Short Fiction by O. Henry (librera reader txt) 📕

The most adventurous boys circled Bulger’s residence at a respectful distance. He was intolerant of visitors, and repelled the curious with belligerent and gruff inhospitality. In return, the report was current that he was of unsound mind, something of a wizard, and a miser with a vast amount of gold buried in or near his hut. The old man worked at odd jobs, such as weeding gardens and whitewashing; and he collected old bones, scrap metal and bottles from alleys and yards.

One rainy night when the Salvation Army was holding a slenderly attended meeting in its hall, Bulger had appeared and asked permission to join the ranks. The sergeant in command of the post welcomed the old man with that cheerful lack of prejudice that distinguishes the peaceful militants of his order.

Bulger was at once assigned to the position of bass drummer, to his evident, although grimly expressed, joy. Possibly the sergeant, who had the success of his command at heart, perceived that it would be no mean token of successful warfare to have the new recruit thus prominently displayed, representing, as he did, if not a brand from the burning, at least a well-charred and sap-dried chunk.

So every night, when the Army marched from its quarters to the street corner where open-air services were held, Bulger stumbled along with his bass drum behind the sergeant and the corporal, who played “Sweet By and By” and “Only an Armor-Bearer” in unison upon their cornets. And never before in that town was bass drum so soundly whacked. Bulger managed to keep time with the cornets upon his instrument, but his feet were always wo-fully unrhythmic. He shuffled and staggered and rocked from side to side like a bear.

Truly, he was not pleasing to the sight. He was a bent, ungainly old man, with a face screwed to one side and wrinkled like a dry prune. The red shirt, which proclaimed his enlistment into the ranks, was a misfit, being the outer husk of a leviathan corporal who had died some time before. This garment hung upon Bulger in folds. His old brown cap was always pulled down over one eye. These and his wabbling gait gave him the appearance of some great simian, captured and imperfectly educated in pedestrian and musical manoeuvres.

The thoughtless boys and undeveloped men who gathered about the street services of the Army badgered Bulger incessantly. They called upon him to give oral testimony to his conversion, and criticized the technique and style of his drum performance. But the old man paid no attention whatever to their jeers. He rarely spoke to anyone except when, on coming and going, he gruffly saluted his comrades.

The sergeant had met many odd characters, and knew how to study them. He allowed the recruit to have his own silent way for a time. Every evening Bulger appeared at the hall, marched up the street with the squad and back again. Then he would place his drum in the comer where it belonged, and sit upon the last bench in the rear until the hall meeting was concluded.

But one night the sergeant followed the old man outside, and laid his hand upon his shoulder. “Comrade,” he said, “is it well with you?”

“Not yet, sergeant,” said Bulger. “I’m only tryin.’ I’m glad you come outside. I’ve been wantin’ to ask you: Do you believe the Lord would take a man in if he come to Him late like⁠—kind of a last resort, you know? Say a man who’d lost everything⁠—home and property and friends and health. Wouldn’t it look mean to wait till then and try to come?”

“Bless His name⁠—no!” said the sergeant. “Come ye that are heavy laden; that’s what He says. The poorer, the more miserable, the more unfortunate⁠—the greater His love and forgiveness.”

“Yes, I’m poor,” said Bulger. “Awful poor and miserable. You know when I can think best, sergeant? It’s when I’m beating the drum. Other times there’s a kind of muddled roarin’ in my head. The drum seems to kind of soothe and calm it. There’s a thing I’m tryin’ to study out, but I ain’t made it yet.”

“Do you pray, comrade?” asked the sergeant.

“No, I don’t,” said Bulger. “What’d be the use? I know where the hitch is. Don’t it say somewhere for a man to give up his own family or friends and serve the Lord?”

“If they stand in his way; not otherwise.”

“I’ve got no family,” continued the old man, “nor no friends⁠—but one. And that one is what’s driven me to ruin.”

“Free yourself!” cried the sergeant. “He is no friend, but an enemy who stands between you and salvation.”

“No,” answered Bulger, emphatically, “no enemy. The best friend I ever had.”

“But you say he’s driven you to ruin!”

The old man chuckled dryly: “And keeps me in rags and livin’ on scraps and sleepin’ like a dog in a patched-up kennel. And yet I never had a better friend. You don’t understand, sergeant. You lose all your friends but the best one, and then you’ll know how to hold on to the last one.”

“Do you drink, comrade?” asked the sergeant.

“Not a drop in twenty years,” Bulger replied. The sergeant was puzzled.

“If this friend stands between you and your soul’s peace, give him up,” was all he could find to say.

“I can’t⁠—now,” said the old man, dropping into a fretful whine. “But you just let me keep on beating the drum, sergeant, and maybe I will some time. I’m a-tryin’. Sometimes I come so near thinkin’ it out that a dozen more licks on the drum would settle it. I get mighty nigh to the point, and then I have to quit. You’ll give me more time, won’t you, sergeant?”

“All you want, and God bless you, comrade. Pound away until you hit the right note.”

Afterward the sergeant would often call to Bulger: “Time, comrade! Knocked that friend of yours out yet?” The answer was always unsatisfactory.

One night at a street corner the sergeant prayed loudly that a certain struggling comrade