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- 5216
- extracted_at
- 2026-01-30T20:48:26.981Z
- extracted_by
- structure-extraction-lambda
- start_line
- 5113
- text
- rafters overhead, but solid junks of jerked beef hanging from them.
Earth floor, but a heap of potatoes in one corner, and a sack of Indian
meal in another. A blanket was strung across the apartment at the
farther end, from which came a woman’s ailing voice and the voices of
ailing children. But somehow in the ailing of these voices there seemed
no complaint.
‘Mrs. Merrymusk and children?’
‘Yes.’
I looked at the cock. There he stood majestically in the middle of the
room. He looked like a Spanish grandee caught in a shower, and standing
under some peasant’s shed. There was a strange supernatural look of
contrast about him. He irradiated the shanty; he glorified its meanness.
He glorified the battered chest, and tattered gray coat, and the bunged
hat. He glorified the very voices which came in ailing tones from behind
the screen.
‘Oh, father,’ cried a little sickly voice, ‘let Trumpet sound again.’
‘Crow,’ cried Merrymusk.
The cock threw himself into a posture.
The roof jarred.
‘Does not this disturb Mrs. Merrymusk and the sick children?’
‘Crow again, Trumpet.’
The roof jarred.
‘It does not disturb them, then?’
‘Didn’t you hear ’em _ask_ for it?’
‘How is it, that your sick family like this crowing?’ said I. ‘The cock
is a glorious cock, with a glorious voice, but not exactly the sort of
thing for a sick-chamber, one would suppose. Do they really like it?’
‘Don’t _you_ like it? Don’t it do _you_ good? Ain’t it inspiring? Don’t
it impart pluck? give stuff against despair?’
‘All true,’ said I, removing my hat with profound humility before the
brave spirit disguised in the base coat.
‘But then,’ said I, still with some misgivings, ‘so loud, so wonderfully
clamorous a crow, methinks might be amiss to invalids, and retard their
convalescence.’
‘Crow your best now, Trumpet!’
I leaped from my chair. The cock frightened me, like some overpowering
angel in the Apocalypse. He seemed crowing over the fall of wicked
Babylon, or crowing over the triumph of righteous Joshua in the vale of
Askalon. When I regained my composure somewhat, an inquisitive thought
occurred to me. I resolved to gratify it.
‘Merrymusk, will you present me to your wife and children?’
‘Yes. Wife, the gentleman wants to step in.’
‘He is very welcome,’ replied a weak voice.
Going behind the curtain, there lay a wasted, but strangely cheerful
human face; and that was pretty much all; the body, hid by the
counterpane and an old coat, seemed too shrunken to reveal itself
through such impediments. At the bedside sat a pale girl, ministering.
In another bed lay three children, side by side: three more pale faces.
‘Oh, father, we don’t mislike the gentleman, but let us see Trumpet
too.’
At a word, the cock strode behind the screen, and perched himself on the
children’s bed. All their wasted eyes gazed at him with a wild and
spiritual delight. They seemed to sun themselves in the radiant plumage
of the cock.
‘Better than a ’pothecary, eh?’ said Merrymusk. ‘This is Dr. Cock
himself.’
We retired from the sick ones, and I reseated myself again, lost in
thought over this strange household.
‘You seem a glorious independent fellow!’ said I.
‘And I don’t think you a fool, and never did. Sir, you are a trump.’
‘Is there any hope of your wife’s recovery?’ said I, modestly seeking to
turn the conversation.
‘Not the least.’
‘The children?’
‘Very little.’
‘It must be a doleful life, then, for all concerned. This lonely
solitude--this shanty--hard work--hard times.’
‘Haven’t I Trumpet? He’s the cheerer. He crows through all; crows at the
darkest: Glory to God in the highest! Continually he crows it.’
- title
- Chunk 31