Best Short Stories Omnibus - Volume 2

The Saddest Man-4

But mostly I didn't bother much with eating glass or being a Living Skeleton. Mostly I stuck to being an India Rubber Man. It always seemed to me there was more art in that, more chance to show talent and genius. The gift that was given to me by Providence I developed and trained till I could do about as much with my skin as most people can with their fingers. It takes constant work and practice to develop a skin, even when Nature has been kind to you like she has to me.

For years I went along contented enough, seein' the country and being admired by young and old, and wondered at and praised for my gift and the way I had turned it into an art, and never thinkin' much of women nor matrimony nor nothing of that kind.

But when a man's downfall is put off, it is harder when it comes. When I fell in love I fell good and hard. I fell into love with a pair of Siamese twins. These here girls was tied together somewheres about the waist line with a ligament of some kind, and there wasn't no fake about it—they really was tied. On account of motives of delicacy I never asked 'em much about that there ligament. The first pair of twins like that who was ever on exhibition was from Siam, so after that they called all twins of that kind Siamese twins. But these girls wasn't from none of them outlandish parts; they was good American girls, born right over in Ohio, and their names was Jones. Hetty Jones and Netty Jones was their names.

Hetty, she was the right-hand twin, and Netty was the left-hand twin. And you never seen such lookers before in your life, double nor single. They was exactly alike and they thought alike and they talked alike. Sometimes when I used to set and talk to 'em I felt sure they was just one woman. If I could 'a' looked at 'em through one of these here stereoscopes they would 'a' come together and been one woman, I never had any idea about 'em bein' two women.

Well, I courted 'em, and they was mighty nice to me, both of 'em. I used to give 'em candy and flowers and little presents and I would set and admire 'em by the hour. I kept gettin' more and more into love with them. And I seen they was gettin' to like me, too.

So one day I outs with it.

“Will you marry me?” says I.

“Yes,” says Hetty. And, “Yes,” says Netty. Both in the same breath! And then each one looked at the other one, and they both looked at me, and they says, both together:

“Which one of us did you ask?”

“Why,” says I, kind o' flustered, “there ain't but one of you, is they? I look on you as practically one woman.”

“The idea!” says Netty.

“You orter be ashamed of yourself,” says Hetty.

“You didn't think,” says Netty, “that you could marry both of us, did you?”

Well, all I had really thought up to that time was that I was in love with 'em, and just as much in love with one as with the other, and I popped the question right out of my heart and sentiments without thinking much one way or the other. But now I seen there was going to be a difficulty.

“Well,” I says, “if you want to consider yourself as two people, I suppose it would be marryin' both of you. But I always thought of you as two hearts that beat as one. And I don't see no reason why I shouldn't marry the two of you, if you want to hold out stubborn that you are two.”

“For my part,” says Hetty, “I think you are insulting.”

“You must choose between us,” says Netty.

“I would never,” says Hetty, “consent to any Mormonous goings-on of that sort.”

They still insisted they was two people till finally I kind o' got to see their side of the argyment. But how was I going to choose between them when no matter which one I chooses she was tied tight to the other one?

We agreed to talk it over with the Fat Lady in that show, who had a good deal of experience in concerns of the heart and she had been married four or five times and was now a widder, having accidental killed her last husband by rolling over on him in her sleep. She says to me:

“How happy you could be with either, Skinny, were t'other dear charmer away!”

“This ain't no jokin' matter, Dolly,” I tells her. “We come for serious advice.”

“Skinny, you old fool,” she says, “there's an easy way out of this difficulty. All you got to do is get a surgeon to cut that ligament and then take your choice.”

“But I ain't really got any choice,” I says, “for I loves 'em both and I loves 'em equal. And I don't believe in tamperin' with Nature.”

“It ain't legal for you to marry both of 'em,” says the Fat Lady.

“It ain't moral for me to cut 'em asunder,” I says.

I had a feelin' all along that if they was cut asunder trouble of some kind would follow. But both Hetty and Netty was strong for it. They refused to see me or have anything to do with me, they sent me word, till I give up what they called the insultin' idea of marryin' both of 'em. They set and quarrelled with each other all the time, the Fat Lady told me, because they was jealous of each other. Bein' where they couldn't get away from each other even for a minute, that jealousy must have et into them something unusual. And finally, I knuckled under. I let myself be overrulled. I seen I would lose both of 'em unless I made a choice. So I sent 'em word by the Fat Lady that I would choose. But I knowed deep in my heart all the time that no good would come of it. You can't go against Scripter and prosper; and the Scripter says: “What God has joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Well, we fixed it up this way: I was to pay for that there operation, having money saved up for to do it with, and then I was to make my choice by chance. The Fat Lady says to toss a penny or something.

But I always been a kind of a romantic feller, and I says to myself I will make that choice in some kind of a romantic way. So first I tried one of these ouija boards, but all I get is “Etty, Etty, Etty,” over and over again, and whether the ouija left off an H or an N there's no way of telling. The Fat Lady, she says: “Why don't you count 'em out, like kids do, to find out who is It?”

“How do you mean?” I asks her.

“Why,” says she, “by saying, 'Eeny meeny, miney, mo!' or else 'Monkey, monkey, bottle of beer, how many monkeys have we here?' or something like that.”

But that ain't romantic enough to suit me and I remember how you pluck a daisy and say: “She loves me! She loves me not!” And I think I will get an American beauty rose and do it that way. Well, they had the operation, and it was a success. And about a week later I'm to go to the hospital and tell 'em which one has been elected to the holy bonds of matrimony. I gets me a rose, one of the most expensive that money can buy in the town we was in, and when I arrive at the hospital I start up the front steps pluckin' the leaves off and sayin' to myself: “Hetty she is! Netty she is! Hetty she is!”—and so on. But I never got that rose all plucked.

I knowed all along that it was wrong to put asunder what God had joined together, and I orter stuck to the hunch I had. You can't do anything to a freak without changing his or her disposition some way. You take a freak that was born that way and go to operating on him, and if he is good-natured he'll turn out a grouch, or if he was a grouch he'll turn out good-natured. I knowed a dog-faced boy one time who was the sunniest critter you ever seen. But his folks got hold of a lot of money and took him out of the business and had his features all slicked up and made over, and what he gained in looks he lost in temper and disposition. Any tinkering you do around artists of that class will change their sentiments every time.

I never got that rose all plucked. At the top of the steps I was met by Hetty and Netty, just cornin' out of the hospital and not expectin' to see me. With one of them was a young doctor that worked in the hospital and with the other was a patient that had just got well. They explained to me that as soon as they had that operation their sentiments toward me changed. Before, they had both loved me. Afterwards, neither one of 'em did. They was right sorry about it, they said, but they had married these here fellows that morning in the hospital, with a double wedding, and was now starting off on their wedding trips, and their husbands would pay back the operation money as soon as they had earned it and saved it up.

Well, I was so flabbergasted that my skin stiffened up on me, and it stayed stiff for the rest of that day. I never said a word, but I turned away from there a sad man with a broken heart in my bosom. And I quit bein' an artist. I didn't have the sperrit to be in a show any more.

And through all the years since then I been a saddened man. But as time went by there come a kind of sweetness into that sadness, too. It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all, like the poet says. I was one of the saddest men in the world, but I sort o' enjoyed it, after a few years. And all them memories sort o' kept me a better man.

I orter stuck to that kind of sweet sadness. I orter knowed that if I went back on all them beautiful memories of them girls something bitter would come to me.

But I didn't, gentlemen. I went back on all that sentiment and that tenderness. I betrayed all them beautiful memories. Five days ago, I went and married. Yes, sir, I abandoned all that sweet recollection. And I been livin' in hell ever since. I been reproachin' myself day and night for not provin' true and trustworthy to all that romantic sadness I had all them years. It was a sweet sadness, and I wasn't faithful to it. And so long as I live now I will have this here bitter sadness.

The stranger got up and sighed and stretched himself. He took a fresh chew of tobacco, and began to crank his flivver.

“Well,” said Ben Grevis, “that is a sad story. But I don't know as you're sadder, at that, than the Widder Watson is.”

The stranger spat colourfully into the road, and again the faint semblance of a smile, a bitter smile, wreathed itself about his mouth.

“Yes, I be!” he said, “I be a sadder person than the Widder Watson. It was her I married!”