About the rooster

I beg your pardon, first and plainest, for the rooster.

It was never my design that he should appear in your parlor at half past seven, standing upon the pianoforte lid like a preacher on Judgment Rock, crowing into the chandelier till three prisms loosed themselves and struck Aunt Delia’s blancmange dead center. I had every expectation he would remain in the crate marked soap, where I had put him for safekeeping and discretion. A gentleman may object that poultry has no business in a crate marked soap, but, sir, if Providence had meant boxes always to contain the truth, it would not have invented labels.

So for the rooster, and for the blancmange, I offer a sincere repentance.

Likewise, I must apologize for the mule in the hallway.

That creature was not invited. He followed the scent of molasses from the wagon and inserted himself into affairs with the same confidence shown by distant cousins and tax collectors. Had your front door been narrower by the width of one hymnbook, the matter might have ended in dignity. As it was, he entered, admired the umbrella stand, and then declined to reverse himself on principle. Mules, as you know, are republics unto themselves.

I did not foresee that your hall mirror would so offend him. He took his reflection for competition, and there commenced the kicking.

For the cracked plaster, the dented dado rail, and the hoofprint impressed in the family portrait of Reverend Pritchard, I am ashamed.

Concerning the smoke, however, I ask a crumb of patience.

Smoke carries scandal faster than fact. By the time it reached the road, folk were saying I had set your house afire. This is an embroidery. I set only the curtains afire, and that by accident, while endeavoring to calm the mule with the lantern. One does not reason with a mule in darkness. He esteems darkness as a private encouragement.

When the curtains caught, I smothered them at once with the turkey rug from the sitting room. True, the rug now bears a turkey-shaped vacancy, but the flames were extinguished in a Christian manner. The smell remained, yet smell is no evidence. Many honorable homes have smelled worse and continued to receive callers.

I regret, too, the confusion with the sheriff.

Had he arrived in an official capacity, I should have submitted myself like a lamb to lawful shears. But he came first as a suitor to your niece, carrying jonquils and vanity enough for two men. In the smoke and shouting, he mistook the rooster for an assailant, the mule for burglary, and me for what he later described as “the moving center of disorder.” That phrase wounded me, though I confess it had accuracy.

It was not necessary for me to lock him in the pantry. I see that now.

At the time, I believed a temporary pantry confinement would allow tempers to settle and pie to cool. I slid the bolt with no malice in my bosom. Yet I did fail to recall the pantry window opens above the hydrangea trellis, from which a determined officer may descend directly into the women’s strawberry social.

For the stampede among the ladies, I am contrite.

No man wishes to witness six church matrons advancing at speed while preserving hats, handbags, and theological superiority. The trestle table went over like Babylon. Lemonade ran in tributaries. Sister Vaughn uttered a word generally reserved for stump removals. Your niece, who had until then admired the sheriff, withdrew her favor so abruptly that the jonquils appeared to wilt in sympathy.

I am sorry also for the bees.

Please do not heed those who say I “released” them. I merely disturbed the hives while taking the shortest path from the social to the well, carrying the smoking rug, with the rooster under one arm and the sheriff’s hat under the other. A man in urgency cannot be expected to consult every insect beforehand. The bees, perceiving agitation, joined it.

Here I must state for the record that I did not leap into the baptismal trough out of cowardice. I leapt there as a strategic cooling measure. The congregation, arriving for Wednesday prayer and finding me waist-deep, ringed with bees, holding a rooster aloft like a trophy of some heathen campaign, drew conclusions unkind to my character.

I forgive them.

Now we approach the matter of the locomotive, for which my sorrow is substantial though not exclusive.

The noon train would have passed untroubled had the mule not bolted from your hallway at last, dragging the hall runner, the umbrella stand, and three yards of banister trim behind him like heraldry. He tore through the yard, crossed the lane, and gained the depot platform just as the engineer leaned to inquire why bees were following a man in wet Sunday clothes.

The mule boarded.

I know how improbable that sounds. Yet desperation gives talent. He mounted the baggage car with an agility no one suspected, and once among the trunks, he began expressing opinions with his hind legs. Luggage flew out the doors in all directions. A widow from Macon lost only her valise but gained a broader view of mortality.

It was then, to prevent further calamity, that I uncoupled the baggage car.

This action has been described as rash by persons who enjoy hindsight from a porch chair. At the moment, it seemed elegant. Separate mule from passengers, passengers from mule, civilization from collapse. What I did not know was that the baggage car, freed from obligation, would continue downhill of its own cheerful accord toward the county fairgrounds.

I ask you not to dwell on the calliope.

Its music, once set in motion, possesses a persistence almost spiritual. The car rolled through the gate just as the pie contest judges assembled. Steam organs are excitable machinery. Flour met velocity. Ribbons changed owners. Several pies achieved altitude. If Mrs. Crumb insists her peach lattice was “murdered,” she mistakes pastry for personhood.

No lives were lost, save the goldfish.

And even there, blame must be portioned carefully. Had the sheriff not resumed pursuit, had the beekeeper not joined him, had the rooster not chosen that instant to crow from atop the Ferris wheel, the children would never have fed the fish kettle corn, causing the bowl to overturn when the Ferris operator fainted.

I do not deny that I rang the fire bell.

But by then bells seemed the common language of events.

You may ask why I did not simply go home at the first sign of trouble. Madam, I tried. My horse had taken offense at the mule and departed before breakfast. I was therefore stranded in a county increasingly informed against me. Every road held witnesses. Every witness held embroidery.

And so I return, hat in hand though not the sheriff’s, which was trampled by geese to the beginning.

I am sorry for the rooster in your parlor. I am sorry for the mule in your hall, the curtains in their brief martyrdom, the pantry incarceration, the bees in their civic fervor, the train’s unusual freight, the pies in their ascension, and the general enlargement of your Wednesday beyond what any Christian household desires.

I would make restitution if allowed.

I can mend plaster tolerably, replace curtains handsomely, and procure another hall mirror, though perhaps one less provocative. I cannot restore Reverend Pritchard’s portrait entire, but the hoofmark lends him a vigor he formerly lacked. As for public opinion, that crop grows where it pleases and is seldom worth hoeing.

If it sweetens your temper any, know this: the rooster has taken a deep affection to the sheriff and follows him everywhere. The mule, after one ride upon the railway, now refuses ordinary roads and waits each morning at the depot with a ticket clerk’s solemnity. Your niece is engaged to the engineer, who proved calmer under catastrophe than romance. And the county fair, by unanimous vote, has added a new attraction called “The Great Baggage Dash,” though they insist I not attend.

Thus, from a field of thistles, some bloom has come.

Still, if you cannot forgive me, I shall understand and withdraw.

Only send word first, if you please, whether the side door remains unlatched.

The geese remember me.