems that——”

  cloves, Joe, because it had been in a ground Seaver shot to his feet with all the cloves box. Don’t you see?”

  suddenness of a jack-in-a-box. Hoskins and Joker Joe stiffened. His eyes were

  young Hanson forced him to sit down again.

  desperate and yet piteous. Remorse shook the

  “You listen to me, Joe,” went on foundations of his soul.

  The Last Joke of Joker Joe 5

  “But Annie!” he said smotheredly, their countenances rather drawn. He banged half-brokenly. “Are ye shore Annie’11 make the gate open and rushed to them.

  it, Doc? Ef only she won’t die, I don’t keer a

  “Dink, Doc,” he began apprehensively, dang ef I haf to die twicet——”

  “how’s Annie?”

  “Oh, yes, yes—the chances are that

  No answer. The two still stared at the she’ll make it, Joe, though maybe she won’t.”

  ground at their feet.

  Hoskins was busy with his little syringe. “But

  “Didn’t ye hear me?” Seaver

  she certainly must not be alarmed or worried.

  thundered. He seized them, each by a We’ll have to keep it from her about your shoulder, and shook them roughly. “How’s being sick too, of course. When I’ve shot you Annie Belle?”

  with this hypo, Joe, you’d better lie down in Doc Hoskins rose. He spat, pinched

  the sawdust back there in a corner. You’ll go the end of his nose, pinched his lower lip and to sleep and if you wake up, you�
��ll be all then stretched an arm toward the mountain’s right.”

  crest.

  “And if I don’t——”

  “You’ll find her up there, Joe,” he said

  “You won’t be all right, If you don’t sadly. “Poor little Annie!”

  wake up,” Hoskins was forced to admit. “But Seaver thought he understood, and it you ain’t the man to die until you’re dead, was maddening. He ran like a buck to the top Joe.”

  of the mountain, a distance of half a mile.

  Seaver took the injection of morphia When he arrived at the split-paling fence that and then declared his intention of going to ran around the little and old, neighborhood Annie Belle or die on the way. Dink Hanson cemetery, he vaulted it and began to look for a and the doctor offered serious objections and new mound. Soon he found one. Flowers only backed them up with four strong hands. slightly wilted were strewn over it. Joker Joe Shortly afterward Hoskins and Annie Belle’s Seaver sank to his knees beside it, there in the brother half dragged and half carried the gathering dusk, and in a shaken voice cried figure of the prank-player to a pile of sawdust out for forgiveness for his sin.

  in a corner of the boiler-room and soon he And then the erstwhile joker became

  sank into the soothing arms of the poppy-god.

  aware that somebody was approaching him slowly from behind. He sprang erect, WHEN Joker Joe Seaver came to himself expecting to see either Dink Hanson or the again, the long mountain twilight had set in—

  company’s doctor, and saw instead— his was mostly over, in fact. The boiler-room was Annie Belle.