The Laugh Maker — Inside the Classic

ne was her name—tall and sweet to look upon, with those pure blue eyes, dark with the beauty of violets, that go so well with hair which is brown in the shadow and gold in the sun. They proved it out together, all of a sudden. It is their story. And it will never be believed. But it’s the truth.

Bobby McTabb was born fat. He weighed fourteen pounds at the start—and kept going. He doubled up his avoirdupois at the end of the tenth month, was a fraternity joke at college in his twentieth year, and made the scales groan under two hundred and eighty pounds at the end of his thirtieth—when he came to Fawcettville. But don’t let these facts prejudice you against Bobby McTabb. At least don’t let them give you a wrong steer. For Bobby McTabb, in spite of his fat, was a live one. Fawcettville woke up the day he arrived and began to scrape off the age-old moss from round the hubs of its village institutions. For rumor had preceded Bobby McTabb. It endowed him with immense wealth. He was going to boom Fawcettville. The oldest inhabitants gathered in groups and discussed possibilities, while their sons and younger relations worked in the hay and wheat fields. Some believed a railroad was coming that way. Others that a big factory, like those in the cities, was to be built. A few smelled oil, and Bobby McTabb’s first appearance gave weight to every dream that had been dreamed. The villagers had never seen anything like him, from his patent leather shoes and his gaudily striped waistcoat to his round, rosy, laughing face. He was so fat that he appeared to be short, though he was above medium height, and everyone agreed at first glance that no soul less than that of a millionaire could possibly abide within this earthly tabernacle that disclosed itself to their eyes. But Bobby McTabb quickly set all rumors at rest. He had come to found a bank—the first bank in Fawcettville. At that minute he had just one hundred and twenty-seven dollars in his pocket. But he said nothing of that.

How Bobby McTabb started his bank has nothing to do with this story. But he did it—inside of a week, and prospered. The first part of the story is how he won Confidence—and met the girl. It was his fat, and his round, rosy, laughing face that counted. Within a month all the men liked him, the children loved him, and mothers and daughters were ready to trust him with anything. And never for an instant did Bobby betray one of their trusts. He was lovable from the boots up, and grew fatter in his prosperity as the months rolled by. He discarded his gaudy attire, and did as the other Romans did—wore a broad-brimmed “haying” hat in summer, “wash shirts,” and seamless trousers. He joined the village church, was elected Sunday-school superintendent without a dissenting vote, and was soon the heart and soul of every country rollicking-bee for miles around. Bobby woke up every morning with a laugh in his soul and a smile on his boyish face, and he carried that smile and laugh about with him through every hour of the day. He was happy. Everywhere he preached the gospel of happiness and optimism. If your heart was sick with a heavy burden it would lighten the moment you heard his laugh. And it was a glum face that wouldn’t break into a smile when it met Bobby McTabb’s coming round the corner.

It was at the end of his second year that Bobby met Kitty Duchene. What sweet-eyed, blue-eyed Kitty might not have done with him Fawcettville will never know. She liked him. She would have loved him, and married him, if he hadn’t been so fat. Anyway, grief didn’t settle very heavily upon those ponderous shoulders of B. McTabb. He never laughed a laugh less, and he didn’t stop for a minute in making other people laugh. It was his hobby, and all the women in the world couldn’t have broken it. “Make your neighbors laugh and you shall inherit the Kingdom of Heaven,” he used to say. “Drive out worry and care and you are clubbing the devil.” And so it came to pass that by the time he had spent three years in Fawcettville, Bobby McTabb was greater in his community than the governor of the state or the president of the nation. And this was the condition of affairs toward which Bobby had been planning.

And then, one morning, he was missing.