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Updated: May 19, 2025
Lajos Arp
"My soul!" said Mr. Davey. "It seems to know some of us!" "Yes," agreed Mr. Arp, his voice recovered, "and I know IT." "You do?" exclaimed the Colonel. "I do, and so do you. It's Fanny Louden's boy, 'Gene, come home for his Christmas holidays." "By George! you're right," cried Flitcroft; "I recognize him now." "But what's the matter with him?" asked Mr. Bradbury, eagerly.
He was not a constant attendant of the conclave, and when he came it was usually to listen; indeed, he spoke so seldom that at the sound of his voice they all turned to him with some surprise. "I suppose," he began, "that Eskew means the devil is behind all beautiful things." "Ugly ones, too," said Mr. Arp, with a start of recollection. "And I wish to state " "Not now!"
Out of the confusion of report, the judicious were able by evenfall to extract a fair history of this day of revolution. There remained no doubt that Joe Louden was in attendance at the death-bed of Eskew Arp, and somehow it came to be known that Colonel Flitcroft, Squire Buckalew, and Peter Bradbury had shaken hands with Joe and declared themselves his friends.
"There's somebody hiding behind those plants," he whispered, when his friend reached him. "Go and tell Judge Pike to send some of the niggers to watch outside the porch, so that he doesn't get away. Then tell him to get his revolver and come here." Meanwhile Ariel had found Mr. Arp waiting in the hall, talking in a low voice to Mrs. Pike.
Arp, hastening thither from the station, satchel in hand, could bring it. This was on a September morning, two years after the flight, and Eskew, it appears, had been to the State Fair and had beheld many things strangely affirming his constant testimony that this unhappy world increaseth in sin; strangest of all, his meeting with our vagrant scalawag of Canaan.
Louden rubbed his chin-beard, indulging himself in a pause which was like to prove fatal to his companion, finally vouchsafing the information that the doctor's buggy was just turning the corner; Eskew Arp had suffered a "stroke," it was said, and, in Louden's opinion, was a mighty sick man.
Pooty often. Blayin' fer a leedle money mit loafers! Loafers!" "Pretty outlook for the Loudens!" said Eskew Arp, much pleased. "One boy a plum fool and dressed like it, the other gone to the dogs already!" "What could you expect Joe to be?" retorted Squire Buckalew. "What chance has he ever had? Long as I can remember Fanny's made him fetch and carry for 'Gene.
And Joe, making shift to smile, was suddenly blinded, so that he could not see the wrinkled hands extended to him, and was fain to grope for them. "God knows why we didn't all take his hand long ago," said Eskew Arp. "I didn't because I was stubborn. I hated to admit that the argument was against me. I acknowledge it now before him and before you and I want the word of it CARRIED!"
Eskew Arp, only seventy-five, but already a thoroughly capable cynic, who, almost invariably "opened the argument," and it was he who discovered the sinister intention behind the weather of this particular morning. Mr.
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