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When Maurice Tallow was brought into this world, he was already so tight-fisted that the doctor had to lay off cutting the umbilical cord out of his pudgy little hands until he fell asleep.
Maurice Tallow saved the bodies of every single fly and ant he swatted, to be used as fertilizer for his garden.
Maurice Tallow had once hoped to be a hangman, for eagerness of getting the first crack at new (used) boots and golden teeth.
Now, the facts of these statements from Maurice’s neighbours might be in some kind of dispute, at least according to how literally you take that sort of thing. But as for the tales that were told… well, they gave a message, and one that had a pretty good, practical meaning to it with no room to argue. Nobody who knew Maurice was interested in arguing, more like commiserating.
He came into their lives one musty June evening, when the days were starting to get hot enough to make the nights stuffy and thick and the word came around that somebody had bought the old farmhouse up on the hill by Rockfoot Glade.
“Troublesome,” the man who sold him the land had warned him. “A troublesome place with a lot of short histories. Bad soil, maybe not, but something in the air there gets into your head. It’s not a healthy spot.”
“It’s cheap,” said Maurice Tallow, and he took the deed and left the man with the money, fingers unclenching from it with the reluctance of a spider forced to abandon its prey. He moved in quick as lightning, shunned the greetings of his new neighbours, and locked himself up to shuffle around his possessions in silence.
Well, that silence wasn’t quite the blessing Maurice had been looking for. It was quiet up there on the hill by the glade, that’s for sure. At nights it was so quiet you could just about hear everything, and everything could hear you right back. And in the morning, you’d find odd marks in the dust out front and around the windows of the house, made by who knew what. It was tiresome and a nuisance and it was making Maurice jumpier by the day.
Finally, one day in early July he got up in the morning and found the door open a crack. Well, that was that. Enough was enough. It was time he did something about this, and what he did was he invited over his three closest new neighbours for a quick lunch and a few questions.
“Friends and neighbours,” said Maurice (lying out of one side of his mouth), “I’m having some troubles here. The man I bought this place from said this wasn’t a healthy spot, and with the strangeness I’ve been seeing, I’m not as doubtful as I was when I spent my money.”
“It’s truth,” said the widow Edna, taking a polite bite from one of the pieces of butterless bread Maurice had kindly, grudgingly gifted to them, along with warm water. “Been a nasty spot since my grandmother’s mother moved in, swear as sure as kittens. Not a man nor woman who’s lived here for more’n half a year.”
Maurice’s mouth puckered in annoyance as he watched the bread vanish. “Right. Right. But what’s caused all this then? What’s made this place so bad?”
“All sorts of boogums and beasties,” said the blacksmith Hughes, sipping at his water (Maurice twitched). “Varmits and trolls, you name it, it’s got it. Who knows what kind of goblins been out here of a full-moon night, hankering about on their forelimbs. Not a good place anywhere for anything that blinks to spend a safe evening by the glade.”
“There’s got to be a way around it,” snapped Maurice. “I’m not letting any damned critters take what’s mine away from me, not for what I paid for it.”
“Iron and silver might work,” drawled out the farmer Braxton, turning his hat over and over in his big rough hands. “Get a horseshoe over that door and nail a silver penny next to it.”
“Best to leave them some supper, too,” said the widow Edna. “A dish of milk a fortnight’ll keep them fed and away from your door.”
“And don’t leave any iron lying about when you turn in,” added the blacksmith Hughes. “They’ll take offense at that, sure as shooting.”
“Thank you kindly, neighbours of mine,” said Maurice Tallow, and he up and snatched all of the food right out of their mouths, plain as day. “The door’s that-away, good night and goodbye, thanks again, don’t tarry.”
So as three people went home in all kinds of bad moods, Maurice sat in his house and thought, and then he took up a spare horseshoe and a silver penny and gathered in his old wood-cutting axe from outdoors, and he put out the smallest dish he owned, filled with the barest scrapings of milk from his cow. The horseshoe got nailed up without a problem, but the penny vexed him until he strapped it up with a thin lace of twine; it’d be a waste to put a nail through a coin like that, he figured.
Maurice went to bed cautious and woke up after the first good night of quiet rest he’d had since he’d moved in – normal, noisy quiet, not that big empty quiet that swallowed you whole. In fact, he felt so refreshed that he worked all day chopping wood while nearly-whistling, happy as a clam until the axe head snagged when it should’ve sliced and nearly came off in his hand. That put him off his stride, and he groused all the way down the hill and over the way to the blacksmith Hughes’s house.
“A good day to ya,” said Hughes, looking up the nails his apprentice was labouring over.
“Broken axe,” said Maurice shortly, and he tossed it down on the work bench atop the horseshoes with a clatter. “Needs a repairing.”
Hughes picked it up and glanced it over. “Bit of a knock, eh? Best be mindful with this thing; it’s not made to cut down big stuff. Keep it for your firewood once she’s mended, but you might want to get something bigger for the felling. I’ll charge you a fair price on it.”
“A fair price for your pocket, no doubt,” said Maurice. “No, I’ll take my axe as she is – here, mend it with haste! I’ve got work to do before sundown.”
“Well, that’ll be a minute here,” said Hughes. “My boy Wallace here can take that job for you, but he has to finish up this batch of nails first. Boys down at the mill need them soon, for the mending after last week’s storm.”
“I am a paying customer and I demand to have this axe mended on the double!” snapped Maurice.
“Can’t fix it with the forge full,” said Hughes, shrugging hopelessly. “Wallace’ll be done in a moment and the job won’t take much more’n that.”
“Sluggardly slug should’ve finished hours ago at the rate he’s going,” said Maurice. “As lazy as his father, no doubt! To blazes with both of you, I’ll fix the thing myself and at twice the speed!” And with that he spat on the forge – a quick, sour sizzle followed – and set off home at a foul-mooded trot, swearing and kicking at clods of dirt the whole way. By the time his house hove into his sight the head of his axe had been jarred off altogether, and with a burst of curses he flung it into a bush, the battered iron head whup-whup-whupping through the air until it came to rest in a sapling with a thud.
“Useless!” he snarled, and he went indoors in such a foul mood that he almost forgot to put the milk out that night. His hands were still shaking sore with ire as he poured, and a good measure of it spilled over the dirt of his stoop, leaving the jug nigh-empty.
“Damn and blast!” he said, and went to bed angry, fuming ‘til the dawn. By morning his temper had fared no better, and he kicked the milk dish into the thicket as he left for the widow Edna’s farm, to borrow a pitcher of milk.
“Sure for it’s fine,” she told him. “Less than a dollar, and you can keep the pitcher too, when you’re through.”
“A dollar!” cried Maurice, turning purple in the face with alarming speed. “Damn me thrice over, woman, I’m not made of money!”
“No call for language like that,” said Edna, unruffled. “No call at all. Besides, I did say it’s less than –“
“A dollar! For a pitcher! I could buy a cow for a dollar! I could buy a BARN of cows for a dollar! A dollar – bah, is this pitcher made from gold? This one here” – and he seized a jug from the mantelpiece, splashing it full in such haste that it messed the floor – “will suit me fine…here’s a penny for the lot, and not a whit more! Good day and GOODBYE!” And with that Maurice Tallow was off again, slamming the door behind him.
Edna frowned, which wasn’t normal for her, and muttered a word she didn’t like to use. Then she found that the pitcher Maurice had seized for the milk was her silver teapot, the one her grandmother’s mother had given her, and she shouted that word of hers out loud. But Maurice was down the road and up the hill by then, safe and sound on his way home and chuckling to himself fit to burst. When he got up to the door he looked into that deep, thick, thorny thicket he’d chucked the milk dish into, then he looked at that rich, creamy milk from the widow Edna’s cows.
“Bah, they’ll never miss it,” he declared, and went inside and shut the door. He had the milk with his supper, put the silver teapot on his mantelpiece, and went to bed happy again with a full stomach. The wind was calm that night, the trees kept their leaves still and rustle-less, and he slept in late, got up bleary-eyed, and had his horse throw a shoe as he got around to ploughing the back field.
“Damnit!” he swore, and kicked the horse. It kicked back. Then he picked himself up, rubbing his jaw a bit, and headed to the farmer Braxton’s place to borrow a horseshoe.
“Not really what pa keeps spares of,” said Braxton’s eldest daughter. “You try the blacksmith?”
“The blacksmith’s a greedy bastard who’ll suck the life out of me as soon as my money,” complained Maurice to her chest. “Figured your father’d have a spare shoe lying around for his friend and neighbor, free of charge.”
“Don’t know about that,” she told him, a bit of January weather creeping into her voice. “Anything else?”
“Well, maybe nothing you’d want to tell your pa,” said Maurice, rubbing his chin a little and not bothering to shift his eyes. “Say, you ever want to drop by and visit, my door’s always open. Come by this eve if you’d like – and if your pa changes his mind about that horseshoe, feel free to bring it with you. I’ll make it worth your while.”
“I’ll keep it mindful,” she said. “Goodbye.”
“Come on now, no need to turn sour now, girl. Why don’t you come along home with me? Nobody needs to know; it’s not a long trip, and-”
“Go away.” And she shut the door much harder than was necessary (though not nearly as hard as she’d have liked) in Maurice’s face, nearly catching his nose off. He walked back home angry, kicked his horse again – from the front this time – took down the horseshoe from over the doorway, and spent the worst five hours of his life attaching it to his horse’s foot, nearly laming the poor animal five times over.
“And good riddance to you,” he said as he stomped inside for dinner. He slammed the door so hard the silver penny fell out of its sling and landed atop his head with a plunk.
“Some good luck at last,” he said, snatching it out of his hair. “Useless as ears on a tree up there, and good to remind me so. Haven’t gotten one thing worth having, knowing, or doing out of those useless sod-suckers since I moved in.” He stowed it in his sock with the rest of his money, locked the door, and went to bed.
Night came in. And when it left, well, it left a bit of a mess. And this is where we’ve got to go back on what folks said.
Folks said Maurice Tallow hadn’t been minding those ghoulies like he should’ve, so close to Rockfoot Glade. He let them go hungry after giving them a taste of the sweet stuff, he polluted their property, he took his warnings off the door, and well, they’d just had enough. They rose up against him, and that’s what took him out of his home in the night, leaving nothing but a pair of old, worn boots and a bad smell in the air.
Now, some of those facts are up for dispute; not everybody believes in beasties, of course, even the folks that live right near their front doors and build houses overtop their lairs. But that story stuck, and nobody told a lie to it. Because the tale had a message to it, and it had a good, solid, all-around makes-sense meaning to it. And nobody who’d known Maurice needed to be told it twice.