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-The Project Gutenberg EBook of Squire Phin, by Holman Day
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
-other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
-whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
-the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
-www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
-to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.
-
-
-
-Title: Squire Phin
-
-Author: Holman Day
-
-Release Date: August 11, 2017 [EBook #55340]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: UTF-8
-
-*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SQUIRE PHIN ***
-
-
-
-
-Produced by David Widger from page images generously
-provided by the Internet Archive
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-SQUIRE PHIN
-
-By Holman Day
-
-New York: Harper & Brothers
-
-1913
-
-
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-
-
-
-
-SQUIRE PHIN
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER I--“HARD-TIMES” WHARFF COCKS HIS NOSE TO SNIFF TROUBLE
-
-                   “Miss Lu-ce-e-e had a par-ret,
-
-                   An’ she kep’ it in the gar-ret,
-
-                   An’ she fed it on a car-ret,
-
-                   An’ she called him J. Iscar-ret,
-
-                   Tidy-um,
-
-                   Tidy-um!
-
-                   “An’ the par-ret had a feather
-
-                   That was blue in stormy weather,
-
-                   Or ‘twas red,--I donno whether,
-
-                   But ‘twas either one or t’ether,
-
-                        Tidy-um,
-
-                        Tidy-um!”
-
-                   --Favourite Song of “Hard-times” Wharff.
-
-The village sounds in Palermo that sleepy afternoon were only the
-“summer snorin’s,” as Marriner Amazeen used to say. There was the murmur
-of flies buzzing lazily around some banana, skins which curled limply
-in the August sun in front of Asa Brickett’s store. At the side of the
-building, in a patch of shade, a half-dozen old men, jack-knifed on a
-rickety settee, droned in intermittent conversation. From open kitchen
-windows along the village street came subdued sounds of the after-dinner
-work of the housewives--clash of cutlery and clatter of dishes. In a
-dusty maple whose lower branches had taken toll from passing loads of
-hay, a cicada shrilled his long-drawn note, like an almost interminable
-yawn.
-
-“First August fiddler I’ve heard,” commented one of the old men in the
-shade. “As old Drew used to say in his _Rural Intelligencer_:
-
-               “When August’s locusts wind their horn
-
-               Then first you know, Good Summer’s gone!”
-
-“Well, you don’t have to walk very fur in this sun to find out that she
-ain’t gone yit,” remarked an old man who had just arrived. He picked a
-few fresh burdock leaves and stuffed them into the crown of his cotton
-hat. “Some one ought to make ’Quar’us Wharff come in here out o’
-that sun,” he growled, scowling at a figure that stood on the corner
-of Brickett’s store platform, as straight and stiff as the gnawed
-hitching-post on the opposite corner.
-
-With cadence fully as sleepy as the other sounds of the languorous
-afternoon, a squeaking whiffle-tree came down the avenue of elms that
-bordered the street.
-
-The whiffle-tree was attached to a surrey that showed a city smartness
-of paint and trimmings under the dust. The bulk of the man on the front
-seat strained his linen coat. The two ladies on the back seat, evidently
-his wife and daughter, fairly crushed the springs with their weight.
-
-The portly man pulled up at the watering trough in Palermo’s little
-square and grunted over the wheel. When the horses began to wallow in
-the tub, plunging their reeking noses almost to their eyes, he handed
-the reins to his wife and walked toward the store, his gaze upon a bunch
-of wilted bananas that dangled just inside the door.
-
-The six gaunt men in the shade surveyed this triple display of city
-avoirdupois with disfavour. Somehow it all seemed a silent boast of
-urban prosperity.
-
-“I don’t reckon his woman needs to hang onto them reins very tight,”
- grunted Uncle Lysimachus Buck. “It’s all them horses can do to walk with
-that load--much less run away.”
-
-“All city folks do is stuff themselves mornin’, noon and night, and then
-’tween meals,” said Marriner Amazeen. “He’s after suthin’ to eat now,
-and I’ll bet ye on it.”
-
-“How much for a dozen of those bananas?” asked the rotund man,
-addressing the individual who stood so stiffly on the corner of the
-platform.
-
-“Wind sou’ by one p’int to the west, havin’ swung from west by nothe,”
- was the reply. He did not look at his questioner, but kept his head
-straight and his nose in the air.
-
-“That ain’t nothin’ but ’Quar’us havin’ a weather-vane spell,”
- apologised Brickett, appearing in the door and lounging against the side
-of the building. He drawled, “I’ll sell ye fifteen for a quarter. Help
-yourself.”
-
-The stranger broke off the fruit, stuffed it into his wide pockets,
-placed the change in Brickett’s languid palm, and went back to his
-carriage, casting an eye of scorn on the platform sentinel as he
-repassed him.
-
-Then he climbed painfully back to his seat. With a grunt he pulled
-the reluctant horses back from the trough, where they were now making
-pretence of drinking, sucked his tongue at them pantingly and proceeded
-on his “carriage tour of the coast.”
-
-As the horses plodded into the sun-glare from under the village elms,
-the portly man swung around and said to his wife and daughter: “The town
-pump and the town clock and the town fool, fifty houses bunched around
-’em and everybody asleep! My God, think of living in a place like this
-all your life.”
-
-“The old man standing on the store platform wasn’t crazy, was he, papa?”
- the daughter inquired.
-
-“Why don’t you use your eyes once in a while, Belle?” the fat man
-snorted. “The way country towns let old lunatics run at large is
-something awful.”
-
-He whipped up and the surrey clattered across the bridge at the head of
-the cove. There was a puff of cool air from the shadows where the tide
-gurgled about the weedy piles, and the three people went on around the
-hill with the tang of the salt smell in their nostrils, and in their
-minds a totally erroneous idea of Palermo and one of its institutions.
-
-Fat city men are sometimes too matter-of-fact to understand the
-eccentricities of genius. This traveller simply went on--out of Palermo
-and out of this story--he and his wife and his daughter, his reeking
-horses and smart surrey. He beheld Aquarius Wharff actually engaged in
-his biggest job of prognostication---snuffing at the first of a train of
-events that “ripped open” Palermo--and yet he only clucked to his horses
-and drove on and never realised what he had observed.
-
-“Hard-times” Wharff had been standing for quite two hours in the
-broiling sun on the extreme corner of Asa Brickett’s grocery store
-platform. His attitude was familiar enough to his townsmen. He was on
-the tripod, so to speak, as a soothsayer, though it is hardly proper,
-perhaps, to speak of one leg as a tripod. He wearily balanced himself,
-shifting feet from time to time. His dingy old felt hat had the crown
-pinched to a peak and, before and behind, the broad brim was similarly
-pinched to peaks. The effect was somewhat that of a general’s chapeau,
-and its ludicrous illusion was heightened by a considerable assortment
-of rooster’s tail feathers thrust into the crown.
-
-When “Hard-times”--a name more generally employed locally than
-Aquarius--stood on one foot in front of Brickett’s store, his hat
-flattened fore and aft--‘twas known by local observers that he was
-having one of his “weather-vane spells.” Now, this little fancy harmed
-no one, and it was agreed in Palermo that no other resident could smell
-a change of weather so far ahead as Aquarius Wharff.
-
-If he stood on two feet, well balanced, and glowered grimly, he was
-merely indulging in a fancy for his own amusement. Though he never
-explained his ruminations to any one, it was suspected that he revelled
-in a proud triumph of the imagination and felt all the haughtiness of a
-bald-headed eagle. Certain it is that Palermo respected his abstraction
-and did not smile when he stroked his plumage and fixed a still more
-piercing gaze on the horizon.
-
-Aquarius Wharff believed--and his townsmen agreed--that as a
-weather-vane he was distinctly serviceable to Palermo. He would
-inveigh against the inaccuracy of the dingy, rusty arrow on the Union
-Meeting-house, and then would perk his nose into the wind, and rotate
-himself on his wavering leg to show his own superior manageability. When
-he permitted himself to play eagle it was purely for his own relaxation.
-
-When he was not engaged in either pursuit Aquarius Wharff was a mild
-and neighbourly man who lived with his “old maid” sister, Virgo, in the
-little brown house beyond the currier shop. His twin delusions were his
-only “outs,” and his tolerant neighbours in Palermo had long ago ceased
-to pay any attention to his divagations. But when a man stands for
-two hours in the broiling sun in one attitude he makes a picture that
-disturbs his friends. Uncle Lysimachus Buck, whose chair was propped
-against the side of the store in the shade, desisted from “teaming”
- a worried caterpillar with his cane and called querously: “For
-timenation’s sake, ’Quar’us, come set down out o’ the sun, do! It
-makes me steam and sweat to look at ye.”
-
-“Wind quart’rin’ to west’ard, mack’rel sky, sign o’ rain, hard times
-gen’rally and nothin’ ’cept air put into doughnut holes nowadays,”
- croaked Aquarius without turning his head; “I jest see six crows fly
-s’uth’ards from the Cod-Head spruces, and that means somethin’ ’sides
-a heavy fog.”
-
-He shifted to his other leg and set his neck more stiffly, and continued
-at his feat of endurance with the pertinacity of an Indian fakir.
-
-“He’ll git sunstruck, sure’s Tophet’s a poor place to store powder in,”
- commented Buck. His snappy tones indicated that his selfishness at being
-annoyed by the figure in the sun’s glare was more provoked than his
-solicitude.
-
-“Why don’t you git under a tree and rest?” he demanded. “An’ if you’re
-bound and determined to play dog-vane, then hold an emb’rel over
-yourself. Swan, if it don’t make me dizzy to watch him!” Uncle Buck took
-off his cotton hat and turned the burdock leaves in the crown to bring
-their cool surface next to his bald head.
-
-“I’ve thought at times that ’Quar’us was losin’ his mind some--more’n
-what runs in the family,” observed Dow Babb, unhooking his toe from
-behind his ankle and immediately retwisting his long, gaunt legs in the
-other direction. His townsmen had nicknamed him “Fly” Babb on account of
-this trait.
-
-“He ain’t nobody’s fool, ’Quar’us ain’t,” remarked Brickett, who,
-in the midday dearth of traffic, was lounging at the shady side of the
-store. “Them Wharffses is weather-struck and always was so, ’way back.
-It runs in the fam’ly--seems to! Old Gran’ther Wharff, you know, kept a
-di’ry of storms, droughts, hot and cold streaks and all such, till the
-day he died, and his son Zodiac figured out of that di’ry all the signs
-of storms and so forth. I’ve got ’em writ some’ere in my desk--change
-o’ wind, birds’ flyin’s, bugs’ actions, cobweb signs on the grass and
-all! Yass’r, the weather streak runs in the family, all right.”
-
-“I reckon it must ’a’ been runnin’ hard in Zodiac Wharff,” snorted
-Buck, “to make him saddle sech names on to his children as ’Quarius,
-Capri-cornus, A-rees, Virgo and--what was that light-complected one that
-went West and got lugged off by a terronado? I can never think of that
-dum name!”
-
-“Sagittar’us, wa’n’t it?” suggested Brickett.
-
-“Ye-e-aw, that’s it, and he called them ‘Signs of the Zodiac,’ Zode did.
-No wonder the most of ’em died young in that fam’ly! Names like them
-would kill yaller dogs.”
-
-“’Quar’us, ain’t you comin’ in out o’ that blaze o’ sun?” rasped Buck.
-
-“Don’t buther me when I’m prognosticatin’,” replied the stubborn
-meteorologist; “ain’t you gittin’ all your weather from me free--and
-hard times all ’round us at that--wind shiftin’s and signs and
-portents and all the wonders of the heavens? Then lemme alone. Kingbird
-chasin’ a crow,” he went on with his eye on the horizon, where the
-dwarf spruces bristled on Cod-Head like spikes on a huge quillpig. “And
-’tain’t all weather that’s a-comin’ this way to-day.”
-
-“Spite o’ that loony streak in the Wharffses they have done some pretty
-tol’lable s’prisin’ things,” observed Dow Babb, untwisting his legs
-and reversing his clutch. “There’s somethin’ else in ’em besides that
-weather crack. Now, we all know here in P’ler-mo that ’Quar’us can
-smell a weather change quick’s a groundhog can. Born with the faculty,
-you might say. Takes it from old Zode, and even further back, for that
-matter. But him and Virgo, both of ’em, take somethin’ different than
-the weather streak from the mother’s side. She was old Rudd Goffses’
-girl of Smyrna Mills, and old Rudd could cast a mist.”
-
-“I’ve heard he could,” vouchsafed Marriner Amazeen, striking the
-dottle from his clay pipe into his hard palm with a flare of sparks and
-preparing for a refill.
-
-“He was born with a caul, Rudd was.”
-
-“Heard that, too,” tersely agreed Amazeen. “Old Aunt Spencer ’fore she
-died was tellin’ my mother that the caul was just like lace, and came
-down all ‘round his face, and they had to untie it where it was knotted
-behind jest like a woman’s veil.”
-
-“Yass’r, he had the second sight and the seventh sense, and he could
-really magick folks, Rudd could,” Babb went on; “and there’s people
-alive right over in Smyrna to-day that’ll tell you what they’ve seen
-with their two eyes. ’Tain’t no use for us to poo-hoo things that was
-before our time, just ’cause we didn’t see ’em. I tell you, the old
-sirs could do things we couldn’t, and Rudd was one of the best o’
-the lot in the magickin’ line. One day down to Smyrna, in the Guild
-deestrick, he cast a mist on much as a dozen people at once, and they
-thought they saw a Braymy rooster of old Matherson’s haulin’ off a
-twenty foot log up street. Whilst they was standin’ gawpin’, ’long
-come old Zene Sparks and says, ‘What ye standin’ here for, all on ye?’
-
-“‘Ain’t it enough of a thing to stand around for when a rooster is
-haulin’ off a log like that?’ asked one o’ the crowd, pointin’ his
-finger.
-
-“Zeke ups and says, ‘That rooster must be owin’ all on ye money by the
-way you’re lookin’ at him. He ain’t doin’ anything except walk along
-with an oat straw hitched to his tail!’
-
-“And that’s all there was to it, so fur’s Zene could see. The mist
-wasn’t cast on him, you understand, for he wasn’t there at the
-start-off.”
-
-There followed an interval of meditative silence, broken at length by
-the slow voice of Amazeen, beginning another chronicle.
-
-“I’ve heard tell,” he droned, “of Rudd bettin’ ten bushels of oats down
-to the old blacksmith shop that used to set where the curry shop sets
-now, that he would put his head right against the butt of a hemlock log
-that laid in the yard and crawl right through it lengthwise and come
-out o’ the little end. They took him up--the three or four that was
-there--and he got down on his hands and knees, and they all swear to a
-man that he went right out o’ sight into that log. Up come a man that
-the mist wasn’t over, and when they told him what kind of a hen was on
-he vowed and declared that he couldn’t see nothin’ out o’ the way but
-old Rudd Goff crawlin’ along the top of the log, and then the man up and
-gave Rudd a jeerously old swat with his gad-stick, and Rudd come hopping
-off that log in a hurry, now, I tell you. And all could see him then.
-He laid his hands on the tingly place and he let into that man hot and
-heavy, so fur’s language would take him. If Rudd’s tongue had been a
-horsewhip that man would have ridges all over him. But as it was they
-haw-hawed old Rudd off’n the premises. He could cast a mist, though,
-there ain’t no doubt about that! And there was lots of old sirs that
-could.”
-
-Babb retwisted his legs with a nervous snap as he concluded.
-
-The little group in the shade gazed on the solitary figure bathed in
-the beating August sunshine. For a moment he ceased to be in their
-eyes merely old “Hard-Times” Wharff. They stared at him with a bit of
-superstitious respect, as they always did when they remembered how the
-blood of old Rudd Goff was in him.
-
-“You’ve got to own up that there are queer things in this world.”
- mumbled Amazeen.
-
-The old man on the platform revolved slightly on his single leg of
-support. He slowly swung his head from side to side, his eyes still on
-the horizon line.
-
-“They’ve lit five times and ris’ five times and circled five times and
-now lit again,” he cried.
-
-“Who’s lit?” demanded Uncle Buck snappishly.
-
-“Crows.”
-
-“Well, what if they have? They know enough to get down out of the sun.
-Come in here, ’Quar’us, with us. I can hear what few brains you’ve got
-sizzlin’ like a pan o’ tomcod a-fryin’!”
-
-“Over the hills! Crows a-flyin’ and crows a-watch-in’! Hard times
-comin’, that’s what I guess.”
-
-“I s’pose there’s really a name for that--that--well, the sense for
-knowin’ that somethin’ is comin’ in the weather line or mebbe the line
-o’ trouble,” pursued Amazeen, puffing meditatively. It was a placid
-afternoon for quiet and contemplative discourse of this sort.
-
-Little breezes wavered along the shady side of Brickett’s store and
-stirred the grasses. Other breezes skylarked through the wide-open
-front doors of the store and came out at the side door near the old men.
-Inside the store the breezes did what the people of Palermo usually did
-when they visited Brickett’s emporium--they swapped commodities. The
-breezes brought their little treasures of pure, salty fragrance from the
-cove and took away queer little whiffs of spices that were stacked in
-wooden boxes, sickish-sweet scents from the tobacco “figs,” aroma of
-coffee and tea, flavourings from the candy show case and more pungent
-odours of kerosene and dried herring.
-
-“Now a dog,” stated Amazeen, “don’t really have no common sense like
-human bein’s, but then a dog knows when any one’s goin’ to die in a
-neighbourhood, and don’t he git out front o’ the house and stick his
-nose straight up in the air and lally-hoo till some one kicks him
-gallywest? That’s a sense of knowin’ ahead o’ time, and he’s born with
-it--and that’s somethin’ how ’tis with ’Quar’us. Them as says he’s
-just loony ain’t watched him same’s I have.”
-
-The old man on the platform had shifted his legs again. The breeze
-fluttered his long hair and the sun was stealing the last of the
-original colour from his yellowed garments. The men in the shade were
-silent, partly from slumbrous laziness, partly because their slow minds
-were once again revolving one of their stock problems: What mysterious
-faculty of divination did “Hard-Times” Wharff possess?
-
-“There ain’t no disputin’ that he’s foretold full a dozen line gales
-that was comin’ to rip the stuffin’ out o’ things ’long the coast,”
- said Brickett. “That much we all know! Time the school-house was burned
-down he had it all predicted out--leastways, he told ’round that the
-critter with red tongue and crackling teeth and all out doors for a
-gizzard was comin’ towards our village--and that’s a fire, ain’t it?
-He’s seen shrouds in candles for fifty fam’lies in P’lermo, I’ll
-bet you, just come to count ’em up! There’s
-somethin’--somethin’--‘lectricity--or hypnotickism, or somethin’! These
-scientists will git it figured out some day!”
-
-They all pondered in silence, the hush of the sultry afternoon drowsily
-brooding. In the store shed a stub-tailed horse dozed uneasily between
-the thills of Dow Babb’s beach waggon, occasionally thudding his hoof in
-the soft soil, trying to dislodge the clustering flies. Somewhere in the
-maple tree the cicada whirred in long, shrill diminuendo.
-
-“I ain’t no sp’tu’list or nothin’ of that sort,” broke out Uncle Buck.
-“And I don’t b’lieve in no sech things like you’re talkin’ about, nor
-that any Wharff that ever lived was anything except cracked--like that
-old one-legged her’n out there,” he added, directing an eye of disfavour
-on Aquarius. “I tell you if they could cast mists in the old times,
-then why can’t they do it now, when everything is so much
-improved---telefoams and telegraphts and ’lectric cars and all that?
-Any man that ever claimed to see a rooster haul off a log was a dum liar
-if he said so.”
-
-Dow Babb flipped his legs together indignantly.
-
-“’Tain’t any particular politeness to call my rel’tives names, is it?”
- he demanded. “Furdermore, uncle never said he see the rooster act’ly
-_haul_ a log; he said it _looked_ as if he had done it, ’cause the
-mist had been cast.”
-
-“Ain’t nothin’ in it no one way or t’other,” persisted Uncle Buck
-doggedly. “’Tain’t reasonable, ’tain’t Christian, and whatever
-’tis it’s works of Satan, and I, as a church member, ain’t goin’ to
-stand by and let things like that be said without aye, yes or no to
-’em!” He thudded his fist on his knee.
-
-“I’ll bet there is such things as magic and--aw--well, you can call it
-witchcraft,” cried Babb, rather hampered in argument by lack of terms.
-“Come now, I’ll bet you!”
-
-“What do you propose to do--call up your Uncle Ben from Turtle Knoll
-graveyard or--or leave it out to old Wind-cutter, there?” queried Buck,
-sarcastically, with a hook of his thumb toward the Palermo human weather
-vane.
-
-Babb was clearly nonplussed for a moment, but his face suddenly lighted
-up. He untangled his legs, crawled out of his chair and cried:
-
-“I’ll leave it out to the man that P’lermo is always ready to leave out
-all questions to--and that’s Squire Phin Look, by thunder!”
-
-He shook his skinny finger at the dingy windows over Brickett’s store.
-
-“If he don’t know there ain’t nobody does,” observed Brickett, clicking
-his yellow teeth with decision.
-
-“Why should he know? ’Tain’t law, nor nothin’ that goes with law,”
- persisted Buck.
-
-“You see if he don’t know,” retorted Babb. “It wa’n’t lo’din’ a jackass
-with books when Squire Look went through college. Now let’s go up and
-ask him, boys--what ye say?”
-
-“Oh, holler to him to come down here,” drawled Amazeen, loath to leave
-his seat. “There ain’t chairs enough in his office to go ’round
-amongst us--and I’ve been sick of the smell of law books ever since I
-lost my bound’ry line case.”
-
-Therefore Babb threw back his head and bawled huskily, “Squire Phin!
-Squire Phin Look!” From his mouth, as from the mouths of all Palermo,
-the title sounded like “Square.” At the second call they heard a chair’s
-legs pushed squeakingly on the floor and an answering bellow that was
-jovial though wordless. And those who had straightened up to listen
-lounged lazily down again to wait for him.
-
-A rickety outside stairway led up to the Squire’s office.
-
-On the old tin sign between the dusty front windows was:
-
-                        PHINEAS LOOK
-
-                   Attorney and Notary
-
-The purr of the coffee grinder in the store beneath was a frequent
-obbligato to the conferences between Squire Phin and his clients, and
-the savour of spice and odour of kerosene stole up through the floor
-cracks to mingle with the decidedly athletic fragrance of the Squire’s
-blackened T. D. pipe.
-
-Once he forgot one of those sooty-hued pipes and left it in the
-attorney’s room at county court, and the young lawyers got ribbons and
-hung it from a chandelier with a card reading, “Erected in Memory of
-Phin Look.” Squire Look patiently hunted for that pipe when he went
-to county court again, for its stoutness, after many months of careful
-seasoning, appealed to his taste. But he never looked as high as the
-chandelier.
-
-Folks who knew Squire Phin well declared that he had never looked high
-enough in life--not as high as his merits entitled. Men who understood
-such things said that he knew enough law to match any judge on the State
-bench, but in middle life he was still sitting up in his little office
-over Brickett’s store, smoking his pipe and reading his fat law books,
-with their shiny, hand-smooched bindings.
-
-“Well, boys!” he said, as he came out upon the landing above them and
-leaned over the rail. “What do you want to do--nominate me for Congress
-at a mass-meeting?”
-
-Without waiting for a reply he jammed a round-topped straw hat upon his
-thick hair and came down the stairs with solid tread. A fat and fuzzy
-old dog followed on his heels with tread comically similar. “I had two
-of ’em once,” he was wont to say, “Eli and Uli, but I gave away Uli to
-another lawyer and kept Eli.”
-
-“They say, Squire Look,” began Uncle Buck, as soon as the lawyer came
-within hearing, “that you can tell us whether old ‘Hard-Times’ there
-ought to be hitched up on town hall cupoly as a vane or sent to the
-insane ’sylum.”
-
-“It ain’t fair to put it that way,” remonstrated Dow Babb, and he
-proceeded to state the point of contention.
-
-The two deep lines on either side of the Squire’s straight mouth curved
-away, and his round, smooth-shaven face beamed upon them humorously.
-
-“It isn’t the first time, gentlemen,” he said, “that the motives of
-a philanthropist have been misconstrued by the people to whom he has
-presented himself and his services.”
-
-“What I contend,” broke in Dow Babb, “is that ’Quar’us has a sort of
-seventh sense to smell happening ahead. I don’t know what to call it,
-but it’s like what a dog has to make him go to howlin’ when some one’s
-goin’ to die.”
-
-“Well, you ought to ask Eli about that,” suggested the Squire, his smile
-broader. “That seems to be right in his line,” and then, looking down
-into the humid eyes of the dog, he asked, “Eli, why do you howl when
-some one is going to die?”
-
-The canine, who was squatting on the grass, thumped his tail agitatedly
-and uttered a short “Wuff!”
-
-“Can you talk dog well enough to understand?” asked the lawyer of Buck.
-
-“Now, Squire,” pleaded Babb whiningly, “you tell us straight. This ain’t
-foolin’. We ain’t been able to coax the old sir off’n that platform so
-fur this afternoon. He was like that on the days before the line storms
-and on them other times. He don’t act out a weather vane usually more’n
-a half hour on a stretch and then sets down and chaws tobacker with us
-like a human bein’!”
-
-“You’ve asked me some pretty tough questions,” said the lawyer,
-dismissing his jocularity. He leaned the shiny shoulders of his
-threadbare frock coat against the clapboards, careless of the white
-smooches that were immediately transferred to the cloth. “Now, as to
-the casting of a mist by the old chaps we have heard of in this section,
-I’ll say that perhaps they had the same power as some of the Hindoos
-that travellers describe. Men whose words ought to be good assert that
-to all appearances some of those fellows throw the end of a rope into
-the air and climb up and up, and so out of sight.”
-
-Uncle Buck pronged a mighty chew of tobacco out of the side of his jaw
-with his tongue and tossed it afar into the milkweed stalks that grew
-beside the horse shed. He snorted his unbelief.
-
-“You might just as soon tell me,” he declared, “as how that quid o’ mine
-could turn into a royal Bengal tiger and come roarin’ back here to chaw
-me up.”
-
-“I wisht a plug o’ tobacker would chase you once,” declared Amazeen.
-“P’raps you wouldn’t be borrowin’ so much of it all the time if you got
-one good scare.”
-
-Squire Phin was evidently about to explain to his fellow townsmen more
-explicitly regarding the mysteries of the East, as related by veracious
-investigators, when he was interrupted by the cause of all the argument.
-
-“Hard-Times” Wharff suddenly came down upon both feet, put his hand to
-his brow, peered up the highway where it snaked into the distant spruce
-growth, and cried in a very human tone of rural astonishment:
-
-“Well, dod-butter doughnuts, holes and all, ’tain’t no wonder the
-crows kept a-flyin’! Hard times is a-comin’ to town a-ridin’ on a pony.
-Come here and see ’em!”
-
-Led by Babb, striding on legs that worked like calipers, the old men
-flocked around the corner of the store into the sunshine, each uttering
-his own characteristic note of astonishment as he swung into view of the
-road.
-
-Squire Phin leisurely followed. But the spectacle in the highway was
-sufficient to make him stare at the approaching procession with surprise
-that almost equalled the emotion of his more naïve townsmen.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II--“HIME” LOOK’S HOMECOMING WITH AN ELEPHANT
-
-AND TROUBLE AND A FEW OTHER THINGS
-
-
-
-                   “Go ask your mother for fifteen cents
-
-                   To see the elephant jump the fence,
-
-                   He jumps so high that he’ll hit the sky,
-
-                   And he won’t come down till the Fourth of July.”
-
-
-A GRIMY, wrinkled and slouchy elephant, pudging ahead and straining at
-his rusty harness, followed by eight horses plodding two and two, was
-drawing a train of vehicles whose outlines were almost hidden by the
-dust cloud rolling up from under the scuffing hoofs. Through puffs of
-dust, glass surfaces sparkled dully, and there was an occasional glint
-of gilt. The leading waggon could be more plainly seen.
-
-“It’s a reg’lar circus cart,” said Brickett, wonderingly.
-
-They all perceived that the shape of the waggon’s body was the
-simulacrum of a large caravel whose bow and stern rose high in the air.
-
-There was a gilded, life-size female figure at the bow and a companion
-figure at the stern. The only man in sight was perched on a high seat
-let into the fore part of the waggon, the converging lines of the bow
-meeting just above his head.
-
-“But there ain’t been no circus advertised ’round here,” cried Uncle
-Lysimachus Buck, as he stared.
-
-The strange train of vehicles swung wide at the head of the cove to
-cross the creek bridge.
-
-“There’s six of ’em,” commented Amazeen, as the waggons presented
-their broadsides, “and it’s a circus, dummed if ’tain’t.”
-
-One waggon was fastened behind another. Three vans with huge mirrors
-in the sides were following the big boat-waggon in the lead; the fifth
-vehicle had a circular body scalloped like a sea shell, and a painted
-figure held a canopy over it; sixth and last trundled a little red cart
-of the kind made familiar by circus chariot races.
-
-The driver of this strange outfit guided his dripping horses and the
-huge piloter across the bridge. He cracked a big whip over them, and
-they came up the short rise toward Brickett’s store, gallantly surging
-to the work, the faded bridle pompons nodding above the horses’ heads,
-the dust swirling behind. The elephant shuffled briskly, ragged ears
-flapping and trunk swaying.
-
-The breeze on top of the hill volleyed the dust back on the procession,
-and when the driver pulled up in the little square with a mighty bellow
-of “Whoa!” he and his outfit were almost invisible. As the white cloud
-settled away and revealed the waggons the little group on Brickett’s
-platform stared open-mouthed at every feature. The gilding was dingy,
-the paint blistered and cracked, the mirrors streaked and grimy, but the
-elephant and the chariots and the circus glamour were all there.
-
-The man who sat on the high seat wore a dusty tall hat, cocked back so
-far as to almost rest on his neck. A linen duster was buttoned
-closely under his gray whiskers--prolongations of his bristling
-moustache--descending in two trailing streams and framing a smoothly
-shaved chin. This elderly stranger set his elbows on his knees, the
-reins hanging loosely, leaned forward and leisurely surveyed the group
-on the platform. One eye was set and immovable--a glass eye. The other
-roved and twinkled and shuttled and blinked in lively style.
-
-“Let’s see,” he began, a keen glint in his movable eye, “isn’t there a
-cheap lawyer in this place named Phineas Look?”
-
-The movable eye fell upon Squire Phin. It glittered for an instant more
-brightly. The muscles of the hard face seemed to twitch a little. But he
-said no more, and with a curious intentness awaited a reply.
-
-The Squire had started at the sound of the stranger’s voice. Then he
-shoved his hands deep into his trousers pockets and stared hard at the
-man, his brows knotting slowly, as though he were endeavouring to recall
-something.
-
-“I don’t know who you be, nor where you come from, nor I don’t care,”
- snapped Amazeen; “but I want to say to you, mister, that you’d better
-call the leadin’ man in P’lermo by a different name, ’specially when
-he’s standin’ here in hearin’!” He shook an indignant cane at the man
-and swung and pointed it at Phineas.
-
-At this instant a raucous voice squalled a long, loud “Yah-h-h!” A cage
-was hung to one of the figures of the big waggon, whose seats showed a
-former use as a band chariot. A ragged, gray parrot was in the cage. He
-clutched a bar in his warty claws, rapped his bill violently and yelled:
-
-“Crack ’em down, gents! It’s the old army game!”
-
-The Squire took a quick step forward, halted and stared again.
-
-“Twenty can play as well as one!” the parrot squawked. The stranger
-began to clamber down from the seat and stood revealed as a tall man
-when he stood upright. The knots smoothed out of the Squire’s brow.
-
-The two men walked slowly toward one another, each with hand
-outstretched, and they met half way. Hand clutched hand in a grip
-that made the cords ridge the skin. They gazed for a long time with
-moistening eyes.
-
-“Hime!” choked out the Squire.
-
-“You poor little cuss, Phin,” the other gulped, as he reached his arm
-over the Squire’s shoulder and patted his back.
-
-There was rough affection in the gesture, but there was constraint in
-the stranger’s mien. He displayed the nervous bravado of one who is
-ashamed and feels that the shame is a weakness.
-
-“I ain’t come home expectin’ that you’re goin’ to treat me anyways like
-a brother, Phin,” he muttered brokenly. “I ain’t ever been any good to
-the family. I----”
-
-“Don’t say that, brother Hiram! Don’t!” pleaded the Squire.
-
-“But it’s the God’s truth, Phin. I don’t even know whether
-father’s--whether he’s----” He stood back and raised entreating eyes
-to his brother’s face. “You needn’t say it, Phin, boy,” he went on
-mournfully. “All I can do is thank God that father had one boy that he
-didn’t have to be ashamed of. I don’t ask you to overlook it--any of it,
-Phin. I don’t expect you to do it. I ain’t come back for it.”
-
-The old men had been slowly straggling down from the platform, still
-busied with their survey of this amazing new arrival.
-
-The Squire glanced around at them and spoke guardedly. His tone was
-gently reproachful.
-
-“Not a word from you or of you for twenty-five years! Hime, I never
-understood that. Father didn’t understand it!”
-
-“Understand it!” shouted his brother, careless of the throng.
-“Understand it! Of course you can’t. No man with decency in his soul and
-honesty in his heart could understand it. I tell ye, Phin, I ain’t worth
-your while to talk to, I had a little hopes of myself, Phin, a few weeks
-ago. It came over me all of a sudden. I’ve come back to square one end
-of it.” He glared at the men who were crowding around them. “But our
-family end, Phin, can never be squared. I’ve travelled five hundred
-miles in the sun and dust to pay my honest debts. That much I can do.
-Then for the road again.” He tossed a pathetic gesture at the elephant
-and the vans. “I did think of sellin’ ’em along with the rest I sold,”
- he added wistfully. “I had thought perhaps--I didn’t know, but--well,
-Phin, it’s better to go on, that’s all.” Here and there from gardens,
-from little shops and from the houses near by, men were issuing; the
-cobbler with his canvas apron tucked up, the blacksmith spatting his
-smutty hands together, and the men who had forgotten to lay down their
-hoes. All were shouting questions to each other and pointing at the
-procession that had come to town.
-
-The Squire eyed the approach of these spectators with some uneasiness,
-but the glance he turned on his brother was full of kindly emotion. He
-went along and patted Hiram on his broad back.
-
-“There’ll be plenty of time for us to talk it all over, Hime,” he
-murmured. “I know I shall understand. Let’s go home. I’m still in the
-old house.” Then with the New England ability to repress emotion he
-stood back and ran his eye over his brother.
-
-“Well, you certainly aren’t ‘Bean-Pole Look’ any longer,” he cried in
-his usual cheery tones, loud enough for all to hear.
-
-“And you’ve stocked up yourself, Phin,” returned his brother, with a
-rather watery smile. “The Looks usually get pussy after forty.”
-
-Uncle Buck was the first of the crowd to stick out his hand.
-
-“I’d know you anywhere for Hime Look, in spite of your plug hat and your
-weepin’ wilier whiskers,” he cried brusquely. “You ain’t been what
-you’d exactly call neighbourly last twenty or twenty-five years,” he
-suggested, with a meaning cock of his eyebrow.
-
-“I didn’t ask permission of the Palermo Tobacker Chawin’ League to go
-away, and I ain’t asking its permission to come back!” retorted Hiram,
-bridling.
-
-“Still got your meat-axe temper along, I notice,” said Buck, drily.
-
-“See here,” shouted the new arrival, “we won’t start into any of those
-old rows, good people.”
-
-He assumed the tone of the showman “barking” at the door of a tent, as
-though the habit of long years obsessed him. Apparently he could not
-talk to several persons in any other tone. The throng crowding about him
-suggested all his usual environment. “Best to have our general wind-up
-at the start-off,” he declared, running his eye over them; “we’ll drive
-every tent peg right now. Here I am home again from the wide, wide
-world, and it’s no one’s business except mine why I’ve come. I own this
-gear,” a flourish of his hand toward the waggons and the reeking horses,
-“and why I’ve brought ’em here is my own business, too. Ask me no
-questions and I’ll tell you no lies. You needn’t blink and scowl at
-me--any of you. I ain’t proud of the way I left this town, but I want to
-have an understanding here and now. It’s this: The man who proposes to
-remind me of my going away or my staying away will get what I gave Klebe
-Willard, and I hope it wasn’t too long ago for you to remember it, one
-and all.” He clenched his fist and shook it at them. “Yes, I’m just the
-same old Hime Look, rough and bluff and gruff and tough! No one likes
-me, and probably no one ever will, and I don’t care! But I can pay my
-bills.” He rapped this at them, adding an oath like a whipcrack.
-
-A murmur that was almost a growl ran among his listeners, who now
-numbered a score. “Yes, I did slide out and leave my debts, and I held
-this town up good and hard, hey? Well, I ain’t crawling back on my hands
-and knees to you, good people; I’ve come with the goods.” He ripped
-open his duster and, twisting his tall form and screwing his mouth as he
-tussled at the job, he pulled a big wallet from under his coat tails--a
-wallet so fat, so puffy, so rotund that it seemed fairly to groan at its
-strap and puff with plethora.
-
-The Squire gently seized his brother by the arm, endeavouring to say
-something to him in an undertone. But that over-wrought person wrenched
-away and shouted, as he waved his wallet above his head: “No, Phin,
-it aint no use to hush-baby me. I’ve got to say it to ’em. I’ve
-been thinking of it too long. It’s boilin’ in me. I always was too
-mouthy--I’m too mouthy now, and I know it, but I can’t help it. I’m
-just Hime Look, and I have to talk or bust. They’ve had their chance to
-lambaste me for twenty-five years behind my back. Now I’m going to talk
-to their faces.”
-
-Excitedly he tore open the wallet. Packets of bills stuffed every
-compartment--packets tied with bands and squeezed flat.
-
-With his wallet clutched in one hand and as many of the packets as
-he could grip with the other, he went around the little circle of
-bystanders, flapping the ends of the bills under their dodging noses.
-
-“Smell of it!” he roared. “Don’t it smell good? Look at it! Don’t it
-look good? If you could eat it, ’twould taste good, you old droolers!
-Did you ever see so much money before in Palermo? No, you never did.
-Now, all you that have a claim against me of any kind, meet me at my
-brother’s office any time after to-day, with your interest figured
-compound at six per cent. No; reckon it better’n that--and even then
-I’ll give you a bonus on top. You’ll never be able to sneer again behind
-Hime Look’s back, you of Palermo. Bring your claims, good people!”
-
-“It’s the old army game, gents!” screamed the gray parrot.
-
-Again the Squire tried anxiously to lead his brother away out of the
-circle. Perspiration dripped from under the showman’s tall hat. His
-sound eye blazed.
-
-The other goggled fiercely. It was the anger of a man who was raging
-as much at himself and at the memory of mistakes and faults as at his
-auditors, the anger of a man who knew in his own heart that he was not
-as worthy as these yokels whom he had left behind him in the old home.
-He wanted to storm down the criticism and the blame that he feared--to
-scare them into silence. Under it all was shame--the shame of a
-domineering man who is ashamed to feel shame.
-
-“Hime,” pleaded his brother, “let’s not talk this over in public any
-longer. The people of Palermo are all good friends of ours. They haven’t
-been talking about you.”
-
-“No, they haven’t talked about you--that’s right,” shrilled Uncle Buck,
-who had advanced closely. “No, they’ve thought you was dead--and dead
-men of your calibre ain’t worth much talkin’ about.”
-
-Hiram whirled away from his brother’s restraint and glowered at the
-doughty old man.
-
-“I ain’t one mite afraid of you, Hime,” barked Lysimachus, thumping down
-his cane. “This is the same stick I’ve put across you when I ketched you
-stealin’ my apples, and if you tackle me I’ll slash you again, though
-you was grown taller’n Haman.”
-
-He came close to the furious man.
-
-“You might’s well shet up your wallet,” he said; “P’lermo ain’t
-sufferin’ for your money, much of it as you seem to have.”
-
-“That money won’t be put up till my debts are paid,” shouted Hiram.
-The old man’s fishy eye bored him with a significance he could not
-understand. It was evident that Lysimachus had a trump card.
-
-“You can’t pay, dum ye!” shrieked Uncle Buck, now furious in his turn,
-with the hysterical rage of the senile.
-
-“Why can’t I?” This also was bawled.
-
-“Because your old father mortgaged his farm after you run away, and then
-after he died your brother Phin worked and paid off every cent that was
-owed.”
-
-“Twenty can play as well as one!” said the gray parrot.
-
-Hiram, both hands still full of money, rubbed his forearm across his
-eyes, into which sweat was streaming. His movement knocked off his hat,
-and it rolled unheeded in the dust. Pitiful bewilderment wrinkled his
-face.
-
-“And if you’ve never heard of all that, then you can’t have been any
-decenter about writin’ home and lettin’ your own know about you than you
-have been about other things I could name.”
-
-Hiram stood, his arms hanging at his side, his lower jaw drooping, his
-eye shuttling from face to face evasively.
-
-“Kind o’ makes you drop your tail, Hime--that, eh?” jeered Amazeen from
-his place in the crowd.
-
-As Hiram still drooped there, Uncle Buck ran his cane into the fallen
-hat, lifted it with a deft toss, ran his elbow around its nap, and set
-it on Hiram’s head, standing on tip-toe to do it.
-
-The man never moved or blinked.
-
-“There’s your plug hat, Hime,” he said. “It fell off, and pride goeth
-before a fall.”
-
-At the anti-climax the crowd haw-hawed with the jovial unrestraint of
-rural jokers.
-
-The Squire’s face was very grave. He came along, gently took the
-wallet and the money from his brother’s hands, tucked the packets away,
-restrapped the wallet and stuffed it back into the hip pocket. Hiram
-still remained motionless, except for the blinking eye that now looked
-straight at the ground.
-
-Phineas turned to his townsmen:
-
-“Folks,” he said, “I don’t think my brother Hime meant all he said. He
-was excited and wrought up by coming home, and it was a hard place to
-put any man in, to meet the old townsmen again as he has had to do. But
-you see he has come back bringing the money to pay, and I know you are
-going to give him the credit of his good intentions. We will talk it
-over some time later, friends. Now I want you to come along home with
-me, Hime.”
-
-He pushed his brother along toward the big waggon.
-
-“And you done what old Lys says you done?” asked the elder brother
-suddenly. There was a queer indrawing of the breath after the query. The
-Squire did not reply.
-
-“God, I ain’t fit for phosphate!” blurted the showman despairingly.
-“Shame and pride and my dirty disposition--and not writin’--nor nothin,’
-thinkin’ you had soured on me--and lettin’ you and dad--oh, Phin, you
-poor little cuss!”
-
-Down over the hard face that had cynically fronted the world for twenty
-years from the barker’s rostrum, into the trailing whiskers filtered the
-tears. This middle-aged, solid, lawyer brother had not as yet assumed
-his proper perspective in the mind of his elder brother, who had left
-him a stripling. Hiram did not try to hide his grief from those who
-stared at him.
-
-“Ain’t I a specimen!” he whimpered.
-
-“I think you are beginnin’ to improve _some_,” said Uncle Buck, bluntly.
-
-“Your wife won’t want to see me,” moaned Hiram. “I ain’t fit to meet
-her.”
-
-The crowd laughed anew, for this seemed the best joke of all. The lawyer
-smiled, but it was a wistful smile.
-
-“I’m the pickedest old bach in town, so set that I even do my own
-cooking, Hime,” he said. “It is all about the same as it used to be
-at the old place. There’s plenty of room in the barn for all this,” he
-nodded toward the waggons, “and plenty to eat for us all--I guess,” he
-added, with a facetious look at the elephant, and that started the laugh
-again.
-
-Hiram turned to the crowd as though to address them, but he clutched
-at his throat, shook his head pathetically, and stumbled toward the big
-waggon.
-
-“You ain’t the worst feller in the world, Hime,” called a voice
-encouragingly. ’Twas Marriner Amazeen’s. “But you can’t sass us here
-in P’lermo any more’n you useter could.”
-
-There was a general mumble, in a more hospitable tone, for the
-prodigal’s evident contrition had touched them. He threw up his hand and
-again shook his head despondently.
-
-“It’s a blamed queer outfit to haul into any man’s door-yard, Phin,” he
-said at last, with wistful apology, as he noticed his brother looking at
-the elephant with no very eager enthusiasm; “but I’ll fix it right with
-you.”
-
-He did not remount his seat, but secured a hook from under the big
-waggon, walked to the elephant and stuck the hook into a slit in the
-beast’s ragged ear. With a creak and a groan the parade started, the
-weary horses dragging at the heels of the scuffing pachyderm. Chattering
-boys spatted along barefoot in the dusty road before, beside, behind;
-the villagers attended along the sidewalk, and women stood at front
-gates holding up the little ones to see.
-
-The Squire plodded at his brother’s side, his hands behind his back, and
-Eli waddled near with cautious eye bent on the huge animal.
-
-And thus, after twenty-five years of wandering, returned Palermo’s queer
-genius, hot-headed Hiram Look, a showman from the time he took pins for
-admission from his schoolfellows at the door of a tent made of shorts’
-sacks, and that was when he wore dresses and had his flaxen hair combed
-in a “Boston.”
-
-A little way beyond Brickett’s store the elms grew close and tall,
-stretching their graceful arms across the street. Back from these elms
-on a gentle slope of lawn stood the Judge Collamore Willard house, the
-mansion of the village, a square structure of brick, dyed by many years
-of weather to a sombre red.
-
-The inmates of this dignified house evidently had been affected by
-the general excitement caused by the halt of the caravan in front of
-Brickett’s store.
-
-A tall, gaunt old man, whose frock coat flapped about his skinny legs,
-hurried down the gravelled path to the street, and as the head of the
-parade approached he opened the iron gate and came out to the side of
-the highway.
-
-“What’s all this?” he piped in falsetto, addressing one of the villagers
-who were marching along the sidewalk.
-
-“Hime Look’s come back and brought his circus,” said the passer. The old
-man started, and his thin lips closed viciously.
-
-As the showman’s eyes fell upon the old man his face also grew set and
-hard.
-
-“Ain’t old Coll Willard gone to be a moneychanger in hell yet?” he
-snarled.
-
-The Squire was looking toward the house and did not answer. A woman
-stood on the front porch, gazing under her palm. Even from the road the
-grace of her figure showed itself. The soft, light material that drooped
-away from her upraised arm left its rounded contour and whiteness
-outlined against the dark hair.
-
-“Hiram Look!” echoed the old man, and he came straight into the middle
-of the road and stood there, trying to hold himself erect, propping his
-hand on his back at the waist. He made no move to step aside, and the
-showman was forced to halt his animals.
-
-“And so it’s Hiram Look come home again?” he rasped, his thin nostrils
-fluttering. “And how is it he comes parading, instead of sneaking over
-the back fences as he ought?” He was talking over the showman’s head to
-the villagers.
-
-The spirit of assertion seemed to have dropped from Hiram. He shook so
-violently that he set his hand against the elephant to steady himself.
-
-“Judge!” The Squire advanced close to the old man and spoke low. “My
-brother is considerably unstrung by things that have just happened.
-Don’t say anything to him now, please don’t! If something must be said
-later about the old times there’ll be plenty of chance to say it. Wait!”
- His tone was mild and entreating, but Willard still disdained to glance
-at him.
-
-“If some one hasn’t told Hiram Look what Palermo thinks of him, it’s
-time for it to be done, townsmen!” shrieked Willard, his face white, his
-lips drawn back over some obtrusive false teeth.
-
-The Squire turned toward the distant figure on the porch, appeal and
-apology in his eyes, though he realised that she could not witness his
-emotions.
-
-“Better for you to have stayed with the husks and the swine, Hiram Look.
-You thought you left him for dead, my boy Kleber. Don’t you tell me! You
-wanted to kill him. My poor boy! To leave me in my old age without my
-son! And the scar of it on his face to-day! There’s a law for you yet,
-Hiram Look--a law to make you suffer for that scar. A pretty pair--yes,
-a pretty pair! Old Seth Look’s pair of steers! And Hiram would have
-robbed my boy of a wife, and Phin Look thought he could steal my
-daughter. Now, I’ll tell you both----”
-
-“No, you won’t tell us--not here in the face and eyes of every one
-in Palermo!” roared Hiram. “I’m ready for your tongue and your law at
-fittin’ time and place, Coll Willard, but this ain’t the time. I told
-your son twenty-five years ago that there was such a thing as talking
-too damn much--and he still talked. Don’t you do it to-day.”
-
-“Do you want to put your mark on the father’s face?” the old man
-shrieked, hobbling close and poking forward his weasened visage. “Strike
-me! Kill me! It’s your style, Hiram Look. And it’s your brother’s style
-to lallygag after a girl that wouldn’t use him for a doormat. The two of
-you are----”
-
-The showman could restrain himself no longer. He had stood with feet
-apart as though to root himself in the ground. His hands were hooked
-behind him.
-
-He hadn’t lost the whole of that Palermo instinct of deference toward
-the village plutocrat and autocrat who had dominated them all for so
-many years, even as other Willards had ruled before him. But the choler
-that drove him forward was the rage of a man who had never learned
-self-control. His brother leaped to prevent him, but he seized the old
-man, whipped him off the ground, rushed across the sidewalk and tossed
-him over the iron fence upon his own lawn, where he lay squawking feebly
-like a frightened fowl.
-
-The Squire followed, gasping appealing protest, and he stood there
-clutching the rusty points of the fence when the woman came hastening
-from the porch.
-
-“I don’t think the Judge is’ hurt a bit, Sylvena,” he faltered. “But he
-provoked Hime’s awful temper, and I couldn’t stop it.”
-
-Judge Willard had scrambled to his feet, snarling at her when she came
-to aid him. His rage was now the hysteria of the aged, but after gasping
-wordlessly he turned and went toward the house. Hiram, his head bowed
-as though he were ashamed of his burst of rage, had started his caravan,
-and the crowd followed. Squire Phin remained.
-
-The woman across the fence was mature, yet she had that appearance of
-freshness that spinsterhood under forty years preserves in the little
-details. Her face had been flushed by her haste, and the colour crept up
-to the dark hair, that had just a touch of frost at the temples.
-
-“And it is your brother come home, Phineas?” she asked, gazing after the
-picturesque spectacle.
-
-“It is Hiram.” His tone was wistful.
-
-“He seems to be fully as--as muscular as ever,” she said, with a little
-flash of her eyes.
-
-As he seemed searching his mind for suitable apology, she said hastily:
-
-“And I also know what father is, Phineas. I can understand. It is
-nothing that you have done. But it all seems to be beginning over again,
-and I hoped it was ended.”
-
-“I guess it’s like the fire in old Ward’s peat bog,” he replied, a
-wrinkle of humour about his eyes. “It has been burning for twenty years
-underground and breaks out every little while. I can sympathise with
-Ward’s peat bog,” he added. “Every now and then, when I think it’s cold
-and dead and stamped out--my own particular smoulder, you know--there’s
-a breath of remembrance, when I see you, and I’m all afire again inside.
-Hard case, isn’t it?”
-
-He didn’t allow his tone to be too serious.
-
-“It isn’t well to speak of such things, Phineas. And not in that way!
-Somehow, it hasn’t come right for you and me. We mustn’t blame each
-other. It hasn’t seemed to be our fault.” She cast a glance at the
-waggons toiling up the street. He gazed at the old man, who had paused
-half way across the lawn and was querulously shouting “Daughter!”
-
-The Squire leaned a bit further over the fence.
-
-“I guess it has been ten years, Sylvena,” he said, “since I’ve let you
-see my fire break through the crust. I didn’t intend to let it show
-again, for I know your heart is tender. I don’t blame you for feeling
-that a daughter owes much to a widowed father. I’d be the last to break
-up a family. I haven’t any right to blame you. Don’t worry about me,
-ever. But I can’t seem to forget, and while I keep on loving you I am
-having an awfully good time all by myself doing so.”
-
-With frank impulsiveness the woman came close to the fence and patted
-his big hand that clutched the iron paling. But this frankness in her
-action, her demeanour, and in the free and honest gaze she gave him, did
-not console him.
-
-“Still you’re ‘Sleeping Beauty,’ Sylvena,” he said, half whimsically,
-half bitterly.
-
-The old man had returned part way down the broad lawn, and was yelping
-“Daughter!” in his thin voice with increasing impatience.
-
-She smiled at the Squire as though the jest of his last words were one
-well understood between them.
-
-“No, only an old maid, Phineas,” she replied, softly. “Sometimes I think
-that old maids are like poets--born, not made.”
-
-“But you’ve let ’em make _you_ one,” he retorted. “It isn’t often I
-speak of it, Sylvena. You know that. It has been enough for me to
-walk the same streets with you and have a smile and a word of
-friendliness---it’s enough most of the time. But my heart has been
-stirred to-day, and all the old feelings are on top. You have let that
-stingy old man----” he shook his fist at the Judge, who returned this
-salute with great spirit, “rob you of the best that a woman ought to
-have--and that’s a home and a good husband. Oh, I am not speaking of
-myself!” he cried, his colour coming and a sort of boyish embarrassment
-overwhelming him. “I don’t know how to say such things very well, but
-I didn’t mean myself. I never could wake ‘Sleeping Beauty.’ But if the
-prince himself had come along your father would have driven him away so
-that he could continue to monopolise your loyalty and devotion. The
-only reason he wants you to marry King Bradish is because he knows that
-Bradish will sit outside like a pup and wait until he opens the door.”
-
-The Squire was thoroughly angry. The spectacle of the old man hobbling
-down the lawn and calling at them as though they were offending children
-exasperated him.
-
-“Forgive me, Sylvena,” he choked, breaking in upon her pained and
-somewhat indignant protest. “But, being a Look, I am pretty much human.
-You can’t stop me from loving you. God knows I can’t stop myself. I’d
-like to be able to put out my hand and say to you ‘Sister!’ and look at
-you as you look at me, but I can’t do it!”
-
-“From the time I was fifteen years old, Phineas,” she said wistfully, “I
-was mother to my mother!” A picture of the frail paralytic in her wheel
-chair rose before him. “I took her place in our home when she died--yes,
-before she died. It is a sacred promise that a girl makes to a mother,
-Phineas, when that mother, helpless as an infant, trusts her, believes
-her and goes smiling down into the grave, securely depending on that
-promise.”
-
-The Judge was close upon them.
-
-“I didn’t hardly expect you to marry me, Sylvena,” said the Squire,
-gazing gloomily at the old man.
-
-“I’ve never dared to think much about marrying any one,” she said, her
-eyes straying to the caravan in its halo of dust. “Somehow, it hasn’t
-seemed to come right.”
-
-“Some day there’ll be a man come along and you’ll know what it means to
-be willing to give up every other thing in this world and not be able to
-think about letting any one else step between you, and as it will have
-to be a mighty good man to make you feel that way, I’ll step up then and
-give you the best word I have, Sylvena, and perhaps I can begin to feel
-like a brother toward you. I’m generous enough to pray God that you may
-feel that way sometime.”
-
-“No wonder you’re trying to beg off your brother, Phineas Look,”
- shrilled the Judge, interposing himself between them. He had caught a
-word of the Squire’s speech as he came up. “But you can’t do it! The
-law is going to take him. I’ll see that it does.” He whirled on his
-daughter. “Why do you stand here talking with this man when you know
-what he and his tribe are and how they have always treated us?”
-
-She had taken his arm and was trying to lead him away, aware of the
-futility of argument or even reply.
-
-“You can’t come around this family, Phin Look,” stormed the Judge, “by
-wheedling a girl who hasn’t had self-respect enough to spit on----”
-
-“Judge Willard!” The voice of the Squire was so tense, so pregnant, that
-the old man stopped and looked at him. The lawyer was clutching a paling
-in each hand. He had projected his face over the fence. He was grayish
-white, and his eyes glowed under their knotted brows. “Don’t you discuss
-the honest and faithful friendship there is between your daughter and
-myself. Do you understand me?” The old man looked at him, “plipping” his
-lips as though searching for a reply.
-
-“You have hogged the best out of her life. You have stood between her
-and some man’s honest affection. I want you to know that I hate every
-ounce of your stingy old skin and bones. I----” but he checked himself
-and turned to the daughter with an appealing smile breaking through the
-white rigidity of his countenance. “Oh! Oh! Oh!” he murmured, with a wag
-of his head for each exclamation. “What a savage old whelp it is that’s
-barking over your fence, Sylvena. Forgive me again.”
-
-He turned hastily and went up the street, following the caravan. Old
-Eli, who had been patiently waiting on the sidewalk’s edge, fell in at
-his master’s heels.
-
-And before him was Hiram guiding the grotesque elephant between the
-great silver poplars before Squire Phin’s lonely home.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III--FROM THE MOUTH OF MARRINER AMAZEEN
-
-
-                   “Narrer to the heel and wide to the toe,
-
-                   And that’s the way the Look boys go.
-
-                   Good boy Phin, he don’t raise time,
-
-                   But pepper-sass’s hot and hell’s in Hime.”
-
-                        --Old Palermo “Plaguin’ Song.’’
-
-
-When Marriner Amazeen plodded down street early next morning, he
-found Uncle Lysimachus Buck perched in solitary and surly state on the
-platform of Brickett’s store. A thick-foliaged maple tree shielded the
-platform as long as the sun was low in the east, and the platform was
-a desirable post of observation, since it commanded the Cove and the
-fishing fleet, as well as the village square.
-
-“You’ve been el’phunteerin’, hey, along with the rest of the fools in
-the place?” sneered Uncle Buck as Amazeen grunted down beside him on the
-platform.
-
-“Well, I called in to see how Hime had got settled, if that’s what your
-slur means,” retorted Amazeen with some resentment.
-
-Silence fell upon them for a time.
-
-“Where’s he put old Cabbage-leaf-ear?” asked Uncle Lysimachus at last.
-
-“None of your dum bus’ness. Go see!”
-
-The silence endured longer.
-
-“I didn’t mean nothin’ to rasp your feelin’s, ‘Mad’!” his old friend
-apologised at last. “All is, I pus’nally don’t want to go peekin’ so
-like sin and Sancho, same’s the people in this place us’ly do when
-anything comes to town that ain’t cut and dried. I’d really like
-to know, though, how things is gittin’ squared ’round up to the
-Squire’s.”
-
-Amazeen remained sullenly silent, but his desire to gossip conquered his
-spleen at last.
-
-“Wals’r, Lys, it’s wuth your goin’ up,” he broke out with a chuckle.
-“That el’phunt’s loomin’ up in the middle of the barn floor with her
-hind leg hitched to a sill beam; them chariot carts is in the yard, the
-hosses fillin’ the stalls and the tie-up, folks standin’ ’round askin’
-questions, and every durn young one in town rampagin’ ’round there!
-I should think it would drive the Squire out of his mind--him that has
-allus lived old bach and nothin’ to bother. It has set that old mare of
-his into spasms. He had to hitch her off in the woodshed, and there she
-stands with her head and tail up and snortin’ and whickerin’ ev’ry
-time she thinks of how that el’phunt looked when they was introduced.
-El’phunt’s name, by the way, is Imogene! Don’t that beat you? Imogene!
-So Hime said this mornin’. Told us she was a real pet, and he brought
-her along ’cause she would take on so if he tried to shake her. He’s
-had her clos’ on fifteen years, he says. Sold her when he bust up his
-show, but she swatted ’round her with her trunk, Hime says, and stove
-down bars and bellered Hail Columby and pulled up stakes and got away
-and follered him. Hime says Imogene is the only one in the world that
-ever has given a continental cuss for him and stuck to him, and he says
-that him and her will allus stick to one another after this. Says he’s
-li’ble to start out circussin’ ag’in.”
-
-“I s’pose the whole neighbourhood’s standin’ ‘round, listenin’ to them
-yarns, heh?” grumbled Uncle Buck.
-
-“Well, it’s all interestin’ to hear,” declared Ama-zeen sturdily. “And
-he ain’t nobody’s fool, Hime ain’t.”
-
-“It looks to me,” Uncle Lys growled on, “as though Squire Phin had got
-more’n one el’phunt on his hands. Here’s Hime a-traipsin’ back home with
-that gor-rammed turn-out, and before he’s been here no time he sasses
-the whole town of Palermo, throws Judge Willard over his own fence and
-tears ’round gen’rally. Here’s the old row between the fam’lies busted
-out ag’in, and prob’ly more to happen when Klebe Willard gits home and
-hears of it.”
-
-“Don’t you reckon that Klebe has got fully as many of Hime Look’s marks
-on him now as he wants to carry?” inquired Amazeen, drily.
-
-“Klebe Willard, cap’n of the ‘Lycurgus Webb,’ turned forty-five, and
-muscled up from knockin’ down P. I. sailors, ain’t exactly the same
-feller he was when Hime Look scolloped him off twenty-five years ago,”
- Amazeen retorted. “I tell you, Lys, you’re going to find out that
-old ‘Hard-Times’ wasn’t snuffin’ at no pansy bed when he stood there
-yesterday with his nose up. He was smellin’ trouble.”
-
-Brickett had lounged out of the store and stood munching a sliver
-of cheese that he had scraped from the broad knife after serving a
-customer.
-
-“That old fool is gittin’ to be a town nuisance,” he observed. “When I
-came down this mornin’ he was standin’ across from Judge Willard’s house
-like a setter dog opposite a fox hole, croakin’ ‘Hard times a-comin’
-to P’lermo.’ I don’t reckon that hard times is goin’ to start from Coll
-Willard’s place. Leastways, if I was as well fixed as the old Judge is
-I shouldn’t be reckonin’ to see hard times roostin’ on my primises just
-yit awhile.”
-
-“You ain’t alius lived in P’lermo same’s me and Lys has, Brickett,” said
-Amazeen. “I don’t know what kind of things is goin’ to happen or what
-kind of a hard-times bird has come to nest on Coll Willard’s place, but
-it don’t take no seventh sense to smell trouble in this town now. Hime
-Look will make it without meanin’ to. He ain’t nat’rally a bad man,
-Hime ain’t. It’s his cussed tongue and the freaks he takes. Ev’ry one
-’round him keeps gittin’ all stirred up. Long ago’s he went to the
-district school he had all the girls in fidgits about the snakes and
-frogs he lugged in his pants pockets--wa’n’t happy without a menagerie.
-
-“Run away with circuses three times and old man Look had to chase him
-up and bring him home. Started off once with a shelter-tent and a angle
-worm in a mustard bottle and followed the fairs ’round in counties
-above here. Wa’n’t scarcely eighteen then, but he had more cheek than
-a Guinea nigger. Folks would listen to him shoutin’ up that ‘infant
-anaconda’---that’s what he called the angle-worm--and would pay ten
-cents and go in and then would come out mad as they could stick. Most
-of the time he was able to keep hollerin’ so loud that no one could hear
-them complainin’. He’d say: ‘The gentleman who has jest come out of
-the tent states that under this canvas is the grandest sight that the
-civilised world has got to offer. He advises his friends to pass in, one
-and all, and behold the only infant anaconda in captivity.’ It certainly
-did take cheek to run that show, but he had it.”
-
-Amazeen went fishing in his pockets for a match.
-
-“Well, he couldn’t always holler ’em down, could he?” inquired
-Brickett, skeptically. “I should have thought that some one would ’a’
-showed him up.”
-
-The old man chuckled.
-
-“Oh, once in a while a man would git heard and then Hime would bend down
-and ask:
-
-“‘What’s the matter with you?’
-
-“‘Why, he ain’t longer’n your finger,’ the man would yap back.
-
-“‘Oh, he ain’t big enough? That’s it!’ Hime would say. ‘Well, go right
-back in and wait till he grows. ‘There won’t be any extry charge.’
-
-“And then the rest of the crowd that always likes to see a man took in
-would laugh and Hime would go on cheerful as a cricket. But if he’d had
-less cheek he’d have got rid’ on a rail out of ev’ry fair ground.” He
-closed down the little “pepper-pot” cover over his pipe bowl.
-
-“Then there was Hime’s dancin’ turkey,” he went on, apparently enjoying
-his recollections hugely. “For two or three years after that he was
-’round with a fiddle and turkey and a sheet of tin. He’d put the
-turkey on the tin with nettin’ around and set behind and fiddle ‘Speed
-the Plough,’ and keep moving a lamp back and forth under that tin with
-his toe, and the old gobbler would have to tip-toe Nancy mighty lively
-to hunt for the cool places. Looked like he was jiggin’. I’m knowin’ to
-it that he cleaned up sev’ral thousand dollars on that ‘dancin’ turkey,’
-as he called it.
-
-“All the time his father couldn’t do nothin’ with him! Kind of a
-good-meanin’ chap, Hime allus was, though. Lib’ral with his money. Come
-easy, went easy. Drove a nice team. Girls all liked him. No girl caught
-him, though, till little Myry Austin got into long dresses. Hime was
-nigh onto thirty then, and had gone into a general dickerin’ bus’ness
-about the same as King Bradish does in town now; sold produce on
-commission, you know, and handled farmin’ tools, and so forth. He got to
-be real likely them days, and he reelly did think an awful sight of that
-Austin girl. It straightened him all out, havin’ her take a likin’ to
-him, and ’twas all understood in P’lermo as bein’ settled between
-’em. And then what did young Klebe Willard do but come back from
-college with a cap on the back of his head ’bout as big as a cooky and
-his hair puffed out in front and puttin’ on more airs than a pigeon
-on a ridgepole. And havin’ nothin’ else to do he cut out Hime, and Hime
-didn’t know it for a long time, ’cause Klebe done his courtin’ on the
-sly on account of the old man. And when Hime did find it out--last
-one almost in the village, as us’ly happens in them cases, and got the
-mitten--well, you talk about goin’ to Tophet at an angle of forty-five
-with the track greased! Nothin’ but cards and hoorah-ste’boy, and tryin’
-to make believe he didn’t care. I swanny, ’twas pitiful when you
-knowed what was underneath.”
-
-Amazeen sighed and bored his cane into the soil, his elbows on his
-knees.
-
-“There was excuses for him, most of us knowed that!” volunteered Uncle
-Buck.
-
-“And as though he hadn’t done enough in breakin’ up the
-engagement--which wa’n’t no trouble, seein’ that Hime was so much older
-and she only kind o’ silly and teetered up by havin’ a dude like Judge
-Willard’s boy show her attention--Klebe had to go and sass Hime one
-ev’nin’ right here in front of this store---that was when old Bruce
-owned it. Hime was pretty well tea-ed up--drinkin’ some, you understand,
-along with the rest--and he drove up here, leaned back and looked a long
-time at Klebe, who was standin’ on the platform smokin’ a cigarette. ‘I
-bought her ev’rything I could think of,’ says Hime, ‘but she had to go
-dicker for a poodle-dog and trade herself off, even swap!’
-
-“Now with Hime so wrought up and all that, Klebe ought to have passed
-along, but he thought he had a tongue-walloper’s license, bein’ Coll
-Willard’s boy, and started in and called Hime ev’rything he could lay
-tongue to and then pitched into the Look fam’ly, root and branch in
-general; called old Look an ignorant clod-hopper, and said that sendin’
-Phin to college was about like tryin’ to gold-plate an Early-Rose
-potater. And then he barked right out there in public--bein’
-dizzy-headed by that time, I reckon--that all Myry Austin had cared
-about Hime, anyway, was to watch him perform ’round her, same as boys
-spit on a stick and throw it into a mill-pond for Towser to fetch back.
-And when Hime still set there takin’ it, Klebe was startin’ in on
-things that was worse still, when Hime came over his waggon wheel like
-a pick’rel after a skip-bait and--well, when ’twas over Klebe Willard
-had marks on his face that will always be there. Hime picked him
-up--everyone was too scared to mess in--and lugged him on his back to
-Judge Willard’s and throwed him over the fence about where he boosted
-the old man to-day, and hollered: ‘Here’s something to feed to your
-cat!’ Then he came back and got into his team before old Constable
-Denslow had got so he could speak.
-
-“‘I shall have to arrest you, Hime,’ he says, ‘as I reckon you’ve killed
-him!’
-
-“‘Arrest hell!’ says Hime. ‘I tried to kill him!’ And he slashed old
-Denslow across the face with his whip and went out of the village,
-hootin’ and gallopin’ his horse, with eighteen hundred or two thousand
-dollars owin’ to people ’round here. And since that night Hime Look
-ain’t been seen in this village till yesterday, and from what was
-dropped by word o’ mouth ’tween him and Phin, it’s pretty plain he
-ain’t been heard from by his fam’ly, either.”
-
-He checked his garrulous narration in order to relight his pipe.
-
-“It’s been a hard blow for Squire Phin, it all has,” observed Uncle
-Buck. “Just finishing college when it happened, and havin’ the record
-of bein’ the smartest critter there! He had the chance to go into a big
-city law-office, but there was poor old Seth knocked flat’s a flounder,
-his name on notes to wholesalers who’d sold to Hime, and feelin’ holden
-for all the other debts.
-
-“Phin done what few boys would do. He come home, put his shoulder to the
-wheel and taught school and studied law between-whiles--and, well, we
-all know how he’s worked it out.”
-
-“There was more than the money side of it, too, that he had to face,”
- broke in Amazeen.
-
-“Seems as if I’ve heard hints that he was pretty fierce took in a
-certain quarter,” observed Brickett, with a sly look.
-
-“Lord, I guess there was hints and more, too,” snapped Amazeen. “Why, he
-lugged Sylveny Willard’s dinner pail to and from school when they was
-so young that neither noticed there was any diff’rence between Seth
-Look and Coll Willard. Kind of one of those cases where two young ones
-nat’rally took to each other. I was postmaster for a spell and they
-wrote reg’lar when he was away to college, till all to once old Coll
-knowed about it and realised that Sylveny had got out of the ABC age. He
-up and howled blue murder and right on top came the Hime part. Gad, no,
-he wouldn’t consider Phin Look for a son-in-law--wa’n’t pedigree enough
-to him.”
-
-Amazeen’s tone was scornful.
-
-“That’s why he f’it off Klebe marryin’ Myry Austin year after year till
-it looked as though they never would git married--and from all I hear
-about the way they git along now, I reckon ’twould have been better
-all around if the old Judge had f’it harder. Klebe had to break loose
-and git a vessel for himself before he dared to buck the old man and
-marry her. I don’t believe he really ever wanted her, anyway, but she’s
-one o’ them women that’s like a sheet of fly paper--git it on your
-fingers and try to pull it off and it keeps stickin’ in a new place.
-She’s too pretty to have much head. Ain’t ever had anything to steady
-her down, and that keeps Klebe guessin’ and mad a good part of the time
-when he’s home.”
-
-“If I’d have been Phin Look I’d have run away with Sylvena Willard years
-ago,” grunted Uncle Lysimachus. “I’ll bet she’d have gone. A dummed old
-hog like Coll Willard ain’t got no right to keep two people like them
-apart. And more’n that, he’s torchin’ her all the time to marry King.
-There ain’t a woman in this village that women-folks in trouble run to
-as they do to her, and we all know what Squire Phin is to P’lermo! There
-ain’t hardly a family in this town that he ain’t settled a fuss for--not
-in courts and by runnin’ up bills of expense, but by kind words and
-common-sense and good advice and by gittin’ right inside a critter’s
-heart. A man ain’t goin’ to get rich by that way of practisin’ law,
-but, by jerro, he’s earnin’ the kind of currency that they say makes
-a millionnaire in eternity. He’s the husband Sylvena Willard ought to
-have, and, by gad, if I was her I’d have him!”
-
-“Did you ever stop to think, Lys,” drawled Ama-zeen, “that people who
-have things pretty much their own way, without carin’ what other people
-want, who tromp over commands, disobey parents, bust into fam’lies
-and all that, are pretty apt to be scaly critters? Bein’ as they are,
-Sylveny Willard and Phin Look deserve to have each other; but bein’ as
-they are, it’s almighty likely they never will. Cuts both ways, you
-see! A woman that forgets all her father has done for her and leaves him
-alone in his old age and goes away to a man that he is dead ag’inst, has
-got the disposition to treat a husband as bad as she has a father. May
-not do it, understand--but the disposition is there. Marryin’ and givin’
-in marriage is all right, but fam’ly loyalty is something, too. You want
-to remember that Coll Willard probably don’t seem to her the same as he
-does to us. A man that busts into a family when he knows he ain’t wanted
-may be gritty and in love, and all that, but he’s puttin’ himself and
-his pleasure and in-t’rests first, and lettin’ others trail. Phin Look
-allus has practised what he preaches to his clients. But it has sartinly
-happened bad for him--Hime’s cuttin’ up and all the rest, and it ain’t
-lookin’ much better just now.”
-
-“I had an idea they’d git married sometime,” said Brickett. “You’ll find
-that Squire Phin has had some partic’lar mighty good reason for stayin’
-in this little place. He don’t belong here and he never has. A drummer
-told me that outside of here he’s called one of the best-read men in the
-State. Judges all say that, the drummer told me. He don’t have to stay
-here, not by a long shot. Yes, I thought they’d git married some day
-when old Coll got through, but I guess this Hime matter comin’ up agin
-will bust things forever. Klebe will take it up.”
-
-“I’ll tell you what I think will happen now,” broke in a tall young man
-who had sauntered up and had been listening.
-
-No one asked any questions. Amazeen bored his cane deeper with indignant
-twistings, as he reflected on the situation.
-
-“I reckon she’ll give in to the Judge at last and marry King Bradish.”
- The lounger spoke with tone of conviction.
-
-Buck and Amazeen slowly turned their heads and stared at each other with
-a singular look of mutual intelligence. Amazeen’s lips were set in a
-straight line above his bristly brush of short chin beard. There was
-a flicker of malice in Uncle Buck’s gray eyes, glittering under their
-tufted brows.
-
-When they had established a thorough understanding by means of a
-prolonged stare, they simultaneously struggled to their feet and started
-around the store. At the foot of the outside stairway they paused and
-looked at each other again.
-
-“Ain’t nobody else up there with him, is there?” asked Amazeen.
-
-“No one ain’t gone up sence he opened shop,” replied Buck. “He got down
-early.”’
-
-“I don’t blame him,” snorted Amazeen. “What with el’phunt and hosses and
-hoorah, and yard full and Hime hollerin’ ’round as though he was front
-of his show tent, and that ding parrot of his squawkin’, ‘Crack ’em
-down, gents; the old army game!’ I reckon the Squire couldn’t git away
-any too early. Now-------” he paused, and the two men looked at each
-other a long time, wrinkling their brows.
-
-“If we try to plunk the news about Bradish and ‘Rissy Mayo to him at
-the fust-off, he’ll shet us up by yappin’ out that he won’t listen
-to slander. He handles ev’rything that’s spicy news just that way,”
- observed Buck, dubiously.
-
-The young man who dropped the remark about Bradish lounged around the
-corner and stood eyeing the stairway, incertitude written large on his
-vapid countenance.
-
-Buck, with the air of a conspirator, cautiously reached out his cane and
-rapped Amazeen’s foot. When the latter raised his abstracted gaze from
-the ground, Buck winked prodigiously and jerked his head sideways.
-Amazeen turned and eyed the young man with a shrewd twinkle of
-understanding.
-
-“Son!” he called softly. The young man came along to them.
-
-“You ain’t ever had that talk o’ yourn with the Squire, have ye?”
-
-A mournful wag of the head.
-
-“Wouldn’t you like to have me’n Lys, here, to sort o’ pave the way?”
-
-The head waggled again in token of reviving interest.
-
-“Well, you go stand acrost the road and when you see me come to the
-winder and toss out my cud o’ terbacker, you boost along up. Me’n Lys
-is takin’ a friendly int’rest in the case for you. Now go ’long over
-there and watch out.” He pushed the young man away hastily as he began
-to stammer thanks.
-
-“I can’t talk with the dum fool,” he growled through the corner of his
-mouth, as he led the way up the stairs. “Fur’s I’m concerned I wisht he
-was married to a half dozen jest like the one he’s hitched up with.
-But as long’s we’ve got to git this thing to the Squire ’round Robin
-Hood’s barn, Mayo’s fool makes a good road-breaker, as you might say.
-Now I’ll start in on the Squire as though I was ready mad because he
-has married Wat to that girl, and that will bring him up all standin’ to
-argue that the marriage is a rousin’ success.”
-
-“One that King Bradish is tryin’ to mess into and bust up, hey?”
- suggested Buck with a knowing leer.
-
-Amazeen returned the look with just as much significance, thrust his
-elbow into Buck’s ribs and started up the stairs.
-
-“You’re right,” asserted Buck. “The Squire’ll fight other folkses’
-battles before he’ll take up his own--always did, always will, prob’ly.
-Now, I reckon if we manage this thing right, King Bradish will get the
-wickin’ put to him in good shape.”
-
-He stopped outside the door of the office and concluded in a husky
-whisper:
-
-“Even if the Squire don’t get her, Lys, let’s fix it so that King
-Bradish never will. Sylveny Willard’s too good a girl to be wasted that
-way, and if the Judge gits devil-set enough he’s li’ble to drive her
-right into it. Now we’ll ste’boy the Squire onto King in spite of
-himself.”
-
-“That critter has rid’ around town with his nose up ‘bout’s long as I
-can stand it,” said Amazeen.
-
-“He’s a stuck-up, blame-fired skunk, that’s what he is,” snapped Buck,
-the memory of certain sneers about “Palermo’s mossbacks” burning hotly
-with him.
-
-The conspirators composed their faces and went in.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV--SQUIRE PHIN FINDS HYMEN’S TORCH BURNING HIS FINGERS
-
-
-               “Old Widder Bugg was a-weanin’ her ca’f,
-
-               Used ha’f for herself and the ca’f had ha’f,
-
-               But he bellered all day and he blatted all night,
-
-               And he hollered for his rations so tough and tight,
-
-               That the widder she fed him one last, square meal,
-
-               And the next he knowed he was peddled for veal.
-
-               Oh, nice little ca’ves that is bein’ weaned,
-
-               Shouldn’t keep blattin’ when the cow’s been dreened.”
-
-                        --Effort by “Rhymester” Tuttle.
-
-
-Of the four strap-bottomed “company chairs” in Squire Look’s office,
-“three had spavins and the other the blind staggers,” as old Uncle
-Lysimachus Buck expressed it. But by dint of balancing on the sound legs
-or bracing against the wall at the right angle, or by extreme care in
-easing one’s self into a safe position, the loafers who dropped in to
-smoke managed to worry along. When the wood box cover was shut down
-that made a seat for two. As for clients, when the chairs were occupied
-clients were glad to roost on a corner of the big table and rap their
-heels with great ease of manner and comfort of person.
-
-The Squire’s visitors sat down and as promptly lighted their pipes.
-
-“As I was tellin’ ye, Squire, the other day,” began Marriner Amazeen,
-after pausing to quack briskly at his pipe stem to kindle the waning
-lire, “I don’t see what in sanup ye was thinkin’ of to torch Watson
-Mayo up to marry that hity-tity-flighty little fool for. The minister
-wouldn’t marry ’em and you done it, and so of course the Mayos lay
-the blame to you.” He made great show of resentment. Buck apparently had
-much trouble in refraining from grinning.
-
-The ’Squire, who had been feeding the stove, dusted his hands smartly
-and pudged slowly back to his armchair without replying. He picked up
-his pipe, surveyed a match, end to end, preparatory to scratching it, a
-quizzical pucker about his mouth.
-
-“You remember the time Benson Wallace had all his new grading washed
-away by the cloudburst, ’Mad’?”
-
-Amazeen nodded grimly. He did not relish Squire Look’s illustrations.
-
-“Well, Bens’ came bootin’ down to the office here and wanted me to sue
-Deacon Bassett, who had been praying for rain to fill his mill-pond.
-Laid the whole damage of the cloudburst to the deacon’s power of
-supplication. I don’t have anything to do with these love cloudbursts
-around here.”
-
-“But you encouraged the cussed fools--torch ’em on,” persisted
-Amazeen.
-
-“No, it’s a chap named Hymen that carries the torch, ’Mad’. In Wat’s
-case I wasn’t even actuated by a mercenary motive, for he owned up that
-he didn’t have the fee, and he hasn’t paid me yet, and he probably never
-will.”
-
-“And them’s the kind of double-hitches you’re throwing the harness
-over!” sneered Amazeen.
-
-“She’s handsomer than the chromo picture on a calendar--you’ve got to
-say that about the snippet,” commented Lysimachus Buck, desiring to
-provoke the Squire to retort.
-
-“You’d ought to ’a’ plunked advice right to him not to do it, Squire,”
- sputtered Amazeen. “It has raised the devil with him--and he wasn’t none
-too bright before. Who knows anything about an industrial school girl
-like her? She don’t know nothin’ about herself. I tell you, it’s been a
-hard pill for the Mayos to swaller. Their only boy clearin’ out like
-he done, leavin’ a good, comf’table home and now only a swipe in Jote
-Bradley’s livery stable!”
-
-The lawyer leaned back in his chair, and, hooking his leg over the arm,
-softly scratched the back of the appreciative old dog with dangling boot
-toe.
-
-“Eli, here, has often remarked to me,” he said, squinting up at the
-cracked ceiling, the quizzical pucker still at his mouth corners, “that
-I let love as a special pleading overrule exceptions right along.
-
-“I do really suppose I have done a master sight of malicious mischief
-in the world by marrying these young critters that are fighting the
-old folks and don’t dare to flee to the parsons, and haven’t a single,
-reasonable, sensible, _business_ excuse for getting married, except that
-they’ve fallen in love themselves instead of waiting and letting the
-farms or the fishing schooners be introduced to each other by the old
-folks and fall in love. There’s nothing prettier in this world, ’Mad,’
-than a hundred and twenty acre farm sighing with its corn tassels and a
-neighbouring farm rippling back an answer with its oat heads, and
-both of ’em getting so much in love with one another that it is only
-necessary for the young folks to get together and ratify the match and
-count the wedding presents.”
-
-Old Amazeen snorted disgustedly. “There ain’t no more practicality to
-you, Squire, than there is to a June bug tryin’ to butt the moon. I tell
-ye, proputty has got to be considered first!”
-
-The Squire still gazed meditatively at the ceiling through the tobacco
-smoke.
-
-“’Mad’,” he said, in that half-jesting tone that many Palermo
-literalists characterised as ‘too free and easy for a lawyer,’
-“you’ve loafed here a good deal and I’ve heard you comment on most
-of the Palermo vital statistics--births and deaths and marriages.
-Now here’s the difference between you and Eli, here. You say, ‘Huh!
-’nother brat got along down to So-and-so’s, and only last week she was
-rapping out Hungryman’s ratty-too on the bottom of the flour-barrel
-with her rolling-pin, trying to dust down enough for another batch of
-biscuit!’ But Eli comes in, wags his tail and says to me: ‘Just came
-past So-and-so’s and their dog Gyp said to me that he’d slyed in a few
-minutes before and kissed the new baby on the cheek with the tip of his
-tongue. Said the new baby tickled right out into the funniest little
-snicker!’ Gyp said: ‘Old man, we’re all a little short just now,
-’count of extra expenses and excitement and all that, you know, or I’d
-ask you to have dinner with me in honor of the occasion, but we’re going
-to pitch in again in dead earnest, and I’m going to run the dog churn
-over to the custom dairy, and, say! for one snicker a day from that baby
-I’ll trot my legs off.’”
-
-“’Mad’, as you say it: ‘A couple more fools married before they had a
-shot in their locker.’ And Eli says: ‘I happened to drop in behind that
-young Davis couple in the narrow path, and though I wasn’t trying to
-listen to secrets, I did hear him say: “Little wife, you aren’t sorry
-you married a poor man, are you?”’”
-
-“All that people want money for,” said she, “is to buy just such
-happiness as we possess now. And their money doesn’t buy it, after
-all. And we don’t have to say ‘mine’ and ‘your’ about our love. It’s
-all--_ours_--and that’s a blessed word.” And then she stood on tiptoe
-and pulled his head down--and if I hadn’t run up over the bank then I’d
-have deserved to have a tin can tied to my tail.’
-
-“’Mad’, you say: ‘Well, old Brown has got done! I hear he wasn’t wuth
-much property--hain’t leavin’ much behind.’ And Eli comes in with head
-and tail down: ‘It’s the husband of that good, old Missus Brown that’s
-dead--the lady that has set out so many plates of grub for me. The plate
-wasn’t on the back porch this morning, but I sat there a little while
-and I heard some one inside talking low and he said: “There was never
-a man in this town who left so many friends when he died. And he left a
-memory that’s worth leaving--never a mean act nor a sneaking trick nor a
-gouge in a trade! Property? Oh, I don’t know. You never thought of that
-when you thought of him. I only know that he used wisely the good things
-he found on earth in his reach as he went along, without seeing how much
-he could keep away from his neighbours.”’”
-
-Old man Amazeen rapped out his pipe ashes and looked at the Squire
-sullenly.
-
-“Because I’ve tug-a-lugged all my life and got a little money out at
-interest, I s’pose you’re gittin’ in a dig at me, too,” he growled.
-
-“No, we were talking about young Mayo marrying Damaris Scott,” returned
-Phineas, cheerily, “and you were saying, or intimating, that when
-two such poor love-sick young critters come to me and want to own the
-privilege of walking down life, hand in hand and heart to heart, I ought
-first to inventory their property and their prospects.”
-
-The waver in his voice, the depth of his significance was lost on the
-old man.
-
-“He gave up a good home, and where did they live the first month after
-they were married?” Amazeen struck his hand on his patched knee. “Where
-did they live, I say? In one of Bradley’s box stalls that Wat Mayo
-tacked burlap ’round to keep out the draughts. And they ain’t much
-better off now down in that Sykes’ rent, living on bannock bread and
-fighting wharf rats. _There’s_ one of your--“, old Ama-zeen wrinkled
-his nose and brought the word out of his nostrils with a sardonic
-twist--“_love_ matches, Phin Look, and there’s worse than that on the
-docket.”
-
-Amazeen stumped across the room to the front window. “Huh! That’s queer!
-He’s coming across the street now,” he said, with a chuckle and a wink
-directed at Uncle Lysimachus.
-
-Squire Phin understood why the two old men turned their backs on him,
-hunching their shoulders and shaking with suppressed mirth as the
-uncertain footsteps of Mayo blundered up the outside stairs.
-
-He was a tall and scrawny young man with black hair parted in the middle
-and spatted down on his head, presenting twin surfaces as shiny as the
-wings of a beetle. A thin moustache drooped over a weak mouth, and
-his eyes had that bland, vacant arch above them that irritates one’s
-common-sense. Stupid, smug, self-satisfied, and spoiled--the only child
-of the hard-working village carpenter, he had always worn better clothes
-than any other boy in Palermo, had never been allowed to work, and had
-posed as a village beau. He was just the one to attract a girl fresh
-from the half-penal restraint of the State industrial school and “bound
-out” as a drudge to a Palermo family.
-
-From the time when Phineas Look began first impatiently to notice the
-youth loafing along the street, a cigarette dangling from his lower lip,
-the sight made him angry--not with the boy, but with the parents that
-were ruining him. Once he had bluntly pitched into Ezra Mayo, and from
-the indignant retorts of that fond parent discovered that he vaguely
-prized Watson’s stupid idleness as something aristocratic.
-
-The fact that they now referred to this marriage as they would to an
-especially sudden and fatal attack of the bubonic plague, and refused to
-admit that they still had a son, appealed to the offended lawyer by its
-humour rather than otherwise.
-
-“You’ve been trying to swim in a puddle of molasses, you poor devil,” he
-muttered as young Mayo came shuffling across the room. The faded glories
-of his worn clothing were eloquent of what had happened in his fortunes.
-His coat was ripped in the arm seam, the cuffs were frayed, but he wore
-his big puff tie of baby blue, and the pungent effluvia of the stable
-was toned down by cheap perfume that surrounded him like impalpable fog.
-
-“That smell’s thick enough to cut,” murmured old Amazeen to Uncle Buck,
-fingers squeezing his nostrils. The woe-begone visage of the client
-stirred spasms of silent mirth in the old men.
-
-“Well, Wat, how’s the bride?” inquired Squire Phin, with heartiness.
-“And there wasn’t any hurry about your paying me that two dollars, if
-that’s what you’re come in for.”
-
-“I ain’t come to pay you no two dollars,” returned the youth, gloomily.
-“First place, I ain’t got it; second place, it ain’t as I expected it
-was goin’ to be.”
-
-A subdued “tchock” sounded in the nose of Amazeen.
-
-“Let’s see. You’re speaking now of your marriage and not of your job,
-as I understand it,” suggested the Squire, relighting his pipe;
-“though--ump-foo--ump-foo--I should say you’d better save such talk for
-the job.”
-
-“Well, I’m sort of speakin’ of the two together,” stammered the young
-man.
-
-“I reckon you’d better begin to dissociate your wife from the livery
-stable, Watson,” drily advised the Squire, “even though you did start
-housekeeping there. Now, you’ll remember that you came to me bringing
-the prettiest girl I ever saw, and you told me that it wouldn’t be worth
-while for you to try to live if you didn’t have her. You don’t mean to
-come here now, do you, and tell me that you don’t love her?”
-
-“’Tain’t that,” he blurted; “oh, ’tain’t that, Squire. It’s because
-I love her so much and--and--well, somehow it’s all going wrong and I’m
-afraid she don’t love me. It has kind of taken the gimp out o’ me.
-I didn’t think dad and ma would stand out so long--and _she_ didn’t,
-either, and I ain’t got no trade so I can hold down some good job, and
-she ain’t satisfied with me. No, she ain’t, Squire. If dad and ma would
-only take me home--if you would see ’em and fix it and----”
-
-“Look here, Watson.” Look threw himself forward and drove his fists on
-the table with an emphasis that started the dust. “That’s why I married
-you off, you fool, to get you out of leading-strings, to make a man of
-you, instead of a puppy, loafing around our streets and chasing home to
-your mother’s doughnut jar three times a day. Even old Eli, here, knows
-how to carry home a bone for _himself_, but you hadn’t even done that
-for _yourself_ up to the time you were married. And I gave you something
-you wanted, something to work for, something that every man needs to
-make a true man of himself, except when he’s a tough old bach like me.
-Now what are you whining about?”
-
-Phineas Look’s reading of his own “heart-docket” the day before had not
-inclined him over-much to amiability toward this particular variety of
-ingrate. His tone was peremptory and he scowled.
-
-“I can’t earn no kind of a livin’,” Mayo stammered.
-
-“And you probably never will so long as you stay a chambermaid in a
-livery stable. Great God, is that the limit of your ambition or your
-enterprise? A man with a wife he loves, with two strong hands and a will
-to get-there-Eli, to come sniveling like this! Hunt your work! Buckle
-to it! That’s what will make something better of you, boy, than Mayo’s
-housedog.”
-
-The taunt was wasted, for the youth persisted in his stubborn lament.
-“She says now she wouldn’t have married me if she didn’t think we’d be
-taken care of better.”
-
-“What kind of cussed notions did you put in her head?” the lawyer
-stormed. “If you lied to her, Watson, it’s up to you to square yourself
-now by making good. Do so well by her that she’ll love you and respect
-you for yourself. Don’t make me sorry that I cut your dog-leash before
-your parents plumb ruined you.”
-
-Young Mayo cast a furtive look at the two old men, and leaning over the
-table murmured, his lips trembling:
-
-“I tell you, Squire, she scares me. She says it has come to her in a
-vision that she has a mother--a lady mother, somewhere, all in silks
-and satins, and she’s seen her in a vision with her diamond thing on her
-head. And most ev’ry night she wakes and sits up in bed and reaches up
-her arms and says her lady mother just asked her to come, Squire Phin,
-and she’s a-goin’. Yes, s’r, she’s a-goin’ some time and I’m scared and
-I ain’t got no ambition and I can’t buy her no good clothes, and I sold
-my watch and scarfpin to give her money. My Gawd, Squire, she’s a-goin’
-and I can’t live without her, nohow.”
-
-Perspiration streamed down his quivering face and his lips “guffled”
- tremulously. All the smugness and self-satisfaction were gone now, and
-for the first time the lawyer saw the Mayo boy in all his wretched,
-discouraging inefficiency. With a pang of self-reproach he reflected
-that some natures cannot stand stiff doses--and his remedy for making
-over a man had certainly been a heroic one. As he pondered, he fell into
-his characteristic attitude, hands clutched into the long locks of his
-gray hair, his elbows on the table. He gazed into the pathos of that
-quivering face and studied it as he would the page of an open book. The
-little office was very still.
-
-“Blorh-hum!” coughed Amazeen, and he proceeded, addressing no one in
-particular: “When I was a boy, goin’ to school, there was a family named
-Bragg that lived clust to us, and they had a boy named Ximenus--that was
-it, Ximenus Bragg. Them Braggs they was poorer--poorer’n Pooduc, but the
-old man had to have his three dogs, and fin’ly Ximenus was took with a
-craze for music and nothin’ would do but what he’d got to have a snare
-drum. And he teased and he coaxed. Old Bragg hadn’t the gumption to
-plunk his foot right down and say ‘No,’ but he’d whine and argue
-with the boy and say that with winter a-comin’ on he’d ought to have
-long-legged boots instead of a drum. Finally Old Bragg told Ximenus that
-if he would go without the boots and not whine, he could have the drum,
-and the drum he did get, by gorry. I s’pose that for a couple of days
-there never was a more tickleder boy. He ratty-tooed and ratty-tummed
-and long-rolled and biffed and banged and et his meals off’n the head
-of the thing and kept at it till his ma was so near drove crazy that she
-chased him out doors with the rollingpin and threatened to bust in the
-head of that drum if he ever put stick to it ag’in in the house.
-
-“There it was, late fall and the snow beginning to fly, and I’ll never
-forget the sight Ximenus made standin’ out there on the cold door stone
-on one foot and holding the other foot to the calf of his leg to warm
-it, and then shifting feet to get the other warm, and drumming away all
-the time, trying to keep his courage up and make himself believe that
-he loved music and the drum and was glad he had it instead of them new
-long-legged boots.”
-
-“Beats all about some critters, don’t it?” commented Uncle Buck, after
-listening to this tale with much interest.
-
-“It does that,” returned Amazeen.
-
-The Squire had not taken his eyes from the Mayo boy’s face.
-
-“Bub,” he said softly, “they meant well--your folks--but--damn ’em for
-fools.
-
-“Are you and the little one hungry?” he asked in a half whisper after a
-time, careful that the old men did not overhear.
-
-“We ain’t suff’rin’ none, Squire, but we don’t have meat vittles
-nor nothin’ the same’s I had at----” but as the hard lines crinkled
-ominously around the lawyer’s gray eyes he stopped confusedly.
-
-Shielding himself from the scrutiny of Buck and Amazeen behind the youth
-who still leaned over the table, Squire Phin straightened his leg and
-cautiously ran his hand into his trousers pocket. After a period of
-fumbling he slid his hand along the table, slipped a bill into the palm
-by which the young man was propping himself, squeezed the fingers down
-over it, and said with a tenderness almost parental:
-
-“Go buy a good, meat dinner to-day, son, and have plenty of meat hash
-for supper, and perhaps the little one will sleep so soundly that the
-lady mother can’t disturb her. Take good heart. As Eli, here, says: ‘The
-harder you have to dig after a woodchuck, the better your appetite is
-when you get him.’ We’ll see what can be done. Now straighten up. Throw
-back your shoulders. Cock your knee every time you step, just like your
-best livery horse--the best ‘letter,’ you know--the one all the folks
-ask for. Hold up your chin and show ’em it’s natural and not a
-check-rein habit. Remember all the time that you’re young, life’s ahead
-of you, and the prettiest girl in Palermo is your wife. That’s the way
-to face the world. Tail over the dasher. Now out and at it!”
-
-And seizing the youth by the arm, he marched him to the door, thwacking
-his broad palm between his shoulders at every step.
-
-When Squire Phin turned and came back to his table he knotted his
-eyebrows and glared at the two old men.
-
-“Now wipe those Chessy cat grins off your faces,” he snapped. “I see
-through your hectoring scheme. But you watch me. I’ll sooner or later
-put that marriage along with the others I’ve pigeon-holed under the
-label ‘Successes.’”
-
-Amazeen turned to Buck. “The Squire wants to have all his marriage
-certificates hold up like his title deeds, Lys--legal, binding, and good
-for all time. But you mustn’t get touchy with us, Phin. It isn’t very
-often that you marry a fool tumble-bug to a butterfly. Howsomever,
-you’ve done it this trip, and it ain’t goin’ to be a success--and it
-ain’t your fault. There’s something worse than what’s showed yet goin’
-to drop in that quarter or I’m no prophet. You’d better not be mixed too
-close in it.”
-
-“Go along with your tattling gossip,” cried the lawyer. “If you and
-Uncle Lys haven’t anything better to do, go out and take a sun bath. I
-want to study.”
-
-“You know more law already than you need. You know it better than you
-do some kinds of human nature, and I’m going to post you a little on
-the last-named,” pursued Amazeen, cheerfully disregarding the rebuff.
-“There’s more’n lady mothers and visions that’s makin’ Rissy Mayo
-discontented.”
-
-“Huh-huh!” grunted Look, without apparent interest, taking down a volume
-of reports and spatting the dust from it.
-
-“And I ain’t givin’ you any guess-so,” shouted Amazeen, nettled by the
-lawyer’s contemptuous snort. He stood up and cracked his cane on the
-floor. “I ain’t ghostin’ ’round, ’specially, nor tryin’ to pry into
-my neighbours’ business, but when I’m knowin’ to a thing that’s poked
-right under my nose, why, I know it. Wat Mayo has to set up ev’ry
-ev’nin’, don’t he, to wait for let teams to come in? Well, he wa’n’t
-out strollin’ in the Cod Lead Nubble pines all spring and summer, he and
-Rissy, she a-swingin’ her hat by the ribbons, all so fine and gay--and
-that was nigh ev’ry fair night. He was settin’ in the stable office
-shinin’ up hames’ brass-work and nickel trimmin’s, wa’n’t he? He ain’t
-meetin’ her on the South Cove road with a buff-lined Goddard, and
-wearin’ a white hat with a black band, and takin’ her aboard. No, he
-ain’t got any such hat, and there’s only one buff-lined Goddard in these
-parts and----”
-
-“You say you’re knowing to all that?” demanded the Squire. His gaze was
-direct and glowering and his fingers gripped the volume so tightly that
-they were white and bloodless.
-
-“Not only I’m knowin’ to it, but so’s the South Cove seiners that have
-their dry racks out that way.” Amazeen was defiant. The lawyer glared
-at him so threateningly that he became thoroughly indignant. “And if you
-want the straight facts,” he barked, “and have got to have names right
-out in meetin’ to prove it ain’t just gossip, then it’s King Bradish
-who is sparkin’ round the lady mother’s lovely daughter that you’ve
-plastered off onto a poor boy that’s broke his people’s hearts by
-gettin’ married to her. I’ve been wond’rin’ how the high-toned Sylveny
-Willard would like to find that out.”
-
-Squire Phin laid the book on the table and put his hands behind him to
-hide their trembling.
-
-“You listen a moment, Amazeen,” he said, spitting the words at the
-old man; “there are limits to what a person can tell and tattle in a
-community, when that telling and tattling implicates others’ good names.
-You know me and you know how much you can depend on what I tell you.
-If I hear another word on this matter as having been passed around the
-village by you or Buck, here, I’ll give my services to King Bradish, sue
-you for slander, attach every dollar’s worth you own, and, by the gods,
-I’ll win my case. Now if you want your tongue to empty your pocket, go
-ahead and talk.”
-
-The old men stared at him a while and then, mumbling angrily, but
-plainly intimidated, went clumping down the stairs. The Squire stood in
-the middle of the office, his hands spatting each other behind him. At
-last the consciousness that some one was bawling his name outside broke
-upon his profound meditation.
-
-“Squire Phin! Squire! Won’t you see here a second?” shouted Amazeen.
-
-Look went along to the front window and threw it up. Only the old men
-were in sight in the street, standing shoulder to shoulder, their faces
-upturned, their beards snapping in the breeze. At this safe strategic
-distance they had one more shot to fire, and their countenances showed
-it. Amazeen held his hand beside his mouth and huskily whispered:
-
-“Squire, you know--that party--the party we was talkin’ about just now?”
- Sullen nod. “You needn’t sue me on his account. I won’t say nothin’.
-But--Squire!” Another curt nod.
-
-“I know that said party has owed you a settlement for quite a while, if
-what folks say is true. Now, why don’t you put your bill in with
-Wat’s and collect both with a”--the old man shouted the last
-word--“hoss-whip?” For Squire Phin had banged down the window.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V--HIRAM LOOK MEETS KLEBER WILLARD BRIEFLY AND BRISKLY
-
-AFTER TWENTY-FIVE YEARS
-
-
-               A nice little man came up the lane,
-
-                   And it was summer weather;
-
-               Said he, “It is jolly to meet again,
-
-                   Like this, we two together.
-
-               And if there be no other thing
-
-                   That you can think to say,
-
-               Then it’s ‘How do you do? ’ and ‘How do you do?’
-
-                   And ‘How do you do, to-day? ’ “
-
-
-It was “Figger-four” Avery who secured from Hiram Look the most
-information about himself for general circulation. When, after the first
-few days of wonderment, the attendance at the Squire’s premises dropped
-off, it was “Figger-four” who remained loyal to the new attraction.
-Hiram tolerated his constant presence because the little man’s
-wide-eyed, wide-eared, wide-mouthed receptiveness of his tales flattered
-the eminent impresario of Imogene and her appanage.
-
-Avery was so small and inoffensive that the showman never resented any
-questions that he asked. All others Hiram shooed off with profanity when
-they hinted concerning his affairs and intentions.
-
-“Blast him,” growled Hiram to his brother, “I feel like a sap tree with
-a spile let into it when he’s around. I just drip and drip away to him
-and he sets and laps it down and I can’t seem to shut off. But he’s an
-obligin’ little fool.”
-
-Avery’s soubriquet came from the appearance of his legs. A fever-sore
-years before had shriveled the left leg, and the knee was set
-permanently at an angle. As he bobbed along, alternately rising and
-sinking, he kept presenting with his legs the shape of a grotesque 4.
-
-“Everywhere I go,” said Hiram, “Figger-four is right at my elbow, still
-askin’ questions. And I get interested in answerin’ and I forget and
-try to keep step with him, and the first thing I know I’m hoppin’ along
-worse than a darned jack-rabbit. But he’ll do errands like a fly.”
-
-Therefore he did not rebuff the little man. In consequence Avery was
-able to report that Hiram had travelled all over the country; that he
-had brought his chariots to Palermo because he was going to start out
-with another circus after he got rested up and had squared things with
-his brother. Furthermore, the people who had bought his other show
-property weren’t willing to pay a fair price for the waggons, and Hiram
-didn’t propose to be “Jewed.” No one had ever got the better of Hiram,
-so Hiram told Avery, and Avery told the people of Palermo. He had--at
-this point Figger-four always took a long breath--rising forty thousand
-dollars in the bank, beside what he carried in the fat pocketbook. He
-was ready to lend money on first mortgages, and Avery was able to state
-that already several persons whom Judge Willard had been squeezing for
-bonuses on renewal of their notes had refunded their loans with
-Hiram. As Avery bobbed around telling this, he served as an excellent
-advertising medium, and other patrons of Judge Willard, who had been
-the town’s sole financial man for years, came to the new capitalist
-for loans. Avery admitted that probably the Judge would still enjoy a
-monopoly of handling the money of the widows and orphans and old folks
-who had placed their funds with him for investment, because Hiram was
-not yet morally rehabilitated in the town’s opinion.
-
-“But there ain’t a better man to borrow money from,” concluded his
-champion. “He don’t take no bonus and he lets you have it for six per
-cent, and set your own time.”
-
-Moreover, Hiram started the hum of industry in Palermo by hiring Ezra
-Mayo and several helpers to build a shelter for the circus waggons. And
-he was also vaguely hinting to the admiring Avery that next season he
-might start something in the way of business in Palermo that would make
-people open their eyes.
-
-“You’re all deader’n a side-show mermaid here in Palermo,” he said one
-afternoon as he and Avery were sitting by the roadside under one of the
-big Look poplars. “There’s a lot of things that need to be peppered up.
-My brother Phin could have done it if he wasn’t too easy-goin’. Now, how
-long has old Coll Willard been town treasurer?”
-
-There was a queer glint in the good eye that Hiram turned on Avery.
-
-“Goin’ on thirty years.”
-
-“Does he give bonds?”
-
-“Hain’t ever been asked to,” replied Figger-four, with the readiness
-of one whose business is to know other people’s affairs. “This town
-wouldn’t ask a Willard to do such a thing as that. He’s safer’n the Bank
-of England, the Judge is.”
-
-“Is, eh?” Hiram’s voice was hard. “I’ve seen a town note that was signed
-with only his name as treasurer. Does the town allow him to borrow money
-that way?”
-
-“I believe Cap’n Ward did bring it up in town meetin’ once and say that
-the selectmen ought to sign notes along with the treasurer. But there
-wa’n’t anything done, as I remember. Cap’n was kind of a kicker. He died
-the summer after that town meetin’,” added Avery, with an air as though
-the death were a special visitation to punish temerity in attacking a
-Willard.
-
-“Well, I’m feelin’ pretty healthy, myself,” said Hiram, “and you watch
-me go into the next town meetin’.”
-
-“Lyme Bearce says he’ll bet you’re a disturbin’ element, no matter
-where you light,” stated Avery, with the fearless naïveté of a village
-news-bureau that proposes to do its full duty.
-
-“Lyme Bearce and the whole of you be jiggered,” stormed Hiram. “I’ve
-been ’round the world some, and got up against human nature, and I
-tell you the only way to meet a man is with one hand hold of your wad
-and the other doubled up behind your back. Old Willard ain’t goin’ to
-run this town to suit himself. You watch me!”
-
-“Then you ain’t goin’ off right away with your circus?” meekly asked
-Avery.
-
-“I shan’t be goin’ till things get dull ’round here,” crisply returned
-the showman. “That’ll be after there’s a performance in one ring, me
-with the whip, old Coll Willard ridin’ bareback, and ev’ry time I snap
-he’ll turn a flip-flop.”
-
-Figger-four blinked at him uncertainly.
-
-“Let’s see, you ain’t ever seen Klebe since you--you----”
-
-“Since I licked him! Say it; I ain’t ashamed of it,” blustered Hiram.
-
-“Well, he’s thickened up solid’s a knot, and they say there’s more
-knockin’ down o’ men on board the ‘Lycurgus Webb’ than on any other
-schooner that sails out of Rockland. Terrible hard man Klebe has growed
-to be!”
-
-Avery glanced at the showman slyly to note how he received this
-information.
-
-“I have squared all accounts with Klebe Willard,” said Hiram, “but if
-I owe him anything more he can come and collect it. As for his father,
-that’s another matter. He took my old father by the throat after I went
-away and he had the twist noose of a mortgage around him for a good
-hold. He bought in accounts against us, as ev’ryone in P’lermo knows, so
-that he could collect the bills in a way to add ev’ry cent of costs that
-skin-skunk lawyers could tack on. And my old father and my brother was
-caught foul and paid double--yes, treble--for ev’ry dollar I owed.
-I ain’t nothin’ except plain muck, Avery--just a cheap renegade that
-hasn’t woke up to be half decent till it is too late. Payin’ it back to
-Phin don’t fix it. I shall always hate myself--but never mind that!” He
-swallowed hard and shook his head violently to and fro. Sudden passion
-blazed out of this moment of weakness. “There’s one thing I can do--I
-can spend forty thousand dollars puttin’ Coll Willard where he put my
-old father, and, by the gods, I’ll do it! That’s my business and no
-one’s else, and they can’t oh-please-don’t me!--no one, Avery, no one!”
-
-“Oh, I reckon the Judge is too well fixed for _you_,” observed Avery,
-wagging his head. “The Willards was always wuth money--plenty of it.”
-
-Hiram did not reply. But he snorted contemptuously and his eye had a
-strange look of craft and secret intelligence. “S’pose your brother will
-be your lawyer,” suggested Avery.
-
-“Look-a-here, Figger-four,” cried the showman, “I’ve been drippin’ away
-to you as usual without meanin’ to say half that I have. My brother Phin
-has been abused by old Willard, right and left, but he has been too easy
-to fight back the way he ought to. I’m squarin’ things for our family
-in gen’ral, but it has got to be done without Phin’s knowin’ it. Do you
-see? I want to use you some, first and last, and you’ll get your pay,
-but if you say one single word to Phin about what I’m doin’, I’ll twist
-that other leg of yours till the joint comes behind like a cow’s hind
-gambrel. Me and you, and mum! You understand!”
-
-Avery apprehensively promised and escaped, evidently fearful lest more
-secrets were to be entrusted to him. He felt that he wasn’t capable of
-safely holding any more just then. But the consciousness that Hiram Look
-was meditating the overthrow of such a magnate as Judge Willard propped
-his eyes open a bit more widely as he hopped about the street, and
-people began to wonder why Figger-four so often caught himself up in his
-discourse and looked scared and hurried away. They didn’t realise
-how anxiously the poor sieve was struggling to hold his secrets. The
-constant and sulphurous threats of Hiram started the cold sweat
-whenever they conferred together. Day by day Avery brought new bits of
-information that the showman sent him to dig out of people, and day by
-day Hiram fitted the information, piece to piece, only himself knowing
-to what it all tended.
-
-He sat most of the time in the porch of the old house, smoking long
-cigars, the parrot occasionally croaking his familiar cry as he waddled
-about his cage, that was suspended from the porch roof.
-
-“My office,” Hiram called the porch.
-
-People who wanted to borrow money, old acquaintances, folks who loafed
-along that way to hear his stories of wanderings, came and sat on the
-turf of the yard or on the steps. The showman shunned Brickett’s store
-and the other gathering places of the village. Once, Hard-Times Wharff
-came up and started to have a weather-vane spell on the Look porch, but
-Hiram drove him away with violent contumely.
-
-“He’s crazier’n a barn rat in a thrashing machine,” the showman observed
-to his faithful Avery. “Why, I hear he even said I was bringing trouble
-into this place, the old liar. I’ve only come to straighten out trouble,
-that’s all. Smoothin’ and glossin’ things over and lettin’ people kick
-you around and never objectin’ may be some folks’ idea of livin’, but it
-ain’t mine. And I don’t allow anyone to say I’m makin’ trouble when I’m
-doin’ a duty. You tell that to ’em in the village, Avery, and you
-tell old Whatyecallum Wharff, there, that I’ll feed him to Imogene if he
-snoops ’round here again.”
-
-But the next day Avery came bobbing hurriedly into the yard with the
-breathless announcement:
-
-“’Quar’us smelt it comin’! ’Twas a warnin’ to you, Hime!”
-
-“Smelt what? That load of superphosphate that Cap’n Nymphus Bodfish just
-brought in his packet? I can smell it, too.”
-
-“Klebe Willard came in that packet,” gasped Avery. “His schooner is
-loadin’ at Portland, and he’s up for his lay-off.”
-
-“Well, what if he did come?” inquired Hiram, rocking on the hind legs of
-his chair and boring Avery with his piercing eye.
-
-“Why, all is, he’s talked with the Judge, and now he’s frothin’ ’round
-Brickett’s store, and he’s comin’ up here. I stayed long enough to find
-that out.”
-
-“Let him come,” observed Hiram, with a calmness that troubled Avery.
-
-The messenger snapped up the full length of his good leg and shook his
-cane at the imperturbable man on the porch. “But there’s liable to be
-trouble,” he cried. “Klebe’s pretty middlin’ how-come-ye-so, same as he
-usually is when he’s ashore, and there’s enough folks in this place to
-want to see trouble and they’ll poke him ahead. Why don’t you have him
-put under bonds?”
-
-Hiram got up and stepped down into the road. A man had already started
-out of Brickett’s store and was stumping up the middle of the dusty
-highway. A dozen men were leisurely following along the gravelled
-sidewalks. When the distant pedestrian perceived Hiram, he shouted
-hoarsely, shook both fists above his head and came on with brisk pace.
-
-“Avery,” said Hiram, “you gallop down with your best high-Betty-Martin
-tiptoe and tell that gent that’s in the middle of the road that there’s
-nothing’ doin’ in the circus way here this afternoon.”
-
-Avery stood hesitating.
-
-“Hop along,” roared the showman, giving the man a push. “You’ve been
-whinin’ that you didn’t want trouble here. Now get into the game and
-stop it. You can inform Klebe Willard--for I reckon that’s him tackin’
-up this way--that when he steps his foot onto the Look place he’s
-steppin’ onto a proposition that has the burnin’ deck laid away in the
-ice-box. Tell him I said so.”
-
-Hiram left the road and went into the big barn.
-
-The other came on more rapidly now, with a shout that was something
-like a jeer. He violently bumped the entreating Avery from his path and
-strode into the Look yard, the retinue following at a distance.
-
-The new arrival set his sturdy legs wide apart, threw his cloth cap on
-the ground, and bellowed:
-
-“Come out here in the fair and open, where there’s sea-room, you old
-woodchuck! Come out and see the mark I’ve lugged for twenty-five years.”
-
-He slapped his hand against his cheek where a scar showed its wrinkled
-whiteness across his flushed, brown face.
-
-“Come out!” he bawled.
-
-“Crack ’em down, gents,” squawked the parrot, and he seized a bar of
-the cage in his beak and rattled away vigorously.
-
-“Come out!” Willard kept shouting, stamping about on the turf. “If you
-ain’t turned coward as well as skin-game thief, come out!” The parrot
-interspersed in these invitations his raucous cries.
-
-“Between you and Absalom a man can’t do his chores in much peace,”
- calmly said Hiram, appearing in the tie-up door. He stepped into the
-yard, set the tip of a long-handled pitchfork in the ground, and leaned
-his shoulder against this support.
-
-“You see that, do you?” yelled Willard, striding forward a few steps
-and putting a thick forefinger end on the scar. “That’s been there
-twenty-five years.”
-
-“Let’s see. You’re Cap’n Klebe Willard, ain’t you?” inquired Hiram,
-affably. And a wordless shout answering him, he said:
-
-“Yes, I know you and I know the mark, because I put it there myself for
-good reasons.” He looked around at the little group of spectators with
-an air of secure triumph.
-
-“And you threw my poor old father over his own fence, you coward, when I
-wasn’t there to defend him. Now, Hime Look, you’ve got to meet a man and
-not a boy.”
-
-He rolled his sleeves up from his hairy wrists.
-
-“You’ve got to fight a man and fight him in order to pay a bill you’ve
-owed here in Palermo for a long time.”
-
-Look still leaned on the pitchfork. “Put down your fork!” bawled the
-frenzied skipper, “I’m not one of your tame animals,” and without other
-preface he rushed at Hiram.
-
-The showman had been watching him with his sound eye glowing redly, the
-glass one glaring impassively. At the skipper’s rush, with the facility
-an old circus man displays with a pitchfork, he shortened the handle in
-his grasp, speared one tine through the generous cartilage of Willard’s
-ear, and before that furious adversary fairly realised what had
-happened, he swung him on his heel, forced him back by the pain of the
-pierced ear, and then driving the tines into the side of the barn,
-set both fists on the end of the handle and had the frantic man a safe
-prisoner at the end of the fork. Willard writhed a few times, groaning
-as his ear tugged against the steel. Then he stood up, perforce as stiff
-as a soldier, and roared at Hiram all the billingsgate of a long coast
-“language-artist.” The grim captor simply glared at him until he had
-exhausted himself.
-
-“A hyeny came at me in a cage once,” said the showman, reminiscently, in
-the first pause, “and I caught him just like this, and I held him till
-the fight was all out of him. Now, Klebe, you’ve come up here drunk as a
-fiddler’s hoorah and wantin’ to fight. You can’t fight with me to make
-a town spectacle. That’s what your father tried to do--make a town
-spectacle of me. I won’t stand for it. The Willard family can have all
-the trouble with me it’s lookin’ for, so far’s I’m personally concerned,
-but not in knock-downs. Those don’t settle things. You can see that for
-yourself. We fi’t twenty-five years ago, and here you are just as hot
-for it next time I see you.”
-
-The skipper burst into a fresh rage, and Hiram calmly waited.
-
-“The idea is, Klebe,” he went on in a maddeningly patronising way,
-“you’ve always done about as you wanted to and made others stand
-’round. Now, I’ve come back to Palermo to do a little runnin’ of
-things for myself. I’ll give you your chance at me when the right and
-proper time comes, and fair warning ahead. And when you say that you’ll
-walk off these premises, then I’ll pull out the fork. If you don’t
-promise here before these people to keep away from me and shut up about
-fights, you may as well make arrangements to have your meals brought.”
-
-At that moment Squire Phin came hastily into the yard, in advance of the
-puffing, hopping, terrified Figger-four, who had brought him.
-
-“Hiram,” he called, as he came within hearing, “release Captain
-Willard.”
-
-“Not until he promises to behave himself.”
-
-For answer the Squire, his face flaming with indignation, stepped behind
-his brother, and, seizing him by the shoulders, yanked him backwards.
-The fork came away and Willard stood free, clutching his bleeding ear.
-As he rushed again at Hiram, the Squire stepped between. He said
-slowly, quietly, yet with something in his face and his mien that was
-soul-compelling:
-
-“Captain Willard, you go home!”
-
-After a long stare at him, a stare that at last grew wavering, Willard
-turned and went out of the yard.
-
-The Squire stood and looked at his brother while the spectators stole
-sheepishly away. His hands were clasped behind his back; sorrow, anger,
-and reproach were upon his face.
-
-At last the showman stooped and dragged the fork tine to and fro on the
-grass to restore its brightness.
-
-“I don’t want to poison Imogene,” he growled.
-
-The Squire was still silent.
-
-“Well, say it,” snapped Hiram. “It’s on your mind. Let’s have it. I’m
-gettin’ used to bein’ called names.”
-
-But his brother only shook his head slowly, his eyes lowered to the
-ground. He turned and walked back toward his office.
-
-Hiram gazed after him as long as he was in sight, and then he went into
-the barn. The big doors at the rear were open, and the elephant, with
-eyes directed on the soothing landscape, was comfortably weaving to and
-fro. She crooked her trunk at him as he came near and curved it around
-his shoulders when he stood beside her.
-
-“Old girl,” he said, mournfully, “I reckon the cards was stacked when
-they dealt me my hand in this game o’ life. I’m a storm centre that
-would put a barometer out of business, but”--he took hold of her ragged
-ear and shouted into it, as though the affirmation did his resolution
-good,--“it’s me for the Willard family, just the same, and Phin along
-with me at the finish. You never _did_ give a continental for me, old
-girl, till I had licked you to a standstill, and I know families that’s
-like you.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI--SQUIRE PHIN HAS A WORD OF BUSINESS WITH KING BRADISH
-
-
-               For the dearest affection the heart can hold
-
-               Is the honest love of the nine-year-old.
-
-               It isn’t checked by the five-barred gate
-
-               Of worldly prudence or real-estate,
-
-               And that is the reason why, till the end,
-
-               A childhood lover is loyal friend.
-
-
-The little crowd that followed Klebe Willard out of the Look door-yard
-moved slowly, for the irate skipper formed the nucleus of the group
-and stopped every few steps to mop at his wounded ear with a big
-handkerchief, while he grunted threats and promises of vengeance.
-
-“I hope you’ll give it to him hot and heavy, Cap’n. He needs it. To
-be sure, I’ve done days’ work for him and got my pay, but I was never
-cussed so much before in my life as I was by him in that one week, and I
-don’t allow no man to talk that way to me.” This war-counsellor was Ezra
-Mayo, the carpenter, a sallow, weasened little man who had prudently
-run out of the door-yard at the showman’s first hostile movement. “And
-there’s others in the Look family that better be made to mind their own
-bus’ness,” he added with bitterness.
-
-He looked around apprehensively, and he now saw Squire Phin following
-slowly, as though to avoid overtaking them.
-
-A carriage was standing in front of Brickett’s store, and the man who
-occupied it leaned back with crossed legs and lazily kicked his foot
-over the wheel. A white hat, a black moustache and the light lining
-of the Goddard top emphasised the colour of his florid face. He looked
-prosperous, well-fed and entirely self-satisfied, and hailed the
-sputtering captain with great familiarity.
-
-As the Squire turned to ascend the outside stairway the man in the
-carriage flapped a greeting at him with careless hand, garbed in a tan
-glove. There was in the salute the same half-mocking condescension that
-marked the intercourse of King Bradish with most of the townsmen. But
-long before that, Squire Phin felt there was something more subtle than
-mere condescension in Bradish’s attitude toward him’. There Was a sneer
-under all, and there had been a sneer ever since the time when Palermo
-knew that Judge Willard wanted King Bradish for his son-in-law.
-
-As the lawyer toiled up his stairs he heard Bradish inquire
-sardonically:
-
-“Well, Klebe, which licked?”
-
-The Squire closed his door on the flood of profane threats that Willard
-began to pour out, clutching the tire of Bradish’s wheel with one hand
-and pounding emphasis with the other.
-
-The lawyer’s hands were trembling a bit as he sat down in his arm-chair
-and drew his tin tobacco-box toward him. He heard the voice of Bradish
-outside, raised above the captain’s angry diapason:
-
-“Do it? Why, of course I should do it; and you’d be backed up in it by
-all of us.”
-
-Squire Phin leaned on his table, and, narrowing his eyes in earnest
-thought, stared up at a row of creosote stains on the cracked plastering
-of his wall. Those stains for many years had occupied a peculiar place
-in his thoughts. When he half shut his eyes and gazed on the wall
-without studying detail, the stains took on the semblance of a row of
-men. He used at first to imagine them a jury, and he rehearsed his cases
-before them. It was profitable exercise. Every judge who came to hold
-court in that county had grown to respect the ability of the earnest
-attorney whose law was so flawless and whose cases were so thoroughly
-prepared.
-
-And after the Squire began to study the conditions of the country and
-its great social questions, he found recreation in applying to them the
-broad principles of law and seeking for solution. His own modest orbit
-of practice afforded him no mental stimulus such as he got from this
-imaginary practice.
-
-One day when there were no loafers in his office, he half-shamefacedly
-cut the picture of the Chief Justice of the United States out of an
-illustrated weekly and tacked it on the wall in the centre of the
-creosote stains, and after that he argued “big cases.”
-
-And in order to argue them he stinted himself in his modest personal
-wants in order to buy reports and digests and commentaries and all kinds
-of fat books in slippery buff calf; and he read those books until his
-eyes ached and his head spun, and he trained his big guns of logic and
-appeal on those creosote stains--and then sometimes wondered whimsically
-if this were not a sign of incipient aberration. He worried a bit
-occasionally until a certain grave judge whom he met at nisi prius term
-confessed to him one day as they were strolling after supper that he,
-from childhood, had entertained a gnawing hankering to be a locomotive
-engineer, and even then at sixty-five liked to walk by himself along
-country paths, chuffing softly between his teeth and keeping as sharp a
-lookout as though he were in the cab of a limited express.
-
-After that--the Judge being generally considered the most matter-of-fact
-old hard-head on the State bench--Squire Phin reflected that probably
-all men, if one but knew it, nurse little notions of their own.
-
-Therefore he kept on hammering the great trusts before that Creosote
-Supreme Bench, cherished the diversion as his chief recreation--lived in
-a dream world of amazing activity and usefulness. And in the meantime
-he humbly and contentedly drew deeds, conveyances and wills, appraised
-estates, presided sagely over “leave-it-out” questions of dispute, and
-spent most of his time keeping would-be litigants in Palermo out of the
-law.
-
-The voices under his window kept on their monotonous rumble as he
-meditated. There was the occasional spit of an oath from Willard,
-following the irritating drawl of Bradish, who seemed to relish the
-skipper’s rage.
-
-“Your honours,” murmured Squire Phin, “I want to thank God in your
-presence that I never yet ste-boyed a bulldog into a fight, rubbed a
-tomcat’s ears, nor scuffed a rooster’s feathers and set him over into a
-neighbour’s barnyard.”
-
-He tossed his pipe into the tin box and went along and threw up the
-front window as though he had arrived at his resolution.
-
-“Bradish!” he called, and when the man poked his head around the side of
-the Goddard and peered at the window, the Squire beckoned and went back
-to his chair.
-
-“I was intending to come up right away, Squire,” said the visitor, with
-an irritating air of condescension, standing with one foot on a chair
-and slapping his glove against his leg. His garments seemed peculiarly
-fresh and smart in the dingy office, in contrast with the lawyer’s
-careless attire. “But I got pretty much interested in hearing Klebe give
-personal recollections of ‘When I was a circus animal for five minutes!’
-It strikes me that your brother----”
-
-“I didn’t call you up here to talk about my brother,” broke in the
-lawyer, brusquely.
-
-“Sure enough,” replied Bradish, airily, “I’d be ashamed of him if I were
-you. So, then, to business! Have you collected from Buffum and Crummett
-and those others?”
-
-“No,” said the lawyer, “and it isn’t about them I want to talk. I----”
-
-“But I propose to talk about ’em,” snapped Brad-ish, interrupting in
-turn. “Here I’ve put a lot of bills in your hands to collect--_collect!_
-I want all that’s due me and I’ve got to have it. I’m in a hurry and I
-told you so. This is the fourth time I’ve ordered you to put ’em to
-the wall, and you haven’t done it.”
-
-“Look here, Bradish,” said Squire Phin, standing up and planting his
-broad hands on the table to prop himself, “I’ve collected your bills
-from all except a half dozen men, and that half dozen intend to pay. But
-I’m not the kind of a lawyer that will take a poor man by the heels and
-pound his head on the ground to shake money out of his pockets. Those
-men have had sickness and death and troubles in their families, and
-they simply can’t pay. And you can’t buy law in my office with which to
-persecute honest men, Bradish.”
-
-“Give me the bills, then,” commanded the other, stretching out his hand
-and clacking his middle finger smartly into the palm. “You aren’t the
-only lawyer in this county.”
-
-Squire Phin looked at him steadily for a time, then pulled down a letter
-file and began to search it. When he had found the papers he held them
-and gazed at his client, knotting his eyebrows.
-
-“I didn’t call you up here to talk about your bills,” he said, “but now
-that we are on the subject I’m going to ask you something, Bradish.
-Why is it that, after I’ve collected and put in your hands almost
-ten thousand dollars in the last few weeks--from men to whom you had
-promised longer time--you are still driving me to take the very heart’s
-blood out of these poor devils? Can’t you wait a few weeks?”
-
-Bradish brought his foot to the floor.
-
-“I suppose it’s a regular thing for a lawyer to ram his nose into a
-man’s business and twist it clear to the bottom, hey?”
-
-“I don’t know as I ever asked another client such a question,” rejoined
-the Squire, coldly, “because I don’t usually have a client who wants me
-to go to a debtor with an auger and a blood-pump when the poor chap is
-down and helpless.”
-
-“Then I’ll tell you, Look,” said Bradish, leaning forward with mock
-appearance of confiding the truth; “it’s none of your infernal business.
-Give me those papers. I know of a man that can collect them.”
-
-“And I know a man that will,” returned the Squire, “and collect them
-without making women and children go hungry while their men folks are
-in jail.” He sat down at the table, pulled a long wallet from his pocket
-and began counting money from a thick packet of banknotes. “Receipt
-those bills,” he said curtly.
-
-Bradish hesitated a moment, his anger prompting him to refuse the
-money from this source. But evidently his anxiety to secure his cash
-overmastered the grudge. He scrawled his name across the papers and took
-the banknotes.
-
-“Circus money, eh?” he sneered, unable to resist the impulse to make the
-fling. “I heard that Hiram has been squaring himself with you.” He began
-counting the money.
-
-“Now there’s no more business between us, Brad-ish,” said the lawyer as
-his client buttoned his coat.
-
-“I hope not,” retorted Bradish.
-
-“Only this,” pursued the Squire; “I may guess what you’re collecting
-your money for and shortening financial sail in town, and I may not. No
-matter! But I want to tell you, King Bradish, that from this time out
-you are going to leave Damaris Mayo to her husband.” Again he propped
-himself on the table and leaned forward.
-
-The charge came so unexpectedly that the man’s florid face grew pale
-and then as suddenly flushed crimson, as he stammered oaths, seeking
-emphasis for his denial. The Squire came around the table toward him and
-raised his hand.
-
-“Not a word--not a word more, Bradish,” he said, his composure perfect.
-“I married that boy and girl, and you can’t ruin that little home if I
-can prevent it--no, sir, you can’t!”
-
-Bradish strode to the door, but he drove his fists down at his sides
-with a gesture of impotent ire, whirled and came back close to the
-lawyer.
-
-“Why don’t you own up what your grudge is against me?” he gritted. “Why
-ain’t you man enough to fight fair and lay down when you’re licked? If
-Syl-vena Willard had wanted you she would have married you, and because
-she is going to marry me when---when”--his eyes shifted uneasily under
-the Squire’s stern gaze--“when she gets ready to, is no reason why you
-should ghost me ’round town and make up stories to retail to her. I
-suppose you’ll be reporting I’m planning to run away.”
-
-“You stop right where you are, Bradish!” cried the lawyer. “Sylvena
-Willard is too good a woman to have her name bandied here between us, or
-dragged through a village scandal by your fault. Your affairs and hers
-are between yourselves. You needn’t discuss them. But you shall not
-break up young Mayo’s family, nor insult Sylvena Willard by your
-actions, and I say this as a friend of both. Now, if you know where your
-head is level you will get out of my office.”
-
-The creases deepened about the Squire’s mouth. One fist was clenched at
-his side. The other hand pointed to the door.
-
-Bradish paused irresolutely, closing and unclosing his hands. But at
-that moment the door opened and a woman came in. Bradish crowded past
-her and went thumping down the stairs.
-
-Mrs. Micajah Dunham, bolt upright in the middle of the seat of a rattly
-beach waggon and disdaining the support of the leather-covered back,
-even when the ledges of the Cove road danced her most vigorously, had
-with a directness typical of Mrs. Micajah Dunham driven straight to the
-gnawed hitching post in front of Brickett’s store. Mrs. Dunham always
-appeared to be a very rigid sort of person, but on this occasion there
-was extra rigidity about her, from the set of her jaw to the stiffness
-of her knee action, as she stepped down from the waggon. Looking neither
-right nor left, she ran the halter rope through the gnawed hitching post
-and walked up the outside stairs exactly in the middle, hands at her
-sides and neglecting the rain-bleached rail as she had disdained the
-seat-back. A bonnet trimmed with dust-spotted imitations of grapes
-framed her narrow face squarely, and a shawl appeared to pinch her
-shoulders together.
-
-She sat down in the “blind-stagger” chair well to the edge, on account
-of the dust, at which her housewife’s eye glared in disfavour.
-
-“Squire,” she said, with a directness of attack that took no account of
-his averted face, “I’ve come to consult you legally, and I’ve brought
-the dockyments.” She jerked herself up, crossed the room, and laid on
-his open book a sheet of rudely scalloped pink paper, on which were
-pasted hearts cut out of red and blue tissue.
-
-“That’s almost the first to which I really was knowin’ the straight
-facts,” she went on. “But I’ve had a glimmer of an idea for some time.
-Oh, I tell you it ain’t come all to once, this thing ain’t!” The lawyer
-turned slowly, picked up the paper, holding it gingerly by the corner.
-
-“Sit down, Esther,” he said quietly, “and we’ll see what we can make out
-of it.”
-
-There were some lines of writing on the paper, and he read them aloud
-in dry, legal monotone, the woman greeting the sentiments with scornful
-sniffs:
-
-
-               “For those that love the world is bright;
-
-                   And when it’s bright it is a sign
-
-               That some one’s eyes do shed the light;
-
-                   Oh, darling, be my Valentine!”
-
-
-He paused and cocked his eyebrows at her inquiringly.
-
-“I caught Mr. Dunham writin’ that tormented sculch out of a book at the
-sekert’ry in the best room one day the first of this month,” she said.
-“And I took it away from him. And I know that he jest went to work and
-made another, ’cause he said he was goin’ to. He’s been dead set and
-possessed by the Old Harry for months, Squire, till I’m plumb out with
-him. I can’t, won’t and shan’t stand it no longer. Here’s items, if you
-need ’em.”
-
-She unfolded a long roll composed of many sheets of notepaper pasted
-together, and he read in the same calm voice her pencilled entries:
-
-“July 15.--He helped her and her scholars to pick white weeds to trim up
-the schoolhouse.
-
-“July 19.--Took our ladder and clime trees for leaves, ditto.
-
-“July 22.--Took broken candy to door and give it to her.
-
-“August 2.--Hitched and took her to her boarding place when it rained.
-
-“August 5.--More broken candy.
-
-“August 7.--Hitched before school and went after her.
-
-“August 10.--Dressed up and visited school.”
-
-The lawyer ran his eye over the other entries, noting a general
-similarity in all. Then he read aloud:
-
-“August 10.--Suspect he is making a valentine.
-
-“August 12.--Caught him at it and took the valentine.”
-
-“And this is it, eh?” he inquired, tapping the gaudily decorated sheet
-on the table. “But this is hardly the season for valentines.”
-
-“And this ain’t the season for a man that’s goin’ on fifty-two to fall
-in love with an eighteen-year-old girl, either,” she retorted. “But
-he’s done it. And ’sides all I’ve put down, it has been a continual
-peddlin’ out to her of candy and apples and fol-de-rols. You understand
-that by twistin’ a little I can see that schoolhouse door right from my
-but’ry winder, and there it is in that paper, chalked up to date.”
-
-For the first time since she had entered the room his eyes softened a
-bit. He shook the paper at her gently.
-
-“I understand, do I,” he inquired, his mild tones contrasting soothingly
-with her high-pitched anger, “that this record of devotion to a certain
-school-house door means that ’Caje is----”
-
-“It means,” she shrilled, “that that miserable, old, soft-headed fool
-of a husband of mine has gone to work and fell in love with that young
-teeter-bird of a schoolmarm in our deestrick, and has acted out till
-I’m distracted. I can’t do nothin’ with him, Squire. He jest grunts and
-growls and clears out of the house when I go at him. Now it’s come to
-the end of the jig. Understand? It’s the wind-up.
-
-“There’s the dockyments. I want to warn you right at the outset that you
-ain’t goin’ to come none of your gum-games on me, the way they tell of
-you actin’ with some of them that come to you for law. My mind is as
-set as old Pisgy itself.” She brought her work-stained hand down on the
-chair rail with a vehemence that made it creak.
-
-“I’m not going to have any fight with you, Esther,” he replied, smiling
-into her hostile eyes. “But you do surprise me about ’Caje. I thought
-he was as steady-going as a stone boat.”
-
-She nipped her lips spitefully.
-
-“Always a hardworking man, ’Caje has been,” the lawyer went on; “has
-stuck to his work a little speck too close, maybe.”
-
-“Look here, Squire Phineas Look,” she broke in, “this ain’t gittin’ on
-about that _di_-vose. You needn’t try to beat about the bush.”
-
-“Let’s see!” he mused. “Poor, crazy Ben Haskell’s girl, ’Liza, is
-teaching in the Dunham district, I believe. And Ben in the asylum these
-five years! Is she as pretty as her mother was before her?”
-
-“High-headed snippet,” sniffed Mrs. Dunham. “But I’ll show her!”
-
-The Squire set his arms on the table, his elbows squared, and a
-quizzical smile in the wrinkles about his eyes.
-
-“’Caje Dunham is a good neighbour, is honest and pays his bills,
-Esther,” he said, “but do you think for one moment that pretty ’Liza
-Haskell wants that old, callous-fisted, round-shouldered husband of
-yours hanging around her?”
-
-The woman’s eyes narrowed, and she glared at him with malice in her
-gaze.
-
-“A school agent in a district has to putter around the school house more
-or less,” he went on. “If he has been too neighbourly I’ll talk with
-him about it. But you’re not going to drag an innocent girl through any
-scandal, Esther, just to satisfy some grudge that you’ve hatched up in
-your own mind.”
-
-“So she has run to you with her budget, has she?” demanded the woman,
-her expression still more malevolent.
-
-“No, I haven’t seen ’Lize Haskell for months,” said the Squire with
-candour.
-
-“Oh, _she_ ain’t the one I mean,” Mrs. Dunham snapped. “I mean the
-pompous Queen o’ Sheby that was sittin’ in that school house yistiddy
-when I called there to give the little fool her come-uppance right
-before her scholars.”
-
-She nipped her lips and looked at him so spitefully and meaningly that a
-flush crept up from under his collar.
-
-He knew that the motherless girl had become a protégé of Sylvena
-Willard’s at the time that Ben Haskell had been taken to the madhouse.
-
-“No wonder you’re ’shamed,” the woman went on angrily. “You all of you
-are in the plot ag’inst me. I give her her earful, all right, Willard so
-high and mighty, or no Willard. That teacher and her, the both of ’em,
-got it straight from _me_.”
-
-“Do you mean to say that you went to the school house and abused that
-girl before Sylvena Willard?” demanded the Squire, standing up and
-glowering down on her.
-
-But her spirit was equal to his, for her anger was bitterer.
-
-“If any woman gits in my way when I’m doin’ my bounden duty by myself,”
- she retorted, “she gits what’s comin’ to her. Says I to that snifflin’
-school-marm, ‘There’s no man what’s draggin’ at a woman’s gown-tail
-unless he gits encouragement.’ And I says to Miss Queen Sheby of the
-Willards, ‘You can take that to yourself, you that’s tryin’ to shet me
-up. King Bradish and Squire Phin Look wouldn’t both be----”
-
-“Esther Dunham,” he shouted, “not another word. Not one word!”
-
-It was the awful anger of a patient man thoroughly aroused that fronted
-her.
-
-“I have a right to speak my own mind, and I pretty gen’rally do it,” she
-muttered, but she did not venture to say any more.
-
-He slowly sank back into his armchair, still glaring at her.
-
-“Oh, the devilish weapon that a woman feels privileged to use,” he
-cried. After a time he went on sternly:
-
-“Esther, I knew you at school, and I’ve watched you more or less since.
-You were kind of a cute little girl, with your way of spitting out just
-what you thought about folks and things. But we’d laugh at kittens when
-we’d cuff an old cat’s ears for doing the same thing. You’ve nagged and
-browbeaten your husband all your life together, and you know it!”
-
-“Gimme them dockyments,” she rasped, popping up with a snap like a
-carpenter’s rule. The lawyer put his broad hand on them.
-
-“’Caje Dunham was the kind of man that you could have driven with
-a cotton thread of love and teamed him anywhere. But you’ve used goad
-sticks, and hot pitch and a twist bit, and it isn’t any wonder you’ve
-made him balky.”
-
-“So you’re stickin’ up for that missable critter right before my face
-and eyes,” she cried. “I might ’a’ knowed better than to come here
-and expect a dried-up old bach to admit anything about the rights of a
-woman. You give me them papers, Squire Phin Look! I know where I can buy
-law, even if it isn’t for sale in this shop.”
-
-He calmly held the papers away from her clutching fingers.
-
-“How much have you and ’Caje put away between you?” he inquired.
-
-And when she did not reply, puckering her eyes and resenting his
-intrusive question, he suggested, more gently, “In case of alimony, you
-know!”
-
-“If that’s what you’re askin’ for, I don’t know as there’s any hurt in
-tellin’ you we’ve got risin’ ’leven thousand, put where it’s earnin’
-int’rest and twenty-five hundred out on first mo’gidges.”
-
-“And not a chick nor a child to leave it to,” he murmured, looking at
-her with sudden sympathy in his eyes. “It’s too bad, Esther, that your
-little ’Cilia was called away to her treasures in Heaven before she
-could enjoy some of the treasures you heaped up on earth for her--you
-two, poor, tug-a-lugging old critters, you!” She sat down suddenly, and
-her work-stained, knotted hands trembled as she folded them on her lap.
-
-“Saving and skinching and piling up,” he went on. “What good has it ever
-done you, Esther? Why didn’t you and ’Caje knock off and have a little
-fun together in the world before you got hardened this way? And for poor
-’Cilia it was always ‘Sometime!’ till she got to be sixteen years old,
-and then she went on the first journey of her life--to the grave! And
-the only good dress she ever wore was the one you laid her out in! Do
-you know what animals grub and grub with their noses rooting soil?” He
-shouted the question at her.
-
-She came back at him with equal fire. “When I want a sermon I’ll go to
-the parson! ’Tain’t any disgrace to be prudent and forehanded, is it,
-even if we ain’t got no one to enjoy it after we’re gone?”
-
-Her voice broke suddenly. The tears flooded into her cold eyes.
-
-“Oh, Squire,” she quavered, “’twould have been different with ’Caje
-and me if only ’Cilla’d been left to us. Hain’t neither of us knowed
-what to do with ourselves since we laid her away in the graveyard.”
-
-He walked around the table and patted the shoulder bowed under the faded
-shawl.
-
-“And as little as you’ve got left in the world now, Esther, here you are
-wanting to get rid of the biggest hunk of it. Can’t you realise that
-you don’t understand this thing yet? Your husband don’t know what the
-trouble is with him. Now let me tear up this list of ’Caje’s temporary
-aberrations. I’ll have a talk with him, and we’ll see--we’ll see!”
-
-But with an angry red in her cheeks that seemed to scorch the tears
-there she jerked her shoulder away from his patting hand.
-
-“Squire Phin, you’ve known me from a little snippet, and you know I
-ain’t flyin’ off to no tangents without good reason. It ain’t no one
-night’s growth, this ain’t. I’m going to have a bill from that man, I
-say! The neighbours ain’t goin’ to have a chance to say _I’ve_
-backed down. If you don’t want to take the case, then out with it,
-bus’nesslike, and I’ll go farther. But that _di_-vose I’m goin’ to
-have!”
-
-There was no gainsaying her angry obstinacy.
-
-“Well, Esther,” he said with a sigh, “leave the papers and I’ll have
-notice of the libel served.”
-
-“When? There can’t be no more fubbin’. The neighbours are all stirred
-up, and I’ve made my talk!”
-
-“To-morrow.”
-
-“So do! And I’ll plan according,” she snapped, and with lips set tight
-she left the room.
-
-The Squire slowly filled his pipe, his eyes fixed in unblinking stare on
-a far corner.
-
-“Neighbours!” he snorted. “Poor little gaffer of a girl, and the whole
-of ’em pecking at her!”
-
-He aimlessly searched for a match in his pockets, his eyes still on the
-corner.
-
-“Oh, Sylvie,” he murmured, “they are just ready to bury their beaks in
-you if you step between--oh-h-h!”
-
-In sudden impotent choler he snapped the stem of the unlighted pipe,
-threw the pieces into the corner and went out, shutting his office door
-behind him with a vehemence that made the building shiver.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VII--THE BUSINESS OF HUMAN HEARTS
-
-THAT CALLED SQUIRE PHIN TO THE COVE ROAD
-
-
-               Uncle Elnathan Shaw one day
-
-               Started down cellar, usual way,
-
-               Plannin’ in usual way to draw
-
-               Cider enough for ’foresaid Shaw;
-
-               But he happened to slip on the upper stair,
-
-               Whirled round and grabbed at the empty air,
-
-               And clear to the foot of them stairs, ker-smack,
-
-               He bumped on the bulge of his humped old back;
-
-               And his wife yelled down, as mad’s a bug:
-
-               “Ding-rat your pelt, did you break my jug?’
-
-
-Micajah Dunham was pulling “six-weeks” beans in his lower lot the next
-afternoon when he saw two men coming across the field toward him. With
-hand at his forehead he soon recognised them--Squire Look’s sturdy
-figure, and behind him the equally well-known waddling bulk of
-“Sawed-off” Purday, Palermo’s local deputy sheriff.
-
-“Hen’, just hand ’Caje that paper,” directed the Squire after the
-greetings. “Then, if you’ve a mind to, go back to the team and wait
-while I have a word here.”
-
-The farmer’s face paled as he took the paper, first dragging his
-earth-soiled hands across his trousers’ legs. He realised it must be a
-legal document, and it frightened him.
-
-“It isn’t often that the lawyer himself comes along with his paper,”
- commented Squire Phin, “but I felt that this might need a little
-elucidation--and something else, perhaps.” The farmer blinked, holding
-the writing aslant. The sheet crackled and fluttered in his trembling
-hands.
-
-“I ain’t got my specs, Squire,” he said with agitation. “But I don’t owe
-no money nor nothin’ to be sued for. What is it?”
-
-“Esther has sued you for a bill of divorce,” the lawyer explained
-bluntly. “Charge, cruel and abusive treatment. From what she tells me
-you are knowing to the whys and wherefores.”
-
-Dunham stumbled to a tussock and sat down. “Di-vose! Di-vose!” he
-stammered. “Esther sue me? I don’t believe it. It is some kind of a
-lawyer trick. Lawyers is alwa’s stirrin’ trouble, but I didn’t reckon
-you was one of that kind, Squire Look.”
-
-“Look here, ’Caje,” the lawyer’s voice was bluff and businesslike;
-“it’s better for me to handle this matter than to have it left to that
-young whippet over to the Corner, who’d have your heart out if he could
-pile up costs that way. Now, what do you mean by volunteering in the
-cause of education?” he inquired, jerking his thumb at the school house,
-whose roof was visible above the rise of ground.
-
-Micajah lowered his eyes under the keen look, visibly discomposed.
-
-“Still she’s a-dingin’ away at that, hey?” he growled. “If you was a
-school agent in a deestrick, Squire, and there was a poor, lonesome
-little wusser’n-orphan critter of a schoolmarm teachin’ the school,
-wouldn’t you sort of show her a few attentions so’s to keep her in the
-deestrick, seein’ that the children all love her? I’ve tried to explain
-to Esther, Squire, that it’s all in the way of school gov’ummunt, as you
-might say, but you know what a woman is!”
-
-“I’m afraid I don’t understand quite as well as I’d like to,” admitted
-the lawyer sadly, “but as for you, I reckon you don’t know ’em at all,
-’Caje. And you don’t know even your own self, you old numbhead. You’re
-sitting meeching there on that tussock, and you don’t know your heart
-well enough to understand whether you ought to be ashamed of your
-attentions to the schoolma’am or to be proud of them, as showing that
-you still have human feelings left. And the result of it all is that
-you’ve blundered ’round till you’ve made your wife jealous, instead of
-putting tenderness and generosity and mother-feeling into her heart. You
-blind old mole, you simply don’t know---don’t know! Here! You come along
-after me with that paper in your hand!”
-
-He led the way across the field, up the apple-tree bordered lane
-and into the house. There was no one in the kitchen or in the
-little sitting-room, where Esther Dunham always sat at her sewing o’
-afternoons, the sun filtering on her through the leaves of the window
-plant? No one in the house! They searched and called, and only the
-clock’s tick-tack answered in the silences.
-
-Everything was tidied. The table had been reset after the noon meal, and
-its well scoured ware glinted cheerfully. Micajah grabbed the lawyer’s
-arm.
-
-“She’s took her napkin ring!” he gasped. “She’s gone, Squire!”
-
-The husband hurried into the west bedroom and fumbled in the closet.
-“And her clothes is gone, Squire!” he called dismally. “Oh, my Gawd, if
-this ain’t trouble come double then I don’t know what ’tis.” He sat
-down on the edge of the bed and seemed about to weep.
-
-“Get up there, you old fool!” Look roared. “I’ve about concluded that
-the two of you need guardians or--or keepers.” He stood before Micajah
-with his arms akimbo. “Eleven thousand at interest and twenty-five
-hundred on first mortgages!” he sneered. “And while you’ve been pawing
-that out of the muck, you and your wife, you have never stood up
-straight, taken full, free breath of air and God’s sunshine and looked
-into each other’s eyes like true man and wife. And she doesn’t know you
-and you don’t know her, and you don’t know your own selves. Oh, ’Caje
-Dunham, I’m ashamed of you!”
-
-The man stared at him stupidly.
-
-“You don’t know yet what I mean, do you?” the lawyer went on. “You’re
-waiting for me, an old bach, to explain to you your mistakes and point
-out your duty.”
-
-A youngster came slapping his bare feet along the shed walk.
-
-“Squire Look,” he called, “Mis’ Dunham is over to my marm’s, and she
-just see you come in here, and sent word if you got any business with
-her you can call over there.” He added, triumphantly, “She’s brung her
-clothes to our house, too, and she’s goin’ to be our boarder.” He had
-edged into the bedroom, and his round eyes, big with the half-knowledge
-and guesses of childhood, goggled at the woe-stricken husband.
-
-The lawyer meditatively stroked his nose a moment and then turning
-without a word walked out of the house. The boy pattered on ahead.
-Dunham picked up the writ and followed dejectedly.
-
-“Be you goin’ to stay to the big meetin’ to-night, Squire Look?”
- inquired the boy, bursting with his fresh knowledge. “Mis’ Dunham and my
-marm and my pa and Mister Bolster are goin’ to have all the people meet
-at the school house and discharge teacher.” He turned his urchin’s stare
-of inquisitive significance on Dunham, stubbing along behind in the
-highway. “Mis’ Dunham come into school this afternoon and told teacher,
-and teacher didn’t go home after school, but I peeked in the winder, and
-she’s there cryin’ and----”
-
-“Bub,” said the Squire severely, “you’re anxious to grow up to be a nice
-big man, aren’t you?”
-
-“Yep.”
-
-“Well, there’s nothing that stunts growth like using your tongue too
-much. That’s why so many women are shorter and slimmer than men. Now
-always remember that all your life, and some day when you’ve grown up
-good and tall you just tell your little boys that a nice old lawyer gave
-you that advice about your tongue and never charged you a cent for it.”
-
-The boy stared up and down the big man, slowly slooped up the moisture
-of his open mouth, and closed his lips apprehensively.
-
-Mrs. Dunham was on the front porch of the neighbour’s house, defiantly
-awaiting their approach.
-
-“Has that paper been served?” she demanded, when they were still some
-distance down the path.
-
-The abandoned husband held up the fateful document, and was about to
-break into appealing speech, but she stamped her foot and checked him.
-
-“Not a word--not a word from you!” she screamed fiercely. “It’s all over
-and done and the passel tied and the string cut between us. I’m here to
-stay till I git my bill and allowance by the court. I shall watch that
-house till I git my own out of it. Then you can go to pot and see the
-kittle bile, for all I care. Ain’t you ashamed to face me with the
-stigmy of that law paper on you?” She pointed at him as at something
-proscribed. Her hosts were at the window, listening with manifest
-enjoyment. The situation maddened Dunham.
-
-“Talk to her, Squire! For pity sakes, talk to her,” he entreated, tears
-running down his sallow cheeks. “When she has twitted me before this
-I ain’t talked right to her, and I realise it all now. I’m awful
-sorry--I’m turrible, awful, desp’rit’ sorry I ever talked uppish to you,
-Esther,” he wailed. “I ain’t fell in love with any one else. I vow I
-ain’t. It’s diff’rent than that. I ain’t skercely realised how it was--
-but I reckon I know now. I’ve been thinkin’. I was jest--I was jest----”
-
-“Oh, you was jest Mr. Pompous-on-Parade, all so fine and gay,” she
-sneered, “and now you think that one drop of goose grease is goin’ to
-cure all the smart and hurt. But I tell you now, as I’ve already told
-Squire Look, once my mind is made up it is set as the eternal hills.
-Now, can you get that through your wool?” she stormed, her eyes blazing.
-
-“I know your disposition is inclined that way, Esther,” he faltered,
-lifting his eyes to her piteously.
-
-“And you say there ain’t no way--no chance----”
-
-“No, sir!” she spat.
-
-He pondered awhile, his slow, farmer comprehension of the situation
-dropping back into the material rut, in which his life had flowed like
-muddy water. “Which of the milk pans is to be skimmed to-night, Esther?”
-
-“I marked them for you,” she replied stiffly. “And the cooked stuff is
-on the swing shelf in the suller-way. Doughnuts and cookies in the stun’
-jar ’side of the flour barrel in the but’ry.”
-
-The lawyer had been scowling at the peering heads in the window.
-“Esther,” he broke in, “I want you and ’Caje both to come over to
-your house and sit down. I’ll venture to say that we can get at a more
-sensible arrangement than all this amounts to.”
-
-“You’re up to your old tricks again, Squire!” she cried sarcastically.
-“There are some folks that you can wind ’round your little finger,
-and some you can’t, and I’m”--she patted her flat breast--“one with too
-stiff a backbone to be wound.” She whirled on her heel and went into the
-house, slamming the door spitefully.
-
-The Squire gazed at the farmer with a flicker of sympathy in his eyes.
-
-“Go home and do your chores, ’Caje,” he commanded gruffly, “and be at
-the school house this evening.”
-
-At that moment the master of the house issued from a side door with
-his milk pails on his arm, and started for the barn, wearing a fine
-assumption of innocent obliviousness.
-
-“Oh, I. say, Uncle Paul,” called the lawyer, “what is the hour set for
-the lynching this evening?”
-
-“Lynchin’!” repeated the astonished man.
-
-“Well, perhaps I don’t pick exactly the right word---inquisition might
-hit it nearer. At the school house, I mean!”
-
-“If that’s lawyers’ lingo for our deestrick meetin’,” replied the
-indignant farmer, “it’s set for ha’f-past seven.”
-
-“You can drive back to the village,” directed the Squire as he passed
-Purday. The deputy had been comfortably lolling on the waggon seat, his
-legs hooked over the dashboard. “I’ll come along when I get ready. I
-ain’t afraid to foot it.”
-
-The mellowness of the waning afternoon was chilled a bit by the first
-breeze of autumn that crept over the ledges of Nubble Hill.
-
-Squire Phin turned up his collar, clasped his hands behind his back, and
-started down the road toward the school house. The old dog Eli, who had
-been routed from under the waggon seat by the deputy, scuffed along the
-gutter through the dry grasses.
-
-“If there’s anything lonesomer, Eli, than outdoors at this time of
-year,” mused the lawyer, “it’s the empty chamber in some of the human
-hearts that we know about.”
-
-All the eyes of the little neighbourhood were watching the Squire when
-he turned in at the yard of the school house and disappeared in the
-entry-way.
-
-But it was chore time and supper time, and the Dunham district people
-went about their tasks, mumbling surmise as to what the Squire intended
-to do. Mrs. Micajah Dunham remained at Uncle Paul Appleby’s gate, her
-gimlet gaze still on the school house. There was nothing to see, but
-she didn’t have anything else to do. For the first time since she could
-remember she wasn’t busy with supper-getting at that hour of the day,
-and she was conscious of something lacking, something discomforting.
-Her hands twitched when she heard the rattle of dishes within doors.
-She looked across at the old home. There was no trail of smoke from the
-chimney.
-
-“Cold vittles is good enough for him,” she reflected bitterly. “I wisht
-he’d choke on what I’ve left cooked up.”
-
-Her hard gaze did not soften when she saw her husband come out of the
-cellar door, shoulders humped, dragging his feet spiritlessly, the milk
-pails dangling from his lifeless arms. A gray cat was at his heels.
-
-“I don’t want Betsy to starve along with him,” grumbled Esther, and she
-called stridently, “Kit-te-e-e! Kit-te-e-e! Come, kit-te-e-e!”
-
-With a feline’s deference to one who has always filled the saucer for
-her the cat turned and scampered over to the Appleby house, tail up.
-
-“He ain’t even fit to associate with the cat!” snapped Mrs. Dunham, and
-she picked up the purring creature and switched into the house. But that
-uncomfortable hankering for occupation, that queer little feeling of
-being a fifth wheel, obsessed her.
-
-“I’m goin’ to slip on one of your aprons, Mis’ Appleby,” she announced,
-“and help you to get supper on.”
-
-“Now you jest set right down and fold your hands, Mis’ Dunham,”
- remonstrated the hostess. “I don’t expect boarders to do one namable
-thing. No,” she said hastily, stripping the apron from Esther before she
-could tie it, “I’ve sort of got my own ways ’round the house jest
-the same’s you have around yours, and there ain’t a thing you can do
-to help. You go right into the settin’-room and look over the album, or
-anything you’re a mind to.”
-
-Esther wandered into the other room. She reflected that she had always
-said the same things to “company” that tried to mess in. But the smug
-faces of the Applebys, enshrined between the plush covers of the album,
-palled on her. Nothing to do! She peered through the interlacing leaves
-of Mrs. Appleby’s geranium and a sob shook her. She was homesick, and
-she knew it. Her hostess, stirring briskly about her kitchen, made her
-long for her own domain of kitchen floor, even as a disgraced skipper
-hungers for his own quarter-deck. A boarder! A thing without authority,
-without aim or purpose! The clang of the oven door reminded her that
-Mrs. Appleby didn’t make cream of tartar biscuit exactly after her own
-receipt. How she would like to be back in front of her own oven door
-pulling out a tinful of those odorous, hot, crisply browned biscuit!
-But the reflection that Micajah would eat them made her snap her jaws
-together and wink the tears back from her eyes.
-
-Yet she went out to the gate once more and watched to see if there was
-now any trail of smoke from the kitchen chimney. Then she stared at the
-school house, and her features hardened.
-
-“Oh, I don’t understand it!” she murmured. “It ain’t been like ’Caje
-at all to do it! I can’t understand it!”
-
-She could control herself no longer. Despite the fact that she had
-stubbornly forced the issue herself, nagged on by the neighbours who
-had counselled her to stand up for her rights, she felt abandoned by the
-world. Her face puckered with the unsightly grimace of those who do not
-often weep, and the hot tears bubbled freely.
-
-“You don’t appear to be enjoying very high spirits, Mrs. Dunham.” She
-raised her head from the fence post with a jerk, for the drawling voice
-startled her. King Bradish’s rubber-tired carriage had made no sound on
-the dusty road. He had swung in upon the grass and sat looking at her,
-his elbows on his knees.
-
-“It ain’t any one’s business how I feel,” she retorted indignantly,
-ashamed at having been detected.
-
-“I heard down to the village that you and the old man had agreed to
-disagree,” he pursued, with that calm impertinence that Palermo called
-“the Bradish cheek.”
-
-“I don’t thank anybody to go peddlin’ my bus’ness ’round.”
-
-“Well, you’d have to put Sawed-off Purday under bonds to keep his mouth
-shut if you don’t want legal business strung from Clew to Erie in this
-town. But what I can’t understand is, why you didn’t get a lawyer that
-would really put your case through. Phin Look never will. And he don’t
-intend to, because he told Purday as much.”
-
-There was malice in the glint of his eye.
-
-She clutched at the palings and projected her face at him over them.
-
-“You needn’t make up any such faces at me,” he said coolly. “It’s none
-of my business, especially, but I hate to see a man that poses as a
-lawyer go around fooling his clients.”
-
-“Look here, King Bradish,” she cried, “I don’t know what Hen’ Purday is
-saying and I don’t care. But I do know that Squire Phin Look was here
-this very afternoon, and the libel was served on Mr. Dunham, and the
-Squire is down there in the school house this very minute talkin’----”
- In spite of herself her voice wavered, for she had been wondering with
-angry astonishment why her lawyer should go into so long a conference
-with the other side.
-
-Bradish slowly stretched up his arms and yawned. “Yes?” he drawled.
-“Down there with the school-marm, hey? Probably he’s telling her how
-the paper that was served on your husband to-day was only a dog-license
-blank, and they’re having a laugh, and he’s explaining how he will fix
-the thing up and fool you.”
-
-She slammed open the gate and started down the road.
-
-“Jump in!” he invited. “You seem to be in a hurry, and I don’t blame you
-a bit.”
-
-A few moments later he snapped his hitch-weight into his horse’s bridle
-and followed the angry woman into the dusty entry-way of the little
-school house.
-
-Esther tore at the knob of the inner door and threw it open.
-
-Squire Phin sat in the little teacher’s chair. The little teacher was
-huddled on the floor at his feet, her head on his knee. He was stroking
-a shoulder that was quivering with sobs.
-
-At the woman’s first explosion the lawyer arose and put his arm around
-the teacher and led her toward the door.
-
-“I will talk with you when you are in your right mind, Esther,” he said.
-“But this poor child has suffered enough from your tongue. Isn’t there
-one streak of womanhood left in you?” He put out his arm and gently
-pushed her from their path, leading the schoolma’am toward the door.
-
-“A pretty spectacle of a man you are, Bradish,” he gritted. “You’re
-trampling on a poor girl to strike a coward’s blow at me.”
-
-His face was gray with passion and his brows knotted above flaming eyes.
-He shouldered against the other and crowded him back into the entry-way
-and to one side. Bradish had his whip.
-
-“If it wasn’t for the presence of the ladies here, Look,” he cried, “I’d
-lace you till you howled.”
-
-“Bradish,” replied the Squire, “you’re hiding behind women now, like
-the cur that you are, and you have been hiding behind a woman for a
-good many years. Some day--but I’m a fool to stoop to your level. Come,
-child.”
-
-He strode away across the yard, the little teacher in the hook of his
-arm.
-
-“I guess you might as well take back your husband, Mrs. Dunham,” he
-heard Bradish cry after him. “Your lawyer seems to have cut him out.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VIII--SQUIRE PHIN ACTS AS PEACEMAKER
-
-
-               I’m tellin’ ye what Eph Landers did
-
-               The time that he went and lost his fid.
-
-               He was yankin’ boulders a week ago--
-
-               Tumble feller to hump and go!
-
-               He strung his chain round a rousin’ rock
-
-               And found that he’d lost the little block
-
-               To catch the link; it’s used instid
-
-               Of a hook and link and it’s called a fid.
-
-               And the crack-brained critter--what do you think?
-
-               Why, he stuck his thumb in the unhooked link!
-
-
-The school house was more than filled that evening.
-
-People came straggling up across the fields by short cuts, following
-lanterns that winked between the striding legs of the bearers. The
-nearer neighbours scuffled slowly along the road, bringing lamps and
-shielding the blaze with curved palms as they walked. The lanterns were
-hung on the nails about the cracked walls, part of whose unsightliness
-the little teacher had covered with the evergreen wreaths that she had
-plaited. The lamps were placed on the knife-whittled desks.
-
-The grown-ups painfully bent their knees under these narrow confines,
-some of them acting as though they were astonished that they were so
-much larger than they were in the old school days. Most of them hadn’t
-been in the school house since they had gone out with their tattered
-books in a strap so many years before.
-
-“It makes ye feel nearer the grave, don’t it?” whispered Salome Burpee
-to her seat mate of the old days, who had by almost unconscious choice
-sought the well-remembered desk.
-
-The seat mate, a tall, scrawny woman, was obliged to sit sidewise, for
-she couldn’t get her knees under the desk.
-
-“My, yes!” she replied rather mournfully. “It don’t seem hardly a day
-ago that I could sit here and swing my feet.”
-
-“That’s my initial,” mumbled Deacon Burgess to Uncle Paul Appleby,
-fingering a deep nick in the edge of the desk. “They was new then, and I
-got walloped for cutting it.”
-
-The men had gravitated to one side of the room, the women to the other.
-All whispered decorously if they had occasion to address one another,
-for in rural communities the usual gatherings are prayer meetings, and
-habit is strong.
-
-They discussed the report that the Squire had gone to the teacher’s
-boarding place with her, and would be present at the meeting that
-evening, and that he had talked “real saucy” to Mrs. Dunham, and that,
-too, after she had hired him for her lawyer.
-
-Esther sat grimly at the far side of the room in the girls’ reservation,
-and Micajah was hunched into a seat on the other side, his eyes staring
-straight before him. Neither exchanged a word with any other person in
-the room.
-
-“I heard it hinted,” whispered the scrawny woman, “that Sylvene Willard
-is going to stick her nose into this thing. She has allus made more or
-less of ’Lize Haskell, and ’Lize has been one of her ‘Grit and Grace
-Girls,’ as she calls ’em.” The woman’s tone was scornful. “You can let
-Sylvene Willard alone to put more tomfool notions into a girl’s head in
-a minit than practical common-sense will weed out in a year. She’s got
-them girls meetin’ to her house Saturdays and readin’ a lot of ratted
-stuff out loud and writin’ papers and foolin’ with a lot of lit’ry
-sculch. I wouldn’t let my Minnie join in with ’em. I told her that
-there was too much readin’ and writin’ of tomrot in the world now, and
-if she wanted to read she could stay to home and read cook-book receets.
-It may not be quite so new-fangled and fash’nable as it is to read
-about furrin’ countries”--the woman’s lips curled and her nostrils
-spread--“but it is a blamed sight more to the point if a woman’s goin’
-to amount to anything in this world and has got a husband and fam’ly--as
-she ought to have.”
-
-“Sylvene Willard better ’a’ taken one of her chances,” agreed Salome
-Burpee. “She can talk about loyalty to her parent and all sech till the
-cows come home. But the trouble was she was tormented afraid that the
-Judge might shine up to Number Two. I tell ye, them Willards is shysters
-after the dollars!”
-
-“She might have gone furder and fared wuss than o ’a’ married King
-Bradish,” said the tall woman. “But you’ll find that she has liked to
-have the two of ’em taggin’ at her gown-tail. You can’t blame ‘Lize
-Haskell for thinkin’ it’s all right to be flirty.” Salome turned a
-cautious gaze to the stolid, hard face of Esther. Then she looked across
-to Micajah.
-
-“My land o’ Goshen,” she murmured, “it don’t seem as though that young
-gal would need to mess into a fam’ly like that. I’ve thought right
-along that there ain’t anything to it except that Esther is so set and
-determined to make it out that way.”
-
-“I tell ye she’s a designin’ little critter,” retorted the tall woman.
-“And I want to see her boosted out of her job. If Sylvene Willard wants
-to stick and primp girls up and git ’em to readin’ furrin’ his’try
-and a lot of sculch, and gittin’ ’em all set up when their father’s
-nothin’ but a crazy pauper, so that they’re so nippy they have to talk
-polite lingo all the time, ‘yes, marm, yes, sir, our black cat!’ then
-I say let her take care of ’em. I want my Minnie to see that airs go
-before a fall!”
-
-A grating of wheels on the grit outside checked the whispers.
-
-Sylvena Willard came in, her cheeks flushed by her ride through
-the crisp air. The assembled inquisitors of the Dunham district
-instinctively knew that she was there as the teacher’s defender, and
-they surveyed her with disapprobation.
-
-But she nodded cheery little greetings here and there and sat down on
-one of the front seats with great composure.
-
-“Holds her age tumble well, don’t she?” mumbled Deacon Burgess,
-surveying the profile above the fluffy collar of her jacket.
-
-But Uncle Paul gazed at her grudgingly. “It ain’t the real Christians
-that go to Heaven on flow’ry beds of ease,” he grunted. “She’s had a
-pretty soft time of it all her life now, I tell ye.”
-
-At that moment the hush was broken by one of those solemn explosions
-that the irreverent call a “vestry cough,” and “Wolf” Doughty, so
-nicknamed on account of a swelling on his cheek, swung in his seat and
-suggested:
-
-“I reckon we might as well proceed to elect a moderator to preside this
-ev’nin’, whilst we are waitin’ for the defendant ’foresaid. Any one
-that has a mind on the subject will please say something.”
-
-At this hint Deacon Burgess was preparing to nominate Doughty, when
-there was a bustle in the entry-way and Squire Prin Look came in,
-blinking the outside gloom from his kindly eyes. The little teacher
-followed close in the lee of his generous bulk, her eyes downcast. The
-lawyer had carefully timed his late arrival, both on his own account and
-for the sake of the schoolma’am.
-
-“We’ll let ’em get settled on the roost,” he had told her, “and their
-first spell of cawing over and done with.”
-
-He lifted her chair from the platform and placed it so that she did not
-have to meet their eye-borings. Then he went up and calmly sat down
-in the visitor’s chair, the only seat on the platform, with an air of
-proprietorship.
-
-He crossed his knees and swung his dusty foot comfortably, oblivious to
-the frowns on the faces of Doughty and his adherents. The old dog beside
-him surveyed the audience with benignly extended jaws and rapped his
-tail as though it were a chairman’s gavel.
-
-The town of Palermo was accustomed to seeing the Squire at the head
-of all assemblages. For years he had been the natural selection of the
-voters at town meetings, after that hot caucus years before when he had
-defeated Judge Willard, who had been moderator so long that the office
-had almost become titular with him. It was a bold man who would get up
-now and suggest that some one else preside. The men stole embarrassed
-looks at each other, waiting for some one to take the plunge.
-
-“We’re wasting time, fellow-townsmen,” said the Squire briskly.
-
-“We was jest gittin’ ready to choose a moderator when you came in,”
- growled Doughty.
-
-“Will you kindly make the nomination, Mr. Doughty?” directed the lawyer,
-keenly eyeing the man.
-
-Doughty, nervous under the general regard that was now fixed on him,
-gruntingly worked his legs from under a desk and stood up. He could not
-nominate himself, and he wouldn’t name a Dunham district man, for he
-was angry at the cowardice of the assemblage that had failed to obey his
-hint.
-
-“I think it is the general sense of the meetin’,” he mumbled, “that
-Squire Phineas Look serve as moderator, he knowin’ how--how----”
-
-“I will accept the honour with thanks,” broke in the lawyer, rising. And
-as he stood there looking into their sullen faces he reflected, “You’re
-a cheeky old pirate, Phin, but it’s the only way to keep ’em from
-putting the little one on the rack.”
-
-“Neighbours,” he began, “I’m going to start in by telling you a bit of a
-story. Once when I was a small boy my father had a flock of turkeys,
-and the only thing I owned in the Lord’s world then was a little rabbit
-about half grown. That was the time we lived over on the Ridge road; you
-remember, some of you older ones, the farm that father took up?” Several
-nodded. His tone was the social chat of an old friend. The initial
-stiffness that had oppressed the farmers and their women had begun to
-wear off.
-
-“Well, s’r, folks, that rabbit was about as cunning a little critter as
-you ever saw. Gracious, wasn’t I proud of him, though! He used to hop
-around the yard and nibble clover, and I liked to watch him. You know
-how a rabbit’s nose will flicker when he eats? Like a lawyer’s tongue in
-a horse case!” His listeners greeted this thrust at the profession with
-much hilarity. The Squire beamed an encouraging smile at the little
-teacher, and then for the first time since their nod of greeting he
-looked straight and long into the face of Sylvena Willard. Her brown
-eyes brimmed with appreciation.
-
-“Well, the little rabbit hopped about the yard where the big turkeys
-brustled and hustled and pecked and scratched. Rabbit was busy getting
-its living and didn’t mind the turkeys. And the turkeys didn’t pay much
-attention to the rabbit. But one day something peculiar happened. One of
-those hen turkeys made what you might call a mispeck at a grasshopper,
-happened to get hold of that little rabbit’s ear by accident, and that
-turkey was so surprised that she h’isted it right up and held on.
-
-“Now, it’s the nature of turkeys, when they see another one holding up
-something that seems like a good, tempting morsel, to close in on the
-run and get their share. So in they tore. First hen turkey, however run
-off with the rabbit. She thought it must be good to eat, seeing that
-all the others were after her hotfoot. When she had run as long as she
-could, with every once in awhile another turkey getting in a peck at it,
-she laid it down to take a peck herself, and the others crowded around,
-shutting their eyes and getting in their work, and before they knew what
-they were pecking at they had torn that poor little rabbit all to bits.”
-
-The audience blinked up at him, as yet hardly understanding the
-application of the allegory. He straightened till his head grazed the
-cracked ceiling.
-
-“Since then I have always had an eye out to protect the innocent little
-rabbits from excited turkeys, who most likely might be sorry after they
-realised what they were pecking at.”
-
-Esther Dunham interrupted him. She half rose from her seat and cried in
-shrill tones:
-
-“As near as I can ketch what you’re drivin’ at, Squire Look, you’re
-callin’ me a hen turkey and you’re flingin’ out that the rest of
-the women in this school deestrick are turkeys, too. I for one don’t
-consider that is a compliment, and I don’t propose to sit here and
-listen to any more of that sort of talk.”
-
-He smiled indulgently at her excitement and went on:
-
-“As old Anse Breed, the chicken thief, used to say, ‘It’s a wise fowl
-that doesn’t step off the roost on to the first warm board that’s stuck
-up in the night.’
-
-“Now, we’ll just let the story I’ve told stand for what it’s worth. But
-you mustn’t expect me to argue in defence of such turkeys. And if you
-ever see an old gobbler named Phineas Look forgetting himself to any
-such extent you may throw just as many stones at me as you like till I
-come to my right senses.
-
-“You all know why you’ve met here to-night. All this gossip and guess-so
-and say-so has been thrashed over at back doors and front doors,
-upstairs and downstairs. I’ll not soil my tongue by rolling it in my
-mouth.”
-
-“It’s the bus’ness of this meeting to bring out the evidence,” blurted
-“Wolf” Doughty.
-
-“Any time I need any assistance, Doughty, in running a meeting over
-which I am presiding I’ll call you in,” replied the Squire tartly. “Now,
-what are the facts? Here is a little girl--only a little girl--poor Ben
-Haskell’s ’Liza, born and brought up in this town. Her mother dead
-and her father worse than dead. She trying to earn her living honestly,
-taking care of the children that you’re glad to have out from underfoot,
-you women. Every day she has been sending them home to you a little
-better, a little sweeter, a little more honest and self-respecting for
-having been with her that day--and yet all of you are ready to turn and
-rend her at the first squawk of----
-
-“Look-a-here, Squire!” Mrs. Dunham was leaning over her desk, her thin
-hand vibrating at him. “You can go about so fur with me! Do you mean to
-tell this meetin’ that my husband----”
-
-“Sit down, woman!” the lawyer thundered.
-
-“This ain’t free speech!” clamoured Uncle Appleby. “A moderator ain’t
-got no license to choke off everybody here.”
-
-With one stride Squire Phin was off the platform. Indignation bristled
-from his shaggy gray locks and gleamed in his narrowing eyes. As he
-passed Sylvena Willard she gave him a look that was like a cup of cold
-water to a man in battle.
-
-He stood among them in the centre aisle.
-
-“Have your moderators to suit yourselves!” he shouted, with a thump of
-his fist on the desk that made Uncle Paul dodge. “I’m down here now on
-this floor as a man that won’t see this innocent girl harried nor put
-out of a place where she is earning her honest living. Who are
-you, Esther Dunham, to analyse the emotions of the human heart? A
-self-operating dishwashing machine. What is your old husband that he can
-understand them, either? A doubled-over grub worm. The two of you hungry
-for something in your lives, you don’t know what! But you shall not shut
-your eyes and tear the innocent! Eleven thousand dollars in the banks,
-eh?” He snarled the words at them. “Rooted by your snouts out of the
-soil, and you never lifting your eyes to God’s sun and sky and open
-heart and loving eye and generous impulse. Oh, I know I am harsh and
-bitter! It is as hard for me to say it as it is for you to hear it. I am
-bitter toward all of you that live that way, and you in this town
-have always known my feelings. I dare to tell you the truths about
-yourselves, and only the sharp-pointed truth will dig into your hides.
-I dare to say to you, Esther Dunham, that you have maligned a pure and
-innocent girl who has minded her own business. I dare to tell you that
-you have trampled upon the torch of love in your own house until you
-have trod out every spark.
-
-“You wouldn’t let your husband love and do for his own child as he
-ought. He don’t know what is the matter with him, that’s the trouble.
-He has been bumping around like an old blind mule. He don’t know his own
-heart.
-
-“Why, all under God’s heavens he needs is the love of a child--a child,
-Esther Dunham. He has seen again in this poor girl the image of the one
-he lost. He has built another altar for his affections, and if it is
-outside of your own walls, blame yourself, Esther.”
-
-He clapped his finger smartly against his palm.
-
-“Wake up, ‘Caje! Wake up, my man! Can’t you see now what the hankering
-in your heart meant?”
-
-The old farmer tucked his head between his arms on the desk and wept
-weakly. His wife sat staring straight before her.
-
-“Poor little girl!” softly said the Squire. He tiptoed back down the
-aisle and smoothed the little teacher’s curls. “Poor little girl! You
-have been ground between two hard millstones--and none of you knew, none
-of you knew.”
-
-He gazed long, silently and rebukingly over the assemblage. The people
-shifted uneasily, shuttling their eyes from him to the floor.
-
-“Now, who wants to stand forth as persecutor of this abused child?” he
-demanded, his hand protectingly on her head.
-
-No one stirred or spoke.
-
-In the silence he walked slowly up the aisle and bent down over the wife
-who stood staring into vacancy.
-
-“Esther!” he said softly, and when she looked up at him after a time he
-gazed at her with his eyes softening.
-
-“Poor old mother!” He said it with infinite tenderness. He waited
-awhile.
-
-“It has been a bitter, cruel lesson that I have read to you,” he went
-on. “I am a harsh old tyrant when my feelings are stirred. But I would
-have defended just as stoutly your own little girl if she were here
-alone and you were sleeping over yonder there on the hill where her
-mother is.”
-
-He took her unwilling hand, and thereafter the eloquence that trembled
-on his lips was the soul outpouring of a man who has lived the life of
-human justice and generosity that he preached--and the woman knew it.
-With the skill of one who understood what quality of human nature lay
-under that tough New England exterior, he probed to the depths of her
-being, pulled away all the husks of selfishness that the years had
-piled, layer on layer, and reached the mother instinct.
-
-“Esther,” he said at last, “don’t you think you’ll look better with that
-softness you have now in your eyes when your ’Cilia meets you at the
-gate of Heaven? Why don’t you practise that look for the rest of your
-life? But you need something to practise on! There are lots of things
-that are going to waste up at your house since ’Cilia died. There’s
-love and tenderness, most of all. There’s the heart of a faithful man
-who has been yoked with you all these years, dragging at your mutual
-burdens. He wants a little love, that’s all. He wants that love from
-you, from no other. The two of you need something to soften your hard
-natures, something in common. You lost that when your girl died.”
-
-He hastened down the aisle. The little school-ma’am struggled a bit in
-his grasp, but with Sylvena Willard’s pat on her cheek and comforting
-word in her ear she went with him.
-
-“Now, Esther, what have you to say to this poor little chicken--this
-motherless little girl? Look into her eyes! What have you to say?”
-
-The woman seemed to be awakening from some dream. She gazed about over
-the assemblage. Her eyes returned to the shrinking girl before her.
-
-“It was only the same way that my own father was good to me, Mrs.
-Dunham,” murmured the schoolma’am, tears streaking her cheeks.
-“I thought it was you that sent some of the little things, till
-you---you----” Sobs checked her.
-
-“Esther!” pleaded the Squire, “it’s awful lonesome up to your house!”
-
-The whole picture of her homeless misery that afternoon blended with the
-strange new light that had entered her soul. She clutched his arm and
-pulled him down, whispered a few words into his ear, and then caught the
-little schoolma’am in an embrace that proved that motherhood was burning
-in her once again.
-
-The Squire nodded his head and smiled sagely. Sylvena Willard was
-standing at the foot of the aisle as he passed, mist in her eyes, but a
-smile of earnest approbation on her lips that made his heart beat fast.
-
-“It is a miracle, Phineas,” she whispered.
-
-“Oh, no; it’s in all of ’em--in all of us, if you only know how to get
-at it,” he returned softly.
-
-Then he faced the silent people, who were blinking hard their blurry
-eyes. He ran the brim of his worn hat around and around between his
-fingers with an air that was almost embarrassment.
-
-“Neighbours!” There was a bit of catch in his throat. “Esther wanted
-me to tell you that the little school teacher has found a new mother
-to-night.”
-
-He went out through the entry-way, and the old dog waddled down off the
-platform and followed at his heels.
-
-“Phineas!” Sylvena Willard caught him on the little platform of the
-school house. “How are you going to return to the village?”
-
-“I was reckoning to foot it, Eli and I.”
-
-“The boy brought me in our team. Won’t you ride with me? I want to talk
-it all over with you.”
-
-He was about to accept, when out of the gloom to which their eyes were
-as yet hardly accustomed came a blur of lighter colour. It was the
-lining of King Bradish’s Goddard buggy, and Bradish leaned out and spoke
-to her, “I sent the boy home with your hitch, Sylvie. I’ve been waiting
-for you.” He climbed out and “cramped” the wheel. “Was your experience
-meeting worth all the time you put into it?” he inquired with a bit of
-satire.
-
-“You sent my carriage home?” she demanded indignantly.
-
-“Why, it was the most natural thing in the world to do. There was no
-need of keeping the boy here when you are going to ride back with me.”
-
-“But I am not going to ride back with you, King,” she said, recovering
-her composure. “I must withdraw my invitation to you,” she went on,
-turning to the Squire. “But you can return the compliment by inviting me
-to share your conveyance--Shanks’s mare, I believe the boys call it.”
-
-“But it is two miles,” remonstrated the Squire.
-
-“Only a pleasant stroll after the stuffiness of the school house.
-Come!” She seized his arm and brushed past Bradish, for the people were
-beginning to come out of the school house with their lamps.
-
-He overtook them a few rods down the road.
-
-“Sylvie,” he said, walking his horse close to them, “I don’t propose to
-discuss this thing in the highway, but you certainly can’t be intending
-to walk home with this man, under the _circumstances_.” He dwelt on the
-last word.
-
-She did not reply, but continued to chat to the Squire, who plodded on,
-dumb and confounded at the turn affairs had taken.
-
-“And I shall tell your father!” drawled Bradish, venom in his tone.
-
-“Tell him whatever you think will be the best for all concerned,” she
-replied with fully as much significance.
-
-They heard him lashing his horse cruelly as he turned the corner into
-the Cove road.
-
-But during the walk to the village his name was not mentioned between
-them.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IX--SUMNER BADGER MAKES A WILL AND, UNWITTINGLY, A DISCLOSURE
-
-
-               “A man there was who died of late
-
-               Whom angels did impatient wait,
-
-               With outstretched arms and smiles of love
-
-               To take him to the Realms Above.
-
-               “While angels hovered in the skies
-
-               Disputing who should bear the prize,
-
-               In slipped the Devil like a weasel
-
-               And Down Below he kicked old Keazle! ”
-
-                   --An Epitaph by “Rhymester” Tuttle.
-
-
-The Squire had pulled his arm-chair into the centre of the broadest
-patch of sunshine that carpeted the dusty floor of his office. The
-light flooded his book’s pages until he almost closed his eyes, but he
-welcomed sunshine this morning. It fitted into his mood. When Brickett
-started his coffee-grinder there was a certain rhythm about it that
-set the Squire to whistling. “Hard-Times” Wharff was playing on his tin
-flute down in the yard of the little brown house behind the currier’s
-shop, the music serving as his daily relaxation from his meditations on
-astronomy. Usually the monotonous “toodle-oodle” irritated the Squire.
-This day he tapped time with his finger on the open page.
-
-He wanted to say something aloud and he glanced up at the “Creosote
-Supreme Bench.” No, that wasn’t the right kind of an audience! He looked
-down at the floor. Eli’s steadfast, worshipful gaze caught his. The dog
-rapped his tail genially.
-
-“Eli,” said the Squire, smiling at him, “when you load your gun to bring
-down a particular human heart, there isn’t any telling how many others
-the scatter-fire will hit.”
-
-Then for a little while he sat and dreamed over that walk home along the
-Cove road, past the pines that whispered and along the shore where the
-waves seemed to follow them with a sort of a dance step. And neither of
-them had said a word about love during all the long walk!
-
-In fact, Squire Phin hadn’t said much of anything. It was so good to
-hear her voice. Since he had talked to her that August day across the
-iron fence he had been afraid she would think that he was whining and
-sentimental. To be sure, he reflected, his feelings had been cruelly
-stirred that day, and that was some excuse; and then, too, he had waited
-ten years to say even the little that he did say. He was rather proud
-that he hadn’t raked up the old topic during the walk. This was the
-pride of New England reserve that distrusts over-much lip service. It
-had been hard to hold in sometimes along the way, when she praised his
-courage in handling the affair in the Dunham district and showed her
-appreciation of other things that he didn’t know she had heard about.
-
-“I suppose some men would have taken advantage and pestered her again
-with love-talk,” he had pondered as he walked away from the iron gate of
-the Willard place, “but I reckon I’ll never get fussed up enough again
-to bother her that way. It’s a tough thing for a woman to feel that she
-can’t walk with a man without his everlastingly dinging away his own
-troubles into her ears--and--and there may be a time when she will walk
-with me again if she realises that I know enough to keep my mouth shut.”
-
-All of which might indicate to those versed in such matters that Squire
-Phin Look understood litigation better than love-making, which has its
-own court days, its calendar for service, its notice and its set time
-for appeal. He, however, felt that he had played the part of chivalry.
-
-So the morning had seemed fair and he had slapped Hiram on the back at
-breakfast time and had hummed a tune as he walked to his office,
-and everything had seemed to be music, even the mournful cooing of
-“Hard-Times’s” tin flute.
-
-And when old Sumner Badger came dragging up the stairs and into the
-office, and dolorously announced that he was going to die inside of two
-days and wanted to make his will, the Squire leaned back in his chair
-and laughed, to the indignant disgust of old Sumner.
-
-“If there’s anything funny about my havin’ a call to the Speret Land I’d
-be much obleeged if you’d ’loosidate it, Squire Phin Look.” There
-was a scowl on the old man’s yellow face, and his shock of white hair
-bristled.
-
-“Die!” echoed the Squire; “why, Sum, who talks of dying with the sun
-warm overhead, and the waves sparkling out yonder in the Cove, and even
-Asa Brickett’s coffee-grinder down there playing dance music with every
-twist of the handle? Never say die, Sum.”
-
-“I donno what’s happened to chirk you up so’t you giggle at your
-neighbour’s solum warnin’s as have come to ’em, nor I don’t care
-a ding, Squire Look, but it ain’t right to mix in your own joys with
-others’ sorrers.”
-
-A close observer might have seen in the lawyer’s countenance a flicker
-of contrition, as though he had suddenly remembered that every man in
-Palermo didn’t have such cause for joy as he.
-
-“Sun a-shinin’, you say!” went on Badger, grimly. “Yes, and a sun-dog
-each side of it like wings on a bat, and a-showin’ that we’re goin’ to
-have a line gale that will blow the knot-holes out of apple trees. Waves
-sparklin’, hey? Porgy scum from that stinkin’ Cod Lead fact’ry that
-they’ve stuck under our noses out our way. Music in a coffee-grinder!
-And Brickett chargin’ three cents more a pound for Rio than he ever
-done. There’s some as can laugh at a fun’ral, but they ain’t got no good
-wit.”
-
-“I never laughed yet at anybody’s troubles, Uncle Sum,” said the Squire,
-gently; “but you and I, with life still in us, don’t know the day and
-the hour of our passing out. You’re not going to die.”
-
-“You think you know more about me than my guardeen angel, do you, hah?
-When my guardeen angel comes a-rappin’ the death knock on my headboard
-night after night I know what it means.”
-
-The Squire remembered that Badger was a Spiritualist of fervent faith.
-He made no comment.
-
-“Three times at our circle Mis’ Achorn has seen a shroud around me and
-angel hands beckoning over my head. You ain’t denyin’ that Mis’ Achorp
-is the best medium in this country, be ye?”
-
-“Mrs. Achorn is, probably, a good and well-meaning woman, Sum, I have
-no doubt; but if I were you I wouldn’t let any one scare me into
-conniptions. It doesn’t pay.”
-
-“I know what I’m talkin’ about,” persisted Badger. “I want to make my
-will.”
-
-“There’s no reason why you shouldn’t,” the Squire replied, and he pulled
-a long sheet of paper from the drawer.
-
-“I allus like to know prices before I buy. What will sech a dockyment
-cost me?”
-
-Sumner Badger was known widely as the “closest figgerer” in Palermo. He
-often boasted that he had never been extravagant in his life except once
-when he bought five cents’ worth of peppermint-drops for a girl. He was
-young then, he said.
-
-“She set and et the whole mess right down, one after the other,” he
-frequently related, “and that fixed me with _her_. I wouldn’t have no
-sech extravagance as that in a wife and so she lost her chance. I went
-and got me a woman that knowed how to make things spend for what they
-was wuth.” And on their little farm, denying themselves everything
-except the barest necessities, the couple had amassed their little
-competence.
-
-The Squire eyed the old man’s sun-faded clothes and his knotted hands
-and his seamed, gaunt face, yellow with bile, and he pitied this
-slave who had half-starved himself, in the midst of his herds and his
-harvests.
-
-“Poor old gaffer, you’ve sold your cream all along and drunk the skim
-milk,” he reflected--“a life ordeal worse than Tantalus went through,
-for Tantalus couldn’t reach what he was hungry for, and all you have had
-to do was to stick out your hand and dip into bounty.”
-
-He looked long at Badger, his shrewd eyes twinkling with the humour that
-replaced his momentary pity. Then he answered the old man’s question.
-
-“I’m willing to be reasonable, Sum. Now, what would you say was a fair
-price for drawing a will?”
-
-“Lawyers’ money comes dretful easy,” growled Badger. “’Tain’t like
-diggin’ it out of a farm.” He pondered, screwing up his eyes and
-calculating. “I should say if you’d draw up one that couldn’t be busted
-I’d be willin’ to pay a shillin’.” He made a move to draw his wallet,
-but the lawyer put up his hand.
-
-“I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you, Sum. If you’ll carry home to-day
-a good big piece of steak and eat it with your wife--lots of butter on
-it--I’ll draw your will for nothing.”
-
-Badger surveyed him dubiously and with sullen suspicion.
-
-“We don’t go much on meat vittles to our house--not with beef prices
-stuck ’way up where they be.”
-
-“That’s my price. And it’s got to be sirloin, not round.”
-
-The lawyer saw by the expression on Badger’s face that he had
-anticipated the old man’s prompt thought as to quality.
-
-“Steak’s steak, ain’t it?” he muttered. “I never heard of payin’ a
-lawyer’s bill in no sech fashion, but”--he sighed--“I’ll do it.”
-
-“And aren’t you going to thank me into the bargain?” demanded the
-Squire. “I usually get five dollars, at least, for a document of this
-sort.”
-
-“I reckon it’s lib’ral as law goes, Squire.” He suddenly warmed a bit.
-“You’ve been reasonable with me. Now I’ll do something for you. You’ve
-allus kind of cocked your nose up at s’p’tu’lism. I know it. You needn’t
-tell me! Now it’s goin’ to be worth something for you to reelly know
-whether there’s anything on the Other Side. So after I arrive there and
-git a little bit wonted to the place I’ll come back and appear to you
-and tell you all about it.”
-
-“Oh, no, Sum,” expostulated the lawyer, his face serious. “I couldn’t
-think of asking you to take all that trouble for a hard old nut like
-me.”
-
-“But a word from you to the people--you bein’ prominent--sayin’ that
-you’d seen me--materialised, mebbe; known by knocks, anyway--and I’d
-said ’twas so-and-so, would carry a good deal of weight and prove that
-I ain’t been no dum fool to b’lieve in s’p’tu’lism. I say, I’m comin’
-back and appear to you and you needn’t think it’s anything strange.”
-
-The Squire leaned forward and shook his finger at Badger.
-
-“Let me advise you on one point, Sum. This advice isn’t going to cost
-a cent. Now, if you ever get so much as one foot into heaven--even get
-your fingers through the crack in the door, you stay right there. Don’t
-you ever take any chances on coming away to visit. They might get to
-asking leading questions about you the next time you came back to the
-door.”
-
-“You don’t mean that for a slur, do you?” The old man’s face hardened.
-
-“Let’s get to the business of drawing the will before we go to talking
-personal, Sum. I don’t have the same ideas as you on some ways of
-living.”
-
-He wrote the usual heading at the top of the page, dipped his pen and,
-suddenly looking Badger in the eye, asked bluntly:
-
-“I suppose it all goes to the wife so long as she lives, and after her
-to your niece, seeing that you have no children. To ’Liza Haskell,
-poor Ben’s girl, I mean?”
-
-The old man shook his head with determination.
-
-“What! you aren’t going to leave it to your only niece--your dead
-sister’s child--a little girl that----?”
-
-“This is my will and it’s my own property that I’m willin’,” interrupted
-the farmer. “You can make it short and right to the point. It’s all
-goin’ to be turned into cash when I die, and Mirandy will git the
-interest as long as she lives, to be paid to her by the trustees that
-I shall name. Then the whole is goin’ to pay for a monnyment over my
-grave.”
-
-Squire Phin leaned back and stared at the old man.
-
-“Yess’r, a monnyment with my statoot on top and poetry about s’p’tu’lism
-carved around the bottom. I’ll show ’em that has scoffed and sneered
-that there is more to it than they thought.”
-
-“But how do you prove anything by putting, say, ten thousand dollars
-into such infernal foolishness as that?” stormed the Squire.
-
-“It will show that one man believed in it thirteen thousand dollars’
-wuth--and that’s all he had and what he’d worked for all his life,”
- persisted the farmer, stubbornly. He stood up and cracked his fist on
-the table.
-
-“Now, you can’t change my mind on that one jot or tittle, Squire Phin
-Look. You put it into any kind of lawyer lingo that will stick, and mind
-your own business.”
-
-The Squire completed the writing without further comment, but his face
-was stern and he drove his pen into the inkstand with violent thrusts.
-Badger during the writing informed him that he wanted him to be one of
-the trustees. The lawyer paused and frowned at the old man as though he
-were intending to refuse, then inserted the name.
-
-“And I want you to take these notes,” went on Badger, “and figger the
-interest up on ’em and put ’em in your safe and keep ’em.”
-
-He passed across the table a dog’s-eared bank-book with a few papers
-between the leaves. The Squire examined them without particular
-interest. There were half a dozen for small amounts. But at sight of
-the last he sat up straighter, studied the document with increasing
-attention, turned it over and over, and then stared at Badger, arching
-his eyebrows.
-
-“Where did you get hold of this town note?” he demanded.
-
-“I lent good money for it. I got it right from the man whose name is
-signed at the bottom--and he’s been town treasurer of Palermo for thirty
-years. I reckon you know him!”
-
-“Seven thousand dollars!” muttered the Squire. “Why, this town
-hasn’t----”
-
-“There ain’t nothin’ out of the way, is there, about me havin’ a town
-note?” Badger went on. He paused a moment, then added, “So long as
-you’re my lawyer and one of the trustees and I’m goin’ to die and shan’t
-be lendin’ the money any longer, I tell you that’s a good way to let
-your money out--on a town note.”
-
-For the first time since he had come into the office his face twisted
-into something like a smile. He leaned forward and whispered:
-
-“Says the Judge to me, ‘You keep right still about how you’ve lent this
-money to the town and you won’t git taxed. So long’s it’s between you
-and me it won’t git onto the assessors’ books.’”
-
-The Squire had the note spread before him and was studying it, his hands
-clutched into his thick hair, his elbows on the table.
-
-“Yess’r, the Judge says, ‘You’re a friend of mine, Sum, and so long’s
-you keep still you’ll git your six per cent, and not be taxed on it!’
-But there ain’t no need of keepin’ still any longer. I shan’t need extra
-int’rest. You can collect as soon as I’m dead.”
-
-“Sum,” said the Squire, slowly lifting his eyes to the old man’s
-face--eyes in which there was a sort of shocked bewilderment, “I don’t
-want you to say anything about this note. It isn’t to be talked of.”
-
-“But I’ve told Figger-Four Avery about it,” cried Badger, looking
-scared.
-
-“Figger-Four Avery!” Squire Phin shouted the name. “Why, you might
-as well have put it into the _Seaside Oracle_. What do you want to go
-blurting your affairs for?”
-
-“He was inquirin’ on bus’ness for your brother Hime,” faltered Badger.
-“He said Hime was borryin’ and lendin’ and was willing to pay seven per
-cent. Figger-Four is clerkin’ for Hime and gittin’ facts and figgers for
-him, and you know it jest as well as I do.”
-
-“No, I don’t know----” but the lawyer checked his exclamation, setting
-his lips hard. He put the bank-book and the notes away in the safe.
-
-“It’s best for you to keep your mouth shut about this,” he said curtly
-to the old man who followed his movements with frightened stare. “I
-won’t answer for what may happen to you otherwise.”
-
-He threw up the window and looked out. Uncle Buck and Marriner Amazeen
-sat on the store platform, their chairs tilted back. They were the
-lawyer’s regular stand-bys as witnesses of legal papers, and came
-upstairs at his call.
-
-“Your will, hey?” observed Buck as he pulled his spectacles down from
-his forehead and looked over the paper preparatory to signing it. “I
-allus thought you cal’lated on takin’ it all with ye, Sum.”
-
-When his eyes fell on the writing designating the purpose to which the
-estate was to be applied, he snorted, “Well, it’s about as I reckoned,
-after all. That’s the next thing to luggin’ it away to Kingdom Come.” He
-read the clause aloud to Amazeen.
-
-“Statoot to be life-size?” that individual blandly inquired.
-
-“It will be as big’s there’s money for,” replied Badger, stiffly. “It
-will be sculped out from my photograft and I reckon the sculper can make
-me nine feet high. There’s risin’ thirteen thousand to do it with.” He
-gazed at his auditors with triumph.
-
-“Le’s see!” pursued Amazeen, reflectively, “that would make your ear
-about as big over as a chiny nappy. Before you’ve been standin’ there
-two days them cussed sparrers will set up housekeepin’ in both ears. And
-a robin will have a nest under your arm, and there’ll be a crow settin’
-on your head ha’f the time. You want to add a codicil there providin’
-for about four scarecrow windmills set around over you. You’re goin’ to
-be almighty uncomfortable if you don’t. A statoot with twine string and
-feathers sticking out of the ears ain’t going to attract no particular
-admirin’ interest.”
-
-“If the citerzens of this town stand round and see a thirteen thousand
-dollar monnyment get all cluttered and gurried up, then they ain’t got
-no more public sperit than quahaugs,” cried Badger.
-
-Amazeen took Uncle Buck’s place at the table and proceeded to affix his
-signature. While he wrote he said:
-
-“Mebbe you think you’ve done enough for this town so that the citerzens
-will stand out there in the grave-yard, turn and turn about, and
-keep the flies off’n that statoot with a feather duster! But I’m more
-inclined to think that the youngsters will do it with rocks.”
-
-Badger replied to the sally with violent language, and the debate was
-becoming acrimonious when the Squire brusquely advised them to continue
-their dispute out of doors. His tone was harsher than usual, and his
-face was troubled. The old men went out, Amazeen shouting further
-directions to Badger, who hurried ahead, advising lightning rods and
-fire extinguishers and other appurtenances. Uncle Buck greeted each
-suggestion with a cackle of laughter. Squire Phin heard them pursuing
-their furious victim across the square, but he listened with abstracted
-frown, though at another time the grim jests might have amused him.
-
-He took the town note out of the safe and examined it again. Then he
-pulled down a bundle of small pamphlets bearing the cover inscription,
-“Town Reports of Palermo.” He studied them with care and at last leaned
-back in his chair and gazed long at the ceiling.
-
-“If I,” he said, softly, “were town treasurer of Palermo and had
-borrowed seven thousand dollars simply on my own name as treasurer,
-after the town had voted that two of the selectmen should sign with the
-treasurer on town loans, and had continued to pay six per cent, for that
-money after the town had voted to refund all floating indebtedness
-at four per cent., and, finally, still owed that seven thousand after
-making oath in my last report that the town owed less than two thousand
-dollars, why, I--I couldn’t explain it to myself, much less to the
-voters of this town.”
-
-Brickett began to grind coffee again.
-
-“Don’t the people of this place buy anything except coffee?” growled the
-Squire, jumping up and striding around the office. The noise racked his
-nerves now.
-
-“It can’t be,” he muttered. “It’s some mistake or--or----” The
-recollection of certain gossip he had heard a year before at the county
-court regarding alleged dealings in stock by “a prominent Palermo man”
- and his losses occurred to him, and he remembered that he had stoutly
-averred that no one in his town ever dealt in stocks. He knew that
-people outside were usually the first to hear of such things, but this
-was a story that he didn’t believe. This note was there on his table--a
-document that demanded explanation--a document that could be explained
-by a desperate man’s financial stress and in no other way. Men did not
-take such chances for amusement.
-
-Aquarius Wharff’s little flute piped away insistently.
-
-“What a devilish nuisance that old fool is!” the lawyer growled, and he
-went along and slammed down the window.
-
-Who properly should demand that explanation? Himself as town agent.
-
-Brickett was now unheading a barrel, and the clamour made the Squire
-pound his table with a boyish and futile rage. Every noise jarred on him
-and the sun didn’t shine in at the windows any longer.
-
-There was no doubt about his duty. The note must be shown to the
-selectmen. He picked it up, put it into his pocketbook, hesitated at the
-door, then hastily went back to the safe, tucked it into the most remote
-pigeon-hole, slammed the safe door and whirled the lock knob vigorously.
-
-“No, sir,” he muttered as he went down the stairs, “this isn’t a thing
-to prick with a crowbar. It needs a fine needle. There’s a woman to be
-considered first, and, by the gods! there’s no steer-team of selectmen
-going to walk over her to get to her father--no matter how the land
-lies.”
-
-He stopped at the foot of the stairs and looked back at his office door
-with a singular air of apprehension, as though he had left there some
-ugly and hideous object.
-
-“No, it can’t be.” He stamped his foot upon the turf. “It isn’t the
-Willard stripe to do a thing like that. He’s a hog, but not a thief. I
-guess I’ll go and sit under the old poplars and think about it a bit.”
-
-As he walked along the street he remembered what Badger had said about
-his brother Hiram’s activity in the matter of that town note.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER X--HIRAM LOOK PULLS IN SIMON PEAK FROM THE FLOTSAM OF LIFE
-
-FOR GOOD AND SUFFICIENT REASONS
-
-
-               Foster the tinker traversed Maine
-
-                   From Elkinstown to Kittery Point,
-
-               With a rattling pack and a rattling brain,
-
-                   And a general air of “out of joint.”
-
-               A gaunt, old chap with a shambling gait,
-
-                   A battered hat and rusty clothes,
-
-               With grimy digits in sorry state,
-
-                   And a smooch on the end of his big red nose.
-
-               That was the way that Foster went--
-
-               Mixture of shrewdness and folly blent,
-
-               Mending the pots and pans as ordered,
-
-               But leaving the leak in his nob unsoldered.
-
-                   --From “Ballads of the Wayfarers.”
-
-
-Hiram was on the porch in his favourite attitude, his chair tipped
-against the wall, his tall hat on the back of his head, his thumb hooked
-into the armhole of his vest. He rolled his cigar across his tongue and
-looked at his brother with a sidewise, suspicious glance as the Squire
-sat down on the edge of the platform. The lawyer remembered suddenly
-that he had seen that look on Hiram’s face frequently of late. It was
-the wary expression of a man who feared that he might be called on to
-defend himself.
-
-“I thought I’d run up to the house and sit down for a spell, Hime. The
-loafers down there get on my nerves once in a while.”
-
-The Squire noted the instant relief on Hiram’s face. The cigar rolled
-back to the other corner of his mouth and perked itself with new
-assurance.
-
-“I don’t blame you, Phin. That’s why I keep away from Brickett’s. I can
-jaw ’em off the premises, here, when they get to bothering me.”
-
-The old woman whom Hiram had insisted on adding to the household as maid
-of all work snapped her dishcloth at the ell window and began chatting
-with “Figger-Four” Avery, who was varnishing one of the vans. Avery sat
-down on the cart tongue and gave her his full attention.
-
-“Avery is a fair sample of ’em,” continued Hiram, jerking his head to
-indicate his servitor. “There ought to be only three days in the week
-for fellers like him and the rest round here--a rainy day, Sunday and
-pay-day.”
-
-“It wears on a man like Avery to get up before breakfast and work
-between meals,” observed the Squire, drily.
-
-At this little jest of his brother’s, Hiram recovered all his composure.
-It was evident that the Squire wasn’t bringing that dreaded “bone to
-pick,” he reflected.
-
-“I’m goin’ to have old Skip-bug, there, give the whole outfit a
-goin’-over, new gilding, new paint, varnish, and a clean scour. Prob’ly
-I’ll be takin’ to the road again next season, Phin,” he said, with a
-sigh. “I’ve been studyin’ it over for quite a spell. I’m get-tin’ to
-realise every day that you’ve drifted your way and I’ve drifted mine,
-and the things I talk about don’t hit you and the things you talk
-about----”
-
-“I’m a pretty dry, prosy chap to be a companion to one who has seen the
-world as you’ve seen it,” the Squire finished the sentence.
-
-“No, it ain’t that, Phin,” blustered Hiram. “The idea is you’ve got
-education and I ain’t, and I never shall have. There’s only brass
-and bellow to me, slam-bang like a circus band. So I guess I’ll have
-Hop-and-fetch-it give the gear a slickin’ and I’ll be movin’ on.” He set
-his hat down over his eyes and smoked hard.
-
-The Squire did not reply for a time. He had unclasped his jack-knife and
-was meditatively jabbing it into the decayed wood of the porch platform.
-
-“The Looks are no great hands to make a lot of soft talk to each other
-or anybody else, Hime,” he said at last. “But I want to say to you that
-I really hoped you were home to settle here. Half of the house is yours
-to do with as you like. Neither of us will bother the other one--I
-hope!”
-
-Hiram gave him another of his suspicious side-glances.
-
-“I’ve heard that you have been making quite a number of investments in
-town and were looking for more, and so I supposed you had decided to
-camp here. I wish you would, Hime.”
-
-“Well, I don’t like to have money ’round idle, that’s all,” growled
-his brother. He waited a moment and then, studying the Squire from the
-corner of his eye, he said:
-
-“I suppose the old fools ’round here are makin’ all kinds of talk
-about my lettin’ out a little money. I ain’t said anything to you about
-it ’cause I reckoned you had business enough of your own to think
-about.”
-
-“And I find enough in my own affairs to keep me busy, Hime. But”--he
-turned his gaze full upon his brother--“I’ve found time to wonder why
-you’ve been trying to _borrow_ money from old Sum Badger.” Hiram growled
-an oath, brought his chair down on its four legs with a clatter, and
-half rose, with a malignant eye boring the back of Avery, who was
-unsuspiciously swabbing his brush on the side of the van.
-
-“Oh, it isn’t Figger-Four’s mouth this time, Hime. I’ve been drawing up
-Sum’s will and he told me about it and left his notes with me.”
-
-Now that the Squire’s gaze showed that he understood the situation,
-Hiram’s apprehensiveness gave place to bravado.
-
-“And what do you think of that town note that shows that your high
-and mighty treasurer is a--is--well, whatever the law name is, I say
-‘thief’?”
-
-“I am perfectly well able to attend to the business of my clients, and I
-am not prepared to discuss their private affairs just yet,” returned the
-Squire, tartly. “It comes pretty near bein’ a town affair, and as I’ve
-never gained residence anywhere else and am a voter here and have got
-investments here, it comes pretty near bein’ my affair, too.”
-
-“There are good and sufficient reasons why I don’t want this old family
-feud carried on any longer, Hiram.” The lawyer stood up, clacked his
-knife’s blade shut and shoved it into his pocket.
-
-“And I know what the reasons are and I say you’re a devilish fool to
-have ’em,” cried his brother.
-
-“I have lived in this town all my life, Hiram”--the Squire preserved his
-temper, though the other was already bristling with wrath. “I intend to
-live here much longer. I am ready to resent injury just as quickly
-as you are. But this keeping alive an old fight, when there have been
-provocations on both sides, is folly and will lower us both in the
-estimation of the public. I say, you are not going to tramp over
-innocent persons to get at the object of your grudge.”
-
-Hiram stood up and kicked his chair off the porch.
-
-“Allow me to remind you--not to twit, but to speak the plain truth--that
-you seem to have waked up pretty late to the fact that you had any
-vengeance to attend to in this town.”
-
-“And that’s just it,” shouted Hiram. “I stayed away and let the
-wickin’ be put to you and father. You’ve been ground into the dirt and
-mallywhacked and spit on, just on account of me. The Look fam’ly has
-been muck under foot for some folks. And even now, after all that’s past
-and gone, that old wolf would have my ha’slet out of me if he could get
-it. There’s a debt due to the Looks, compound int’rest piled on compound
-int’rest, and by the jumped-up Judas Is-carrot, I’m goin’ to collect it,
-Phin. You may as well stand out of the way.”
-
-He strode about the little yard before the porch.
-
-“And besides all that, he’s stealin’ from this town, and you know it,”
- cried Hiram, stopping in his march for a moment.
-
-“There’s other redress for that besides persecution,” replied the
-Squire. “It isn’t our business as Seth Look’s boys.”
-
-“It _is_ our bus’ness. And it’s more yours than it is mine. You’re the
-agent of this town. You’re the man the people trust to see that Palermo
-gets what’s her just dues. You know she is bein’ robbed. Now, Phin, you
-either go to work and find out why old Coll Willard is borrowin’ money
-secretly on town’s notes, and you put it before the people in the right
-and proper way as you know how to do, or, by mighty, I’ll do it my way
-and then you’ll see how you stand before the people--you that’s hidin’ a
-note that you know is crooked.”
-
-Hiram stopped before his brother and breathed hard in his passion. And
-now the Squire’s repression began to give way. The obstinacy of this
-stormy petrel of the Look family was maddening.
-
-But, fortunately for both, the unhappy quarrel was interrupted. For some
-moments there had been approaching behind the alders at the turn of the
-highway a queer medley of sound--squeaking of whiffle-tree, yawling of
-dry axle and over all a peculiar moaning. Now a vehicle like a van came
-in sight. The brothers stood and watched it as it approached them. Avery
-came hobbling with brush in hand and gaped his surprise.
-
-“Well, P’lermo’s took this time, sartin sure,” he gasped.
-
-’Twas almost a little house on wheels. An elbow of stove funnel stuck
-out of one side. An old chaise-top was fastened by strings and wire over
-a seat in front. Dust and mud covered everything with striated coatings,
-a mask eloquent of wanderings over many soils.
-
-A bony horse, knee-sprung and wheezy, dragged the van at the gait of a
-caterpillar.
-
-Under the chaise-top was a hunched-up elderly man, gaunt but huge of
-frame, his knees almost at his chin. Long, grizzled hair fluffed over
-his shoulders, and little puffs of white whiskers stood out from his
-tanned cheeks. A fuzzy beaver hat barely covered the bald spot on his
-head. The reins were looped around his neck. Between his hands, huge
-as hams, moaned and sucked and snuffled and droned a much-patched
-accordion. To its accompaniment the man sang words that he fitted to the
-tune of “Old Dog Tray,” trolling lustily at the end of each verse, “An
-honest friend is old hoss Joe.”
-
-“Whoa, there! Whup!” screamed Hiram’s parrot, swinging by one foot.
-
-“Ain’t you kind of workin’ a friend to the limit, and a little plus?”
- inquired Hiram, sarcastically. The old horse, at the parrot’s command,
-had stopped before the gate, legs straddled, head down, the dust rising
-in little puffs as he breathed.
-
-“Joachim loves music,” said the stranger, with a mild smile. “He’ll
-travel all day if I’ll only play and sing to him.”
-
-“Love of music will be the death of Joachim, then,” commented Hiram,
-briefly.
-
-“Is there a hostelry near by?” asked the other, lifting his tall beaver
-hat politely. In the atmosphere of rough-and-ready Palermo the little
-action seemed an exaggeration. With satirical courtesy Hiram lifted his
-hat--and at the psychological moment the only “plug” hats in the whole
-town of Palermo saluted each other.
-
-“There’s a hossery down the road, and a mannery, too, all run by old
-Fyles.”
-
-“Crack ’em down, gents,” rasped the parrot. “Twenty can play as well
-as one.”
-
-The man under the chaise-top pricked up his ears and cast a rather
-startled look at the plug hat in the yard. Plug hat in the yard seemed
-suddenly to recognise some affinity or comradeship in plug hat under the
-chaise-top. The Squire saw only another of those fantastic wanderers who
-occasionally went dragging through the village, peddling their wares.
-He backed slowly to the porch and sat down. His brother trudged out
-into the road and walked around the outfit, his nose elevated with a
-curiosity that was almost canine.
-
-At last he planted himself in the highway before the man of the
-chaise-top, his knuckles on his hips, his eye flashing under brows
-wrinkled with thought, and stared long and silently.
-
-“Who be I?” he demanded at last.
-
-The stranger surveyed him for a long time, his head drooping lower and
-lower, until it was hugged between his shoulders.
-
-“You,” he huskily ventured, “so I should jedge, though I ain’t seen you
-for a good many years, you--I should say--you----”
-
-“Well, up and out with it!”
-
-“You are Look’s Leviathan Circus and Menagerie, H. Look, Proprietor.”
-
-“You win a cigar,” assented Hiram, with a snap of his head. “And as for
-you, you’re Sime Peak, billed as Mounseer Hercules, and I’m glad you
-called when you came along.”
-
-There was a grim significance under his words that made the stranger
-flinch.
-
-“Let’s see!” pursued Hiram, his eyes narrowing, “it’s quite a while to
-remember back, but didn’t you throw up your job with me kind o’ sudden?”
-
-The man on the van scratched a trembling forefinger through a cheek
-tuft.
-
-“I don’t exactly recollect how the--how the change came about,” he
-faltered.
-
-“Well, I do!” Hiram came close and wagged a forefinger up at the man.
-“You ducked out across country the night of that punkin freshet, when I
-was mud-bound in that pennyr’yal settlement and the elephant was afraid
-of the bridges. And you took my dancin’, turkey outfit and a cage of
-monkeys and a few other things that didn’t belong to you, and--_her!_”
- He almost shouted the last word, and then looked around with sudden
-apprehension that he was overheard by his brother. But the Squire sat
-on the porch without apparent interest. “What became of her, Sime Peak?”
- demanded Hiram, hissing the words at him. He seized a spoke of the old,
-dished wheel and shook the vehicle impatiently. The spoke came away in
-his hand.
-
-“Never mind it,” quavered the man. “It ain’t nothin’. We’re all comin’
-to pieces, me and the whole caboodle. But don’t hit me with it.”
-
-He was eyeing the spoke in Hiram’s clutch.
-
-“What did you steal her for, Sime Peak?”
-
-“There isn’t anything sure about her goin’ away with me,” the other
-protested weakly.
-
-Hiram yanked away another spoke in the vehemence of his emotions.
-
-“Don’t you lie to me!” he snarled. “The both of you done me when I was
-tied up with my circus clear’n to the hubs in mud. Mounseer Hercules of
-the curly hair!” he snorted, and ran a sneering gaze over the outfit.
-“She wouldn’t chase you very fur now. You took her, I say, a girl I’d
-lifted off the streets and made the champion lady rider of--and was
-goin’ to marry and thought more of”--another cautious look at the
-Squire, “yess’r, thought more of than I did of anyone else in the world.
-What did you do with her?”
-
-“Well, I was startin’ and she wanted to go along and so I took her
-aboard. She seemed to want to get away from your show, as near as
-I could find out.” The giant hugged his knees together and blinked
-appealingly.
-
-“It must be a bang-up livin’ you’re givin’ her.” Again Hiram
-disdainfully surveyed the equipage.
-
-“Seems as if you hadn’t heard the latest news,” broke in Peak, his face
-suddenly clearing of the puckers of apprehension. “She never stuck to
-me no time--honest to Gawd, Look. She only made believe she was goin’ to
-marry me. It was so I’d take her along. She ducked out with ev’ry
-cent of the sixteen hundred I’d saved up and run away with Signor
-Dellybunko--or whatever his name was--who was waiting for her along the
-road. Honest, I ain’t seen hide nor hair of her since, nor I don’t ever
-want to,” he rattled on eagerly, “and I’ve still got the letter that she
-left for me, and I’ll prove what I say. She said in it that she’d been
-plannin’ to do the same thing with you, but she had made up her mind
-that you wasn’t as easy as I was and she couldn’t work you.”
-
-Hiram’s shoulders straightened and he pulled his trailing moustaches
-with a bit of swagger.
-
-“She was out just to do someone so’s she and Dellybunko could get away
-with the stuff,” insisted Peak.
-
-“She says so in the letter, and you was smart and I was easy--that’s
-all!”
-
-“It’s the old army game, gents!” squawked the parrot. He cracked his
-beak against the bars of the cage.
-
-Hiram shoved his hands into his pockets and with a sort of meditative
-air of conscious superiority kicked another spoke out of the wheel.
-
-“Hadn’t you just as soon tear pickets off’n the fence, there, or
-something of that sort?” wistfully asked Peak. “This is all I’ve got
-left, and, honestly, I’ve never had no great courage to do anything
-since she run away with that sixteen hundred. I never had no great
-enterprise and ability like you’ve got, anyway. I just went all to
-pieces.”
-
-He scrubbed his raspy palms on his upcocked knees.
-
-“I didn’t really want to run away with her, Hiram, but she bossed me
-into it. I never was no hand to stand up for my rights. I could lift
-weights and let ‘em crack a marble block on my chest, but anyone with a
-limber tongue could allus talk me ’round--and I guess they allus can.
-I wish she’d stuck to you and let me alone.” His big hands trembled on
-his knees, and his weak face with its flabby chops had the wistful look
-one sees on a foxhound’s visage. “When did you give up the road?” he
-asked, evidently willing to change the subject.
-
-“Haven’t given it up,” snapped Hiram, scowling. “There’s the waggons
-over there, and the round-top and seats are stored, and I’ve got my
-elephant. I’m liable to buy a lemon and a square hunk of glass and start
-out again ’most any time.”
-
-Hiram couldn’t help winking his good eye at his old partner in
-“shenanigan,” though his face hardened again the moment after. Peak
-chuckled fulsome appreciation, Still eager to placate, he said:
-
-“I don’t suppose you really have to.” He blinked watery eyes at Hiram’s
-big watch chain with its bunch of charms, and at the ring on his thick
-finger, with its blazing stone.
-
-“Forty thousand or so in the bank and plenty more out at int’rest,”
- returned Hiram. He put both thumbs into the armholes of his vest. Then
-with the patronising air of the “well-fixed” he inquired:
-
-“How are you gettin’ your three squares nowadays?”
-
-“Lecture on Lost Arts and Free Love, mesmerise and cure stutterin’ in
-one secret lesson, pay in advance,” Peak explained listlessly. “But
-there ain’t the three squares in no such graft in these times. I ain’t
-got your head. I wish I’d been as sharp as you are and never let a woman
-whiffle me into a scrape.” Hiram glowed with the same warmth that he
-felt when “Figger-Four” daily regaled him with stories of how Myra
-Willard made life miserable for Kleber with her tongue and her folly.
-This gossip had been “Figger-Four’s” first recommendation to the notice
-of the showman, and Avery had sagaciously pursued it. Hiram now looked
-up at the man on the van with a pride that was gloomy, but none the less
-apparent.
-
-“Nobody ever come it over me,” he said in low tones, with a side glance
-to see that Avery didn’t overhear. “Still, another way you look at it,
-she did come it over me and so did----” He suddenly checked himself.
-
-“But she didn’t come it over you,” insisted Peak. “I’m the one she come
-it over, and look at me!” He made a despairing gesture that embraced all
-his pathetic belongings. “You’re the one that’s come out ‘unrivalled,
-stupendous and triumphant,’ as your full sheeters used to say. If I was
-any help in steerin’ her away I’m humbly glad of it, Hime, for I allus
-liked you.”
-
-This gradual assuming of the rôle of benefactor was not entirely to
-Hiram’s taste, as his frown indicated, but the constant iteration of
-admiration for his shrewdness and good fortune was having its effect.
-The old grudge ached less. It was like having opodeldoc stuffed into a
-bad tooth. Hiram felt as though he would like to listen to a lot more of
-that comforting talk. Moreover, his showman’s heart was hungry for
-some of that association of the old days and for a chance to swap old
-stories.
-
-“Sime,” he cried with a heartiness that surprised even himself, “you’re
-a poor old devil that’s been abused, and you seem to be all in.” He
-surveyed the wheezy horse and kicked another spoke from the wheel.
-
-“Crack ’em down, crack ’em down, gents!” squalled the parrot.
-
-“If it wasn’t for Absalom, there, to holler that to me with an
-occasional ‘Hey, Rube!’ I don’t believe I could stay in this
-God-forsaken place fifteen minutes. There’s no one here that can talk
-about anything except ensilage and new-milk cows. Now, what say, Sime?
-Store your old traps along o’ mine, squat down and take it comfortable
-a little while. I reckon that you and me can find a few things to talk
-about that really amount to something.”
-
-The man on the van unhooked the reins from around his neck and let them
-fall to the ground. But he still hesitated to climb down.
-
-“I should hate to feel that I was a burden on you,” he faltered. “But
-if there’s any stutterers around here I might earn a little something on
-the side to help out on my board.”
-
-“Me with forty thousand in the bank takin’ board money from an old
-friend, or lettin’ a guest of mine graft for his livin’?” snorted Hiram.
-“Not by a blame sight! You just shut up and h’ist yourself down here and
-help me unharness old Polyponeesus.”
-
-Hiram introduced his guest to his brother with curt brevity.
-
-“And I guess I’ll do as you hinted this mornin’ about takin’ the other
-half of the house, Phin,” he said. “I don’t want any friends of mine to
-be underfoot for you. As long as you suggested splittin’ off, I’ll do
-it. Old Aunt What’s-Her-Name can do for both of us.”
-
-“I didn’t mean it that way, Hime,” said the Squire, earnestly. “Your
-friends are my friends and we can all get along comfortably together
-just as we are.”
-
-“I’d ruther have the side-show privilege than a share in the big show,”
- persisted the stubborn relative; “it’s your proposition, and I can
-take a hint.” The presence of Peak and his mute suggestion of the old
-associations were already having their effect on Hiram’s undisciplined
-temperament. He had begun to wonder before this if getting acquainted
-again with a brother after so many years was altogether a success. He
-had been a bit ashamed in spite of Phineas’s candid forgiveness; this
-calm, earnest, educated man made him feel ill at ease. Suddenly, he
-realised perfectly why he had clutched at this stroller and hauled him
-into this haven.
-
-Hiram always acted first and reflected afterwards. He knew now that he
-had seized upon this man to hold him between his brother and himself, as
-he would have interposed a shield. He had anticipated that his brother
-would interfere in his resolution to “make Coll Willard curl.” For weeks
-he had been dreading the hour when Phineas would come to him for an
-understanding. No man knew better than he what the Look grit was, and as
-he had fully made up _his_ mind to carry out his plan of vengeance, and
-realised that the Squire would as vigorously oppose him, he had been
-trembling each noon and night for many days, as he sat upon the porch
-and watched the lawyer’s approach.
-
-Now he stood up close beside the amiable giant.
-
-“Sime and me is pretty close chums, Phin,” he said, “and we shall be
-together all the time talkin’ mighty busy, and it ain’t in no ways right
-for us to be gabblin’ round where you be and takin’ your mind off’n your
-business. So I’ll have another cook-stove set up in my part and we won’t
-trouble you a mite.”
-
-He took Peak by the arm and drew him away with some eagerness.
-
-“I want you to come in and see if Imogene remembers you, Sime. Then
-we’ll look over the carts.”
-
-Avery had been crowding up closely, mutely appealing for an
-introduction. His jealousy was aroused by the attention that was shown
-to this new arrival, and he followed them toward the barn as they
-started away.
-
-“Say, look-a-here, Figger-Four,” said Hiram, whirling on him and
-speaking with a gruffness that wounded Avery’s devoted heart, “you get
-back onto your job, there, and you mind it dern close from this time on.
-I don’t want you trailin’ me no more. You keep your place after this.”
-
-The cripple stood gazing after Hiram until he had slammed the barn door
-behind him. Then he settled slowly down upon his short leg and turned to
-the Squire a face on which there was astonishment as well as grief.
-
-“Seems like I never seen a changeabler man,” he observed.
-
-The lawyer looked at the discarded companion a little while, and the
-poor fellow’s distress was so sincere that he pitied him, even in his
-own sorrow.
-
-“Don’t mind it too much, Avery,” he said. “Hiram has had a good many
-things happen in his life to sour him and spoil his disposition. Some
-day he’ll find out who his real friends are and then you and I will have
-our innings.”
-
-He put his hands behind his back and walked into the house, and Avery
-went on with his varnishing. At first his strokes were slow and his
-face was melancholy. But as he pondered on his insult, his brush flicked
-faster and soon he was slapping away at a lively gait, keeping time to a
-song that he hummed, the last two lines running:
-
-                   “Good boy Phin, he don’t raise time,
-
-                   But pepper sass is hot and hell’s in Hime."-
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XI--THE COMBINATION THAT PROVED TOO MUCH
-
-FOR SQUIRE PHIN’S “LOOK TEMPER”
-
-
-               “Let cats and dogs delight to fight,
-
-                   For ’tis their cross-patch natur’ to;
-
-               To wallop humans is not right,
-
-                   But--wal, there’s things ye have to do!”
-
-                        --From “Meditations of Deacon Burgess.”
-
-
-The next morning the Squire was busy at the cook-stove at daybreak.
-He had joyfully turned old Aunt Rhoda over to Hiram’s _ménage_, and he
-relished the idea that he could resume his own way of living. As he tied
-on his canvas apron he reflected contritely that perhaps he was feeling
-a bit too good about being alone again. It wasn’t wholly brotherly.
-
-Then in his mind he laid it all to Aunt Rhoda’s cooking.
-
-She had frizzled the bacon into black chips and fried the steak until
-it would do for a boot-tap, and when the Squire had expostulated, had
-defiantly told him that he’d better stick to his law books and not try
-to tell her, after sixty years at the cook-stove, how to get up “a mess
-of vittles.” She had obliged him to eat huge hot dinners at noon that
-made him as sleepy as a stuffed anaconda for hours as he sat in his
-arm-chair in the office, trying to read his books. She had expected him
-to make out a supper on plum preserves and hot cream of tartar biscuits,
-and he had already felt the first gnawings of dyspepsia.
-
-“Now for my steak!” he said aloud. It was a generous slice, thick as a
-cushion and bordered with the cream-hued fat that Aunt Rhoda obstinately
-threw away when she pared his steak into thinner slices in order to fry
-them into parchment-like strips.
-
-It sizzled on the grid cheerily, the coffee--with its heaping “measure
-for the pot” and two for himself--gave forth an odour that promised
-better than the old housekeeper’s slaty-hued brew, and he was just
-cracking his eggs for his omelet when there was a rap at the door.
-
-The Squire called an invitation over his shoulder, and the visitor
-came in. It was the Mayo youth. His hair, that was usually slicked so
-smoothly, was tousled and it hung in strings about his face. He had
-evidently run all the way up the street, for he was out of breath and
-panted with open mouth like a dog as he thrust toward the Squire a bit
-of paper that he pinched by one corner.
-
-“Lay it down on the table,” directed the lawyer, shortly. “Can’t you see
-that both my hands are full?”
-
-The young man stumbled toward him and shoved the paper into his hands,
-evidently unconscious that the Squire had spoken. It fell into the bowl
-and the lawyer picked it out gingerly, muttering his ire.
-
-Mayo then grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, trying to utter
-intelligible speech, but he could only blubber and hiccup.
-
-“You infernal calf,” stormed the lawyer; “sit down in that chair and get
-your breath and let me alone!” He pushed the youth across the room and
-plumped him down with a thud that snapped his open jaws together.
-
-“She’s gug-gug-gone, Squire Look!” Mayo managed to squeak.
-
-The lawyer shook the paper to free it of the egg, looking ruefully
-toward his bowl as he did so. Then he read the note, his brows knotting.
-
-“_Deer Wart: my laddy mother has come for me & i have had to go with
-hur. i have gorn into a brighter wurld. soe yon needent hunt for me
-corse i shant ever be found, with love Rissy.”_
-
-“She’s dead,” squalled the husband, staggering to his feet. “She’s
-jumped into the water somewhere. You know ev’rything, Squire.7 You’re
-the only friend I’ve truly got to find her for me.” He seized the lawyer
-by the arm and tried to drag him away.
-
-“Sit down, I tell you!” commanded the Squire, and again he thrust the
-young man down into the chair. He read the letter again.
-
-“Have you shown this to anyone else?” he demanded.
-
-“No, not to a soul. I’ve run right to you, Squire. I know you can find
-her, but she’s dead. Oh, where has she gone?”
-
-“She may have gone straight up or she may have gone straight down,”
- growled the lawyer. “What are you sitting there gaping and goggling
-like that for? When did she go? When did you miss her? Did she take her
-clothes?”
-
-“I woke up this morning and found her gone,” wailed the youth. “She went
-in the night. She’s dead. She’s gone with her lady mother jest as she
-said she’d do.”
-
-“If you ever say lady mother to me again I’ll cuff your ears,”
- stormed the Squire. “Or if you mention this to anyone until I give you
-permission I’ll boot you clear to Brickett’s store and back again. Do
-you think you understand that?”
-
-“Yes,” whimpered the youth.
-
-“Not to a soul! Finding your wife depends on it.”
-
-“Can’t I go drag in the Potter brook?”
-
-“You stay here in this house. You are going to eat some of this
-breakfast first of all.”
-
-“I never can eat nothin’ more till she’s found,” wailed Mayo, with a
-canine whine in his nose.
-
-But when the meal was on the table the Squire hustled him to a chair
-beside it and roared at him until he ate.
-
-“It will never do for me to say one word of sympathy to the poor devil,”
- he pondered as he eyed the pitiful creature munching his food.
-
-“If I loosen one bit he’ll be climbing all over me like a hungry dog.
-The only way to handle him is to cuff him when he stands up on his hind
-legs.”
-
-While the Squire ate he pondered.
-
-“She went with Cap Nymphus Bodfish on the packet, that’s how she went.”
-
-He glanced at the clock.
-
-“Eight,” he mused. “Half the time since he has put in his auxiliary
-power Bodfish doesn’t sail until nine. If he got away early this morning
-it signifies something, that’s all! It isn’t the first time King Bradish
-has hired him for dirty work.”
-
-He started up and took his hat from the hook. “Wat,” he said, “you stay
-here and wash up my dishes and make yourself useful until I come back.
-Don’t you stir out of this house and don’t you say a word to anyone
-about your wife being gone. If you disobey me I’ll quit you.”
-
-He hurried out of the house and down the street.
-
-It was necessary to go almost to the packet’s berth to determine whether
-she was there, for the elms loomed high along the shore road. No masts
-showed above the storehouse when he came in sight of it, but to assure
-himself the Squire walked out on the wharf and peered around the corner
-of the building. The packet’s berth was empty and there was no sign of
-her on the narrow sea line at the mouth of the cove.
-
-“Hard-Times” Wharff stood by one of the hawser piles, looking to sea.
-
-“I wisht I was a garsoline ingine instead of a weather-vane, Squire
-Look,” confessed the old man, regretfully. “The wind it bloweth where
-it listeth, sayeth the Scriptur’s, but”--he sucked his tongue to imitate
-the explosions of an engine, “tchock! tchock! tchock! Garsoline don’t
-have to wait and list. It can go any time, day or night. I wisht I
-knowed better how it works, but Nymp’ Bodfish wouldn’t let me aboard
-this mornin’ to see how it does it.”
-
-“Did he get away early, Uncle Aquarius?”
-
-“I was down here at four to see whuther the sunrise was goin’ to be
-pink or yaller, ’cause you know a yaller sunrise follerin’ on sun-dogs
-means----”
-
-“Let the weather stand for a moment,” broke in the Squire, a bit
-impatiently. “What time was it when Bodfish sailed?”
-
-“Break o’ day, no wind but garsoline, oil on the heave, and ‘Hard-Times’
-went aboard with him wrapped in a shawl. And he wouldn’t let me come on
-to see the tchock, tchock, tchocker.”
-
-The Squire’s suspicions required no further confirmation. He hastened
-away up the wharf.
-
-“The sneak!” he hissed through set teeth. “The pup!” But he did not
-refer to Captain Nymphus Bodfish of the “Effort.”
-
-The man that was in his mind was just tying his horse at the post in
-front of Brickett’s store, and as the Squire approached, hurrying up
-the road, he shook the dust from his gloves and started leisurely along
-ahead of him, blandly oblivious of the other, to all appearances.
-
-“Good-morning, Bradish,” said the lawyer, curtly, as he came up behind
-him. He slackened his pace for a moment. Then he set his lips as though
-to hold back something that he had intended to say, and hastened past.
-
-“Business seems to be rushing with you this morning,” observed Bradish,
-with his tantalising drawl. The Squire walked on.
-
-“I say, Look!” The man’s tone was insolent. The lawyer’s evident anxiety
-to avoid him spurred his bravado. “You’ve put your nose into my affairs
-this time so far that you can’t pull it out by dodging me.” The Squire
-held up and the man came close to him. “What do you mean, Bradish?”
-
-“I mean that the other evening you made me the laughing-stock of the
-gossips of this town by stepping in between me and the lady I was
-escorting. You have compromised her, and now her father----”
-
-“Look here, my fellow,” roared the lawyer, “my family isn’t a very
-patient one, and you have got to about your limit with me. I never
-intended to pass another word with you, for it’s getting to be dangerous
-for both of us. But when you talk of my companionship, compromising any
-lady, I’m going to put you before your own eyes as just what you are in
-a community. You’re a low-lived, dirty hound that this very morning has
-stolen another man’s wife and sent her away by Bodfish’s underground
-railroad, as you’ve done once before if the truth were known.” Bradish’s
-face was purple with rage, but he looked the Squire straight in the eye.
-
-“So you’ve become a lunatic along with your other qualifications! Now
-tell me what you mean or I’ll post you for a blackmailer.”
-
-“I mean,” blurted the lawyer, “that it is your money that has hired
-Bodfish to carry Rissy Mayo out of town to-day, and it’s your money that
-she has in her pocket to pay railroad fare from Square Harbour to the
-place where you’re sending her.”
-
-Bradish snapped his fingers under his accuser’s nose.
-
-“That for your slander!” he cried. He started along the walk, but
-whirled and came close to Look. “There’s one thing I want to say to
-you,” he growled, “and it’s this--you seem bound and determined to
-plaster me with slander and it’s beneath my dignity to defend myself.
-And now you are working up a plot against me. You have heard that I was
-going to leave to-night for New York on business for Judge Willard and
-myself, and----”
-
-“I have heard nothing of the sort,” retorted the Squire, his eyes
-gleaming dangerously.
-
-“I say you have, and you must know I am going to his house now to
-discuss it. But no matter about that. I say you have engineered a plot
-against me, Look. You have fired that girl out of town and now you’ll
-turn around to-morrow and take advantage of a business trip that I must
-make and assert that I have run away with her. But I want to tell
-you now”--in his passion he drove his palm down on the lawyer’s
-shoulder--“if you dare to insinuate such a thing I’ll put you into State
-prison for criminal libel. I shall at once explain your dirty trick to
-Judge Willard and his daughter. And”--he drew back and looked at the
-Squire with malice in his eyes--“I shall furthermore tell Judge Willard
-what interest you have in this Mayo woman whom you have married off to
-a fool in order to hide your own guilt, you cheap apology for a man and
-lawyer.”
-
-The Squire stood immovable and stared at the man, his lips moving
-wordlessly. But language refused to come.
-
-For a few crowded seconds he almost admired the impudence of Bradish’s
-bluff, yet its masterly audacity fairly paralysed him.
-
-In the storm of his feelings words seemed useless. The thought of his
-own impotence of defence, with this assailant in possession of Judge
-Willard’s ear and confidence, the memory of his own sorrows of waiting,
-the woes of the Mayo youth, whirled in his brain like torches. His fist
-tightened into a hard lump, his arm throbbed and itched, and the next
-moment, with a grunt, the Squire struck forward.
-
-For the first and last time in his life Squire Phineas Look knocked a
-man down, and for one wild moment the primal Adam in him gloried in the
-act. He stood above Bradish with his arm poised and his fist smarting.
-
-Then he looked up and beheld Sylvena Willard gazing at the miserable
-scene from the piazza of the big house.
-
-And he held down his head and walked away up the street, the hot flush
-of shame on his face, a sob in his throat, and the gray blur of tears
-replacing the red blur that had flamed there a moment before. He glanced
-back once and saw Bradish going to her with his handkerchief pressed to
-his face.
-
-Hiram and his new friend were taking the air on the porch when he came
-into the yard of the Look place. He tried to avoid them, but his brother
-called to him.
-
-“We saw you do it, Phin,” he said. “’Twas good work, but what had he
-done to you?”
-
-“Oh, Hiram,” mourned the Squire, “don’t make light of a terrible deed.
-Oh, the Look temper--the Look temper! Thank God there are none of the
-blood to follow us.”
-
-He stumbled into the house with the feeble step of an old man.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XII--THE LIVELY FIRST APPEARANCE OF “THE LOOK BROTHERS
-
-CONSOLIDATED MENAGERIE AND CIRCUS”
-
-
-                   “Allus was bound to grab right in,
-
-                   That was the cut of old Seth Blinn.
-
-                   Finger was stuck in ev’ry pie
-
-                   Or else he’d know the reason why;
-
-                   But when he quit how people swore,
-
-                   For things was wuss’n they was before.”
-
-                        --Ballads of “Queer Capers.”
-
-
-By Judas,” remarked Hiram, admiringly, to Peak for the tenth time since
-they had observed the astonishing contretemps in the road, “I’m proud of
-that brother of mine. I didn’t know ’twas in him. I was afraid he was
-only lawyer and nothin’ else.”
-
-He relighted his cigar. “I’ve got to own up to you, Sime, that we wasn’t
-gettin’ along together the best that ever was. I thought he had got
-soaked with too many sissy notions, and there’s nothin’ that makes a
-circus man so sick as sissy notions. You know that! But I tell you,
-Sime, if he can do a job like that and only holds out now as he’s
-commenced, him and me is goin’ to get along fine after this.”
-
-“He seemed to be feelin’ awful bad when he went into the house,”
- remarked Peak, solicitously.
-
-“I didn’t notice it,” cried Hiram; “well, if that’s the case, he’s got
-to be chirked up. I don’t want him to lose any of his grip.”
-
-And he hurried around the corner and entered the kitchen.
-
-“What’s the matter, Phin?” he cried, bluffly. “There’s something on
-and you might as well out with it. It’s the Looks together against the
-world--and you know what the family is!”
-
-“Enough of that, Hiram!” roared the Squire, thumping the table at which
-he sat deep in thought, as his brother came in. Dishes fell off and were
-smashed on the floor. He kicked the fragments impatiently. “The Looks
-are rowdies, plug-uglies and street brawlers, and we ought to be ashamed
-to lift our heads in the presence of decency and refinement. The trouble
-with you is, you’re too much of a fool to know that you’re cheap--that
-we’re all cheap. That’s the word--cheap!”
-
-But Hiram’s good nature was not to be disturbed that morning.
-
-“You’re one of the good old breed, even if you are chewed up just this
-minute,” he replied cheerfully. “And whatever’s goin’ on now I’m goin’
-to be in it, Phin, and you can’t shake me. I’m your brother and you
-can’t cut me out. Now, what is it?”
-
-It was not to be resisted, this frank and honest anxiety to be of use,
-and the Squire was sorely in need of counsel and aid. With a glance at
-the Mayo youth; who was rubbing listlessly away at a saucepan, his misty
-and unseeing gaze fixed on the far hills framed in the kitchen windows,
-the lawyer drew his brother out of the room into the yard.
-
-“What’s the matter with your friend, Phin?” inquired the showman. “He
-acts like a wax figger with clock-work in him.”
-
-The lawyer explained rapidly.
-
-“You ain’t goin’ to stop her, be ye?” asked Hiram when he had listened.
-
-“I’m not goin’ to let that hound break up that little family,” insisted
-the Squire. “Look at that poor, heart-broken boy in that kitchen and
-then tell me if he is to be robbed in such a fashion.”
-
-“Oh, he’ll beller like a new-weaned calf for a day or so,” said Hiram,
-calmly. “But he’ll get over it and be better off, like the rest of us,”
- he added with bitterness. “I’ll go and tell him a few things and show up
-what women are in this world and give him a couple horns of whisky and
-in an hour I’ll have him singin’ ‘Glory, hallelujah,’ and glad she’s
-gone.” He started away briskly, but the lawyer pulled him back roughly.
-
-“One member of our family has tried an experiment on that poor devil and
-it has half-killed him. Now don’t you go in there and finish the job.
-You’re not an expert on heart matters, Hime.”
-
-“Well, I’ll fetch her back, then,” cried Hiram, unabashed. “You can have
-anything you want. It’s only to say the word.”
-
-The Squire looked at him.
-
-“Bodfish won’t land her this side of the railroad at Square Harbour, of
-course?” asked Hiram.
-
-“Bodfish isn’t a deep knave,” said the lawyer. “He simply got away early
-to avoid observation at this end. He will land her there probably for
-the one-o’clock train, west.”
-
-“Simple matter, then. Telephone the police to arrest her and lock her up
-till we come.”
-
-“And have the scandal and gossip and disgrace spread from here to
-Hackenny, and the _Oracle_ and people’s mouths full of it! That would be
-saving the reputation of the Mayo family with a vengeance, Hiram.”
-
-The showman took off his tall hat and fondled the bare spot on his head.
-
-“Oh, it’s got to be a fly-by-night, come-back-by-dark job, eh?” he
-observed. “Disappearin’ lady trick! Touch the button and she’s gone.
-Touch the button and back she comes. You only think she’s gone and
-she ain’t been gone at all! A very pretty little trick---and thank you
-kindly for your attention, ladies and gents, one and all!”
-
-“It isn’t any time to joke, Hiram,” complained the Squire. “I must ride
-across country and get that girl. The old mare can’t do it. Will you
-lend me one of your horses?”
-
-“No.”
-
-The showman turned a quizzical gaze into his brother’s pained and
-puzzled eyes.
-
-“Now you think I’m a hog, don’t you, Phin? But I ain’t. I’m your brother
-Hime, gruff and tough, but always ready in a time of trouble when the
-famly’s concerned. Now you just stay here and keep your wax figger in
-there from falling down and bustin’ in two and lettin’ all that’s inside
-him run out. You understand! You want the celebrated invisible lady
-trick worked at Square Harbour, eh? Then you for your job and me for
-mine! There are some things that _you_ can’t tell _me_ how to do.”
-
-He trotted clumsily around the corner and entered into earnest
-conversation with Peak on the piazza. Both men hurried to the barn.
-
-Squire Phin gazed after them with some anxiety. He had often had
-good reason to doubt Hiram’s tact. He dreaded to have that hot-headed
-individual start on a mission where so much finesse was required. And
-yet he hesitated about undertaking the task himself and leaving the
-blundering and irresponsible husband to stir up the village, as he
-certainly would do if left to his own devices.
-
-The youth was at the sink, still rubbing the same saucepan.
-
-“He might stand there till night unless some one poked him,” mused the
-Squire. “I must take chances that Hime can manage him while I’m gone. I
-can’t let anyone else do the job at the other end. It needs----”
-
-He had been pondering the matter longer than he had realised. The
-tumult of gruff shoutings in the barn and in the rear, where the circus
-equipment was stored, in its new building, had been increasing. Now
-around the corner of the barn, with clank of whiffle-tree and jingle of
-harness and ruck-te-chuck of axle boxes, came one of the vans, smart in
-new paint and varnish. Four horses were drawing it.
-
-Across the yard they came on the trot. Hiram and his friend loomed on
-the box, and their plug hats loomed above them.
-
-“She’ll come back invisible, Phin,” called Hiram, swirling his whip
-above his head to uncoil the lash.
-
-“You’re not going after that girl in any such outlandish fashion,”
- roared the Squire, running from the door-stoop.
-
-“Don’t bother us,” shouted Hiram, and he cracked the lash over the
-heads of the rearing leaders. “We’ve got less than four hours to make
-twenty-five miles and there ain’t time for conversation. You for your
-job, me for mine.”
-
-The Squire was obliged to leap back out of the way of the plunging
-horses. But he ran after the van as it roared down into the road,
-yelling appeal and protest.
-
-“We’ll fix it,” Hiram shrieked over his shoulder as the horses began to
-gallop.
-
-The Squire stopped in the middle of the road, shaking his fists after
-the turn-out as it went around the bend at the alders in a cloud of
-dust.
-
-“Fix it, you damnable fool!” he gasped in his impotent rage. “You’ll fix
-it forever. Of all the infernal idiots in the way of a brother that a
-man ever had! Roaring through Square Harbour with a circus cart and four
-horses! Oh! Oh!”
-
-In his fury--the Look fury of which he was so ashamed--he kicked a stone
-out of the soil, picked it up and cast it after the distant van, which
-was now far out of sight.
-
-“A secret errand,” he muttered, blushing at his juvenile act. “It will
-be a wonder if he doesn’t get out hand-bills.”
-
-Avery’s voice behind him made him turn quickly.
-
-“I’m pesky glad you’ve driv’ the two of ’em out of town,” he said,
-with grim satisfaction. “There wa’n’t either of ’em any good to
-the place, and I’m sayin’ it to you, even if one of ’em is your own
-brother.”
-
-The Squire walked back into the yard without replying. “Figger-Four”
- hopped along beside him.
-
-“I’ve come up to resign,” he continued. “I wish I could have told him so
-to his face. I was goin’ to inform him that I wouldn’t work another
-hour for him, not if he was the Great Kajam of Pee-ru and paid me five
-dollars a second. He owes me two dollars and a half as it is, and I want
-you to collect it for me, Squire.”
-
-“My brother hasn’t gone away,” snapped the lawyer from the door-stoop.
-He wanted the man to leave.
-
-“If that wa’n’t goin’ away, then what do you call it?” squealed Avery,
-snapping up to his full height and pointing his hand at the turn of the
-road. “He wasn’t comin’, was he, with his four hosses and his circus
-cart?”
-
-“You go home and keep still,” commanded the Squire. “Hiram will be here
-to-morrow and will pay you if he owes you anything.”
-
-He went into the kitchen and slammed the door.
-
-“If the Looks can’t act out hogs when they’re a mind to, then I don’t
-want a cent,” growled Avery, scowling at the door. “But they ain’t
-goin’ to cheat me out of two dollars and a half, not if the court knows
-herself, and she thinks she do.”
-
-After another surly look at the closed door he went around the barn. The
-other vans were in their usual place.
-
-“There’s property enough left. I can sue and attach,” pondered the
-creditor.
-
-“Another thing about Hime, he’s a durn liar,” he went on mumbling. “He’s
-been telling me right along that his el’phunt is so much in love with
-him that she’d make a kick-up if he went away and left her. She ain’t
-makin’ no great stir near as I can see.”
-
-He peered in through the big door at the rear of the barn.
-
-Imogene had evidently been roused from her ordinary contemplative and
-calm mood by the routing out of the horses and their hasty departure.
-She stood now, twitching her ears impatiently and listening with an
-occasional hollow grunt of distrust. She peered at the four empty stalls
-with uneasiness in her little eyes and surveyed the four horses that
-still remained, with something like reassurance. Then she listened some
-more. It was evident, even to so obtuse an observer as Avery, that she
-was momentarily expecting the showman to come back for the other horses,
-and so long as they remained she considered them proof that she was not
-abandoned.
-
-Avery decided that this was so, muttering his convictions to himself as
-he stood and watched her.
-
-“I’m a blame good mind to try her,” he said. “I don’t believe she gives
-a tophet for him, any more’n anyone else in the world does. I can prove
-him out a liar along with the rest, and I’ll tell the folks so. I’ll run
-him into the ground! You watch me! There’s folks that think as how they
-can set on Sam Av’ry, but I’ll show ’em that they can’t--not, and keep
-their reppytations. I’m only a poor cripple and I can’t fight the way
-some folks do, but I’ve got a tongue in my head, and as soon as I’ve
-proved some things you jest watch me.”
-
-Thus soliloquising, he led the four horses, one by one, out of the barn
-through the rear door, knotted their halters around their necks and sent
-them down into the field with a slap on the flank. They frolicked away,
-glad of a run in the open.
-
-When the last one went out of the barn the elephant said good-bye with
-a melancholy “roomp.” She surged once more at her chains and the sill
-beams creaked. Then she settled back and eyed Avery hopefully when he
-came close to her.
-
-“He’s allus told me you was more’n half human,” said Avery, addressing
-her. “It’s prob’ly more of his lies. I’ve heard him talkin’ to you and
-he said you could understand human language. Another lie prob’ly. But if
-you can understand, then take this and chaw on it a spell; your man has
-run away and them’s his horses gone a-chasin’ after him, as you can
-see for yourself. He ain’t never comin’ back any more. He’s robbed four
-banks and killed three men and you ought to be ashamed of him. They’re
-goin’ to build a treadle for you and make you run a thrash-in’ machine
-and earn your livin’. There! If you can understand human talk there’s
-something that will int’rest you for a minit or two.”
-
-He stood back and gazed at her triumphantly.
-
-The animal had been lifting her feet uneasily for some moments. Now she
-gazed out through the door where the horses had disappeared and moaned
-pitifully. With the sagacity of a veteran she seemed to sniff the fact
-that her master was not on the premises. To assure herself she raised
-her trunk and began to trumpet the call that he had always answered.
-After each echoing roar she hearkened. No reply came, and each
-succeeding appeal was more insistent and more frantic.
-
-Avery backed to the door with considerable precipitancy.
-
-The elephant began to crouch and strain at her chains. The old beams
-creaked more ominously and there were crackings.
-
-“I was only foolin’ you, Imogene,” Avery faltered. “He ain’t gone at
-all.”
-
-The elephant stood up on her hind legs and tugged at the chains that
-confined her fore feet. One of them snapped.
-
-“Honest to Gawd!” shouted “Figger-Four.” The situation frightened him.
-Palermo with a wild elephant rampant in it would hear of his visit to
-the barn and would suspect and blame him. Imogene thrashed about more
-viciously.
-
-“There ain’t a word of truth in what I said about him. He’s right
-handy.” But when she snapped one of the hind-leg chains he quavered, “He
-was lyin’ to me! She don’t understand what you say to her!”’
-
-He ran out to see where the horses were, thinking that their return
-might reassure the great beast. But they were far down in the field,
-scampering about. There was the “yawk” of drawing nails within, and the
-side of the barn shivered.
-
-“She’s a-goin’ to get loose! She’s goin’ to rip us all to pieces!”
-
-He hopped around to the front of the barn in the frantic hope that some
-kind of aid would present itself. “Hard-Times” Wharff, with an instinct
-that never failed when there was trouble on, stood across the road, his
-gaze on the barn.
-
-Then came an inspiration to “Figger-Four.” Since Imogene had settled
-in Palermo he had taken especial interest in all literature relating to
-elephants. He suddenly remembered an item he had seen in the miscellany
-of the county _Oracle_.
-
-It was stated there that elephants were singularly susceptible to the
-soothing influence of music.
-
-“Have you got your flute along, ’Quarius?” squalled Avery.
-
-The human weather-vane pulled it out and waved it.
-
-“Then, for the Lord’s sake, hurry acrost here with it. You may save
-lives and property.”
-
-It was at that moment that Squire Phin realised that something out
-of the ordinary was occurring on his premises. He came out of the
-kitchen-door just in time to behold “Figger-Four” and “Hard-Times”
- hustling around the corner of the barn. A moment later he heard the
-melancholy and wavery notes of the flute, and hurried into the barn by
-the way of the tie-up door just in time to witness the climax of Avery’s
-attempt at elephant-taming.
-
-“Figger-Four” was holding Uncle Wharff at the big door almost by main
-force, and the old man, in spite of his fright, was trying his best to
-play. But his goggling eyes were too busy with the distracted Imogene,
-who was now occupied with her last leg-chain, which was attached to
-an upright beam supporting an end of the scaffold. Amidst her hollow
-roarings the feeble tones of the flute wailed like a cricket’s chirpings
-in a tornado.
-
-If anything were needed to add to the exasperation of the desolated
-Imogene it was this mocking presence in the barn-door. With a last
-plunge she pulled the beam from under the scaffold and made for the
-door, sweeping her trunk at the men in her path. But the dragging log
-impeded her for a moment until she shook it out of the bight of chain.
-Avery and Uncle Wharff rolled over the driveway and crawled under the
-barn, and Imogene strode down across the field pursuing the horses.
-
-“Perhaps I didn’t play the right tune,” the Squire heard “Hard-Times”
- gasp under the bam in reply to an angry growl from Avery. But he didn’t
-wait to interrogate them. That elephant was abroad, evidently with mind
-determined on mischief, and he felt that his first duty was to secure a
-band of elephant hunters in the village and start them on the trail.
-
-When he turned into the street from the yard the parrot vigorously
-snapped a bar of his cage and yelled after him, “Hey, Rube!”
-
-This final and unconscious touch of satire was too much for Squire
-Phin’s sense of the ludicrous. He turned in his tracks and surveyed the
-old homestead behind the poplars.
-
-“Headquarters of the Look Brothers’ Grand Consolidated Circus and
-Menagerie,” he muttered, a smile creasing his cheeks even while he
-frowned.
-
-“I don’t know whether to laugh, cry or swear damnation!”
-
-Then he hurried on to round up his elephant posse.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIII--THE “COME-UPPANCE” OF CAPTAIN NYMPHUS BODFISH
-
-OF THE PACKET “EFFORT”
-
-
-               “I’m a serious-minded man,
-
-               I have sailed from old Cape Ann
-
-               For fifty years, and I’ve braved as much as ary a mortal can.
-
-               I ain’ afraid of the stormy sea,
-
-               Nor critters that swim it, whatever they be,
-
-               But a witch of a woman is what floors me.”
-
-                   --Sea-song of the “Baches of Bucksport.”
-
-
-The Palermo packet, “Effort,” rocked slowly on the refuse-strewn
-ooze in her berth at Merrithew’s wharf, Square Harbour, her gray,
-weather-streaked sides rubbing at the barnacles on the piles. On the
-upper step of her cuddy companionway sat her skipper, Captain Nymphus
-Bodfish, rubbing his raspy palm over his bristly gray beard, the little
-curls of which were much like barnacles, too.
-
-“I tell ye, set quiet,” he growled down the companionway. “I ain’t run
-packet here for ten years not to know when trains leave or not to know
-how to telefoam for a hack when I want one. That hack will be here
-ha’f-past twelve and it will get you to the deppo plenty in time.”
-
-In a little while the complaining whine of a woman’s voice came up the
-companionway again. The captain impatiently twitched at a leather chain
-and flipped a big silver watch out of his pocket.
-
-“Ten minits arter twelve, if ye’ve got to know,” he grumbled. “And it
-was eight minits arter twelve when you asked before. Now I ain’t no town
-clock to set here passin’ down time to ye ev’ry second or two. I say
-you’ll get to that deppo. So set quiet.”
-
-But in a little while the complaining voice came up once more--the voice
-of a woman who was hoarse with much weeping.
-
-“It ain’t no time now to be wishin’ that,” he snapped impatiently. “Your
-wishin’ wants to be all done up ahead when you make up your mind to
-run away from your husband. It’s all been fixed and arranged and you’ve
-agreed to do thus and so, and now there ain’t nothin’ to do but set
-quiet, set quiet, I tell you.”
-
-Rather abstractedly he fingered in his waistcoat pocket and pulled
-the corner of a bill above its edge. He noted with fresh satisfaction,
-though he had looked at that bill at least a dozen times during the
-forenoon, that the figures in the corner were “20.”
-
-“Yes, it’s all been fixed and arranged,” he repeated with additional
-firmness, “and you said you’d go and you’ve gone, so now what is the use
-of cry-babyin’?” He craned his neck and looked up the long alley that
-led from the wharf to the street. “Hack will prob’ly git here a little
-ahead of time,” he muttered, “and I’ll be blamenation glad if it does.
-There’s nothin’ so cussed aggravatin’ to have ’round as a woman that
-can’t keep her mind set on one thing more’n fourteen seconds at a time.
-It will be good riddance when her gown-tail goes over the rail.” Again
-the voice complained below.
-
-“Now I want a puffick understandin’ about this thing,” snarled Captain
-Bodfish. “You want to stop whifflin’ back and forth, like a sheet at
-come-about, and fill full on one tack or t’other. When that hack comes
-you want to be ready to step into it, free will and no caterwaulin’s. I
-don’t propose to lug you out. It’s your own bus’ness and ’tain’t mine.
-But I’ve contracted to git you to that deppo and you’ve taken par-sage
-with that understandin’--and it’s to that deppo that I deliver you. Then
-you can go to Tophet, home or Hackenny so soon’s you’re off’n my hands.”
-
-The voice came promptly when he finished. There was a question.
-
-“No, s’r! Not a dum word of advice from me,” barked the skipper. “You’ve
-rooted your own hole and now you lay in it. I don’t never advise folks
-about their own business. If I said to go back to Wat Mayo or said to
-run away to where King Bradish is sendin’ you, you’d wish you’d done
-t’other, whatever one you done, and then I’d get the blame.”
-
-He half rose and craned his neck again. It was at the noon hour and the
-drays were silent and the hum of business had ceased in the storehouses
-along the wharf. In the stillness he heard the rapid roll of some heavy
-vehicle on the stones of the street to which the alley admitted.
-
-“Here comes your hack,” he said.
-
-The voice rose in shrill protest.
-
-“Yes, you will _go_, too!” he bawled, angrily. “I ain’t goin’ to have
-you left on my hands. It ain’t in the bargain.”
-
-The next moment four horses swung around the corner into the alley.
-
-“Jee-hosophat!” whistled the skipper. “They’re sartinly putting on style
-in the hackin’ line.”
-
-Then the van appeared, but it was too far away for Captain Bodfish to
-see just what it was.
-
-“Blast ’em,” he snorted, “I didn’t telefoam for no furnitur’ to be
-moved.” He clumped across the deck and stood at the rail, peering under
-his palm.
-
-Captain Nymphus Bodfish of the packet “Effort” had never met Hiram Look,
-having scornfully refused to “go up and hang ’round a peep-show.”
- He was not familiar, as were his townsmen, with the showman’s vans and
-horses.
-
-His slow comprehension did not connect this apparition in Square Harbour
-with anything that could have come out of Palermo.
-
-“They’re both of ’em wearin’ plug hats,” he soliloquised as the outfit
-came rattling down the alley, “but ’tain’t no hearse, painted and
-gew-gawed up like that.”
-
-The equipage made a gallant sweep past the end of the storehouse near
-the packet’s berth and halted at the edge of the dock. Hiram leisurely
-tucked away his whip in the socket beside the seat, passed the reins to
-Peak and jumped to the ground.
-
-“We didn’t have to waste a minute askin’ the way, Cap,” he remarked,
-cheerfully. “I find that the ‘Effort’ puts up at the same old dock, even
-if you _are_ a new skipper.”
-
-“Ain’t anything very new about ten years o’ runnin’,” returned Bodfish,
-rather surlily, for the stranger’s easy familiarity nettled him.
-
-“Well, it makes you new to me,” said Hiram. “Howsomever, I ain’t got
-time to swap a great deal of talk.” He pulled out his watch. “I’ve got
-thutty-five minutes to git to the station if she ain’t here. If she is
-here I want her.”
-
-Captain Bodfish’s jaw dropped in his astonishment, and his rolling eye
-now caught for the first time the lettering on the upper panel of the
-van: “Leviathan Circus and Menagerie, H. Look, Prop.”
-
-“Yes,” went on Hiram, noting the skipper’s gathering scowl, “we’ve come
-round by land per the Inlet road, crooked as an angle-worm and up and
-down like a dash chum. It took sweat and axle-grease, but we’re here,
-Cap, glad to see you and wishin’ you all the compliments of the season.
-Now, brief and to the point--is the lady aboard that you took out of
-Palermo this mornin’?”
-
-“None o’ your bus’ness,” replied Captain Bodfish, promptly and
-emphatically.
-
-“Then I’ll come aboard and look. That’ll save me time and you the wear
-and tear on your mouth.”
-
-But Captain Bodfish leaped to the gang-plank and straddled himself
-there.
-
-“No you don’t come aboard no packet o’ mine,” he cried.
-
-“Oh, then she’s here,” said Hiram. “They’re easy, these mossback
-fellers, Sime,” he added, turning to Peak. “It’s the old pickpocket
-trick. Jab a jay in the crowd and he flaps his hand onto where he’s
-carrying his wallet. Then all you have to do is to pick it.”
-
-Bodfish’s rage was gathering fast.
-
-Hiram stepped upon the wharf-end of the plank.
-
-“I say ye can’t come aboard,” shouted the skipper. “You ain’t no
-policeman and you ain’t no custom officer.” He pulled a marline-spike
-from a knot of rope at the rail. “You come in reach of me, you circus
-man, and I’ll drive that plug hat down so fur oh your shoulders that
-folks will have to slice it off with a can-opener.”
-
-“Ain’t your works gittin’ a little heated?” sarcastically queried Hiram.
-“Now, there’s a young woman aboard that bo’t that I’ve come after, and
-I’m goin’ to have her. You don’t know me and I don’t know you. You think
-you can stop me. I know you can’t. Now you’d better come over to my
-opinion of the case, Cap’n Nymp’ Bodfish, and save further wear and
-tear.”
-
-But the irate captain only stepped out on the plank and whirled his
-spike. “You ain’t got your pitchfork to-day, and you ain’t got no Klebe
-Willard to deal with, either.”
-
-“No, but I’ve got my grapplers,” shouted Hiram, and before the skipper
-could stir stump he snapped forward, grabbed the gang-plank and jerked
-it toward him. At the same time he tipped it and the captain of the
-“Effort” went down ’longside with a “kerplunko” that sent the turbid
-water above the wharf’s edge like the spout of a geyser. Hiram made two
-bounds, one to the rail and one to the deck.
-
-“Here, Mayo woman,” he cried, as he clumped down the companionway into
-the dim cabin, “no arguments, no back talk.”
-
-He seized her by the arm, rushed her up the steps and to the rail,
-and fairly tossed her across the space to the wharf, over the head of
-Captain Bodfish, who was blowing water from his mouth and nose, and
-clambering painfully up the side of the craft.
-
-“You ain’t cool yet. Take another dip,” cried Hiram, and he put his
-broad boot down on Bodfish’s head and sent him under again.
-
-The girl swayed dizzily on the wharf, but the showman had her in his
-grasp the next moment. He noted a hack bowling down the wharf and
-persons were sauntering that way, attracted by the unusual spectacle of
-a circus van. Without a moment’s hesitation he half-carried the woman to
-the rear of the van, threw open the double doors, pushed her in on some
-blankets that were spread on the floor, and closed and padlocked the
-opening. She was uttering sharp cries, but he put his mouth close to the
-crack and growled at her:
-
-“You’re goin’ home, you little fool. But if you let one more yip out of
-you I’ll deliver you to the first policeman I meet and tell him you’re
-an eloper. Then it’s State prison for you.”
-
-Her cries ceased and Hiram turned a bland face to the persons who had
-come up.
-
-Captain Bodfish had regained his vessel and was sitting on the rail,
-dragging the water out of his eyes with his knuckles, and panting for
-breath. The showman forestalled any compromising accusations. He went
-close to the edge of the wharf, leaned over and said:
-
-“Cap, you can’t afford to open your mouth. I can have you tarred and
-feathered here in ten minutes if I let the crowd in on what you’ve tried
-to do. I’m a son of a seacook on handlin’ a crowd.”
-
-The skipper unclosed and shut his mouth like a fish, but he realised the
-force of that warning.
-
-Hiram went along and prepared to climb back upon his seat. As he set his
-toe on the hub one of the crowd inquired suspiciously:
-
-“If it ain’t a sassy question, mister, what was that critter that you
-was putting into the cart here? We heard it squawkin’, but we couldn’t
-see very well.” Hiram, his success making him amiable, smiled upon the
-bystanders.
-
-“Gents, I am both pleased and proud to tell you that I have now in this
-van one of the most beautiful specimens of the five-finned American
-mermaid that was ever captured on our stem and rock-bound coast.”
-
-The zeal of the barker entered his spirit. It had been a long time since
-he had faced an audience.
-
-“This stupendous attraction, gents, that has just been secured for
-Look’s Leviathan Menagerie is the only living specimen of the American
-Mermaidissus in captivity to-day. She has flowing hair in which she
-wraps herself as in a mantle of the purest silk, and she is fresh from
-the royal courts of the king of the seas. She was captured off our
-aforesaid rocky coast by the bravest sailor that ploughs the ocean
-blue”--Bodfish was edging through the crowd, his face working with
-mighty wrath that he did not dare to give rein to. The showman beamed
-on him. “Yes, gents, captured in a single-handed conflict by that brave
-sailor, Cap’n Nymphus Bodfish, of the ‘Effort.’ And now he will be
-pleased to give you full particulars of that gigantic struggle in the
-waters of old ocean. As for me I shall have to be movin’ on to where
-immense and delighted audiences await me.”
-
-He started to climb over the wheel, tipping a wink at Peak, and the
-crowd turned open-mouthed to Bodfish. The instant the showman’s back was
-turned that infuriated individual rushed forward, dealt Hiram a mighty
-kick, and when the showman turned, bonneted him in his tall hat, and
-then ran like a deer off the wharf and across the decks of a nest of
-fishing schooners that were packed in at one of the docks.
-
-Hiram worked off his hat and straightened it, gazing after the fleeing
-Bodfish without a word. But his face was gray and rigid with rage. Then
-he climbed to his seat and gazed afresh on the skipper, scuttling across
-the decks.
-
-“Aforesaid brave and intrepid sailor seems to have had his brain
-turned by his wonderful success as a mermaid capturer,” he grated.
-“It--it’s----” he choked and paused. “It’s too bad!” he managed to growl
-at last, and then snatched the reins from Peak’s hands and drove off up
-the alley at a stiff pace, leaving a very much mystified crowd behind
-him.
-
-“We’ll get out of this place as soon as pullin’ the braid and pushin’
-the webbin’ will do it,” he said to Peak as the van turned into the
-dingy shore street of Square Harbour. “Ev’ry one here has got eyes hung
-out on their cheeks like lobsters have,” he went on, glowering at the
-people on the sidewalks. His amiability had departed suddenly.
-
-“What ye goin’ to do to old Tarfinger?” asked Peak, who fully understood
-what the showman was thinking about.
-
-“It’s goin’ to take a good deal of prayer and meditation to plan it out,
-Sime,” replied Hiram, slowly and menacingly. “Do you think that many of
-them critters that stood round there knew who I was?”
-
-“Ain’t your name on this cart bigger’n a fat woman sign on a side-show
-banner?”
-
-Hiram ground his teeth.
-
-“There was a man kicked me once,” he related slowly, “and there wasn’t
-no outsiders see him do it, either. And that man--but I ain’t any hand
-to brag, Sime. All I say is that such a case as this needs prayer and
-meditation, and a lot of it.”
-
-They rode on in silence. There was no sound from within.
-
-“We’ll stop up-country at some farmer’s place and bait,” said Hiram at
-last, “and we’ll get into Palermo after dark. The invisible lady trick
-will be played all right and there’s that much to say, but--I never
-was kicked before in the face and eyes of a public audience, to have it
-talked about from Clew to Erie and laughed over, and him get away! Oh,
-it ain’t no common case, Sime. Don’t talk to me. Let me meditate.”
-
-Therefore the ride along the highway that swept up around the broad
-Inlet was one devoted wholly to introspection, both without and within
-the rumbling van.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIV--THE PACT OF “ORPHAN HILL”
-
-AND THE DIVAGATIONS OF DISCONSOLATE IMOGENE
-
-
-          “I’ tell you ’bout that, mare of mine--the more you holler ‘whoa!’
-
-          I’ve taught the whelp to clench her teeth and h’ist her tail and go!
-
-          And when we got clus’ down to Clark’s, I thought for jest a sell,
-
-          I’d make believe we’d run away. So I began to yell,
-
-          And old man Pease he hugged his knees and gaffled to his pail,
-
-          And now, my boy, purraps you think that turn-out didn’t sail! ”
-
-                   --“Narrative of Bart of Brighton.
-
-
-In the mid-afternoon Hiram checked his weary horses on the swell of a
-hill that overlooked a placid reach of farms.
-
-“I guess we’ll stop and provender up at that first house, there, Sime,”
- he stated. “I’m ’bout starved, and I reckon the plugs are, too. You
-hold the reins a minute whilst I lay down a little law to the invisible
-lady.”
-
-He threw open the rear doors and surveyed the swollen and tear-streaked
-features of ’Missy Mayo. She met his gaze for a moment only, and then
-began to sob again.
-
-“Ashamed of yourself, ain’t you?” the showman demanded.
-
-She bobbed woful assent with her head and crooked her arm before her
-face.
-
-“Women,” pursued Hiram, relentlessly, “are ostriches when they ain’t
-wild-cats, and from me that knows ’em all and that’s been scratched
-criss-cross by wild-cats and has owned ostriches and had a nat’rally
-sweet and affectionate disposition soured by women’s actions, you can
-take that say-so as gospel. It ain’t no advance agent’s talk. I’ve been
-with the main show, and I _know_. You’re an ostrich. Take your head out
-from under the chip and look at me.”
-
-She obeyed, huddling herself on her knees on the blankets.
-
-“I know just what you are goin’ to tell me if I begin to ask you
-questions,” he said. “You’ll take on like a kitten with her tail in a
-crack and tell me you are so, _so_ sorry and that you’ll never do it
-again, and that he promised you nice dresses and di’mond rings and
-nothin’ to do except to let your poor, dear, oopsy-soopsy little hands
-grow white, and so you couldn’t help yourself, and you tried to be good
-and love your husband and stay at home, and you couldn’t, so there!”
-
-“But I do love my husband,” she sobbed. “And that man did say all those
-things to me, and he did say I had broken up my husband’s home with his
-people and that they all hated me, and that my poor Wat would be better
-off if I were to go away.”
-
-“And so you thought it all over and cried off by yourself and planned
-how noble it would be for you to leave him to be happy ever after, with
-his folks boarding him, and you would go away into the wide, wide world
-and sacrifice yourself just as that wife did that you’d read about who
-went backward outdoors into the night with her black hood on--they allus
-wear black hoods--waving her hands and sending back kisses toward the
-bedroom where her husband was sleepin’, and sayin’, ‘Farewell, I go to
-save thee!’ That was jest the whole story, wa’n’t it?”
-
-“Oh, Mr. Look,” began the girl, eagerly, “that was the truth of it--you
-do know it all--you can appreciate----”
-
-“Shut up,” roared the showman; “talk about prohibiting the sale of rum
-in this State,” he snarled, glancing up at Peak; “they ought to make it
-a jail crime to sell a dime novel to a woman unless she’s got cross eyes
-and a club foot and a hare-lip--and then it wouldn’t allus be safe to
-let her have one of ’em. There’s more cussedness sucked up out of one
-of them such novels than you can get through straws at a bar. Now, Mrs.
-Ostrich, I ain’t got any time to stand here and tell you how many kinds
-of a byjoosly fool you are, for there’s a team li’ble to come along any
-minute. But I’m goin’ to tell you sometime, and I’ve seen enough of
-the world and of cheap renegades of men to make your hair curl when you
-think what you’ve got out of. It’s me that’s goin’ to take you home in
-this cart--and it’s me that thought up this way of gettin’ you there
-without ev’rybody knowin’ that you run away and left your husband.”
-
-The wife dragged herself on her knees to the opening and clasped her
-hands.
-
-“Mr. Look,” she wailed, “it’s all true what you say. But I ain’t ever
-had any mother that I can remember. I didn’t have anyone to tell me the
-things that a girl ought to know. I don’t blame you for talking hard
-to me. I deserve it. But I want to do right. Indeed, I do, Mr. Look. If
-you’ll take me home I’ll always stay there. I’m hungry to stay there.
-Oh, how I’ve wished I hadn’t gone--wished so all this long day and I’ve
-cried my eyes out wishing so. I know I don’t love anyone but my husband.
-Take me back to him, Mr. Look, and I’ll never want to be anything but a
-true wife to him again--never, never, never!”
-
-Her fluttering hands grasped the sides of the van and she leaned her
-convulsed face toward him.
-
-“So your mother died when you was young?” Hiram inquired. His tone had
-softened.
-
-“I never knew who my mother was.”
-
-“Mine died and left me under fourteen and Phin a baby,” said the
-showman, looking off across the fields and blinking his eyes. “It’s sort
-of--sort of startin’ anyone back-handed into the world without a mother
-to kind of walk hand in hand with up to where the paths split. Bad for a
-man, worse for a woman.”
-
-There was silence for a little time, except for the  girl, who sobbed
-with quick indrawings of the breath.
-
-“Let’s see, Sime,” said Hiram, trying to keep his voice steady and
-matter-of-fact, “I ain’t ever asked you how it was with your fam’ly. Was
-you brought up by a mother?”
-
-“I was bound out from an orphan asylum when I was eight,” replied the
-giant, turning away his face and fingering the seam of a patch on
-his knee. “A farmer took me and he made me wear pants made out of a
-butcher’s frock, and I never got but five weeks’ schoolin’, ’cause I
-couldn’t stand ’em laughin’ at me.”
-
-“Three of us pretty much of a stripe,” sighed the showman. “Each of
-us with an out of some kind. Nothin’ to be proud of, any of us. Can’t
-expect much else, maybe! I tell ye, Sime, I know how you felt about the
-school bus’ness. After they folded mother’s hands--and I can see ’em
-folded now just as I did when I tiptoed into the settin’-room where
-they’d laid her out--I didn’t have no more jelly tarts to set out on the
-desk when I opened my dinner-pail at school, and I used to stay in
-at recess so that the girls couldn’t see the holes in the seat of my
-pants.”
-
-He stood and looked away and fingered the folds of skin on his wrinkled
-neck as though there were an ache there.
-
-“I’m glad to believe,” he said softly and brokenly, “that God ain’t mean
-enough to let dead mothers ever know how their little gaffers get along
-after their mother hands are folded and they can’t ’tend and do any
-longer.”
-
-After a little time he turned to the wife, and his eyes were wet.
-
-“I ain’t all hard spots, sissy,” he affirmed impulsively. “Most often
-it’s the softest places that have the hardest calluses over ’em. I’m a
-pretty soft old fool, myself. Most think I ain’t, but I am. I’ve made my
-mistakes and they was bad ones. Sime, there, has made just as bad ones
-as me. You’ve made yours, sissy, but don’t make any more--don’t!”
-
-He patted her cheek with a tenderness that no one ever saw before in
-Hiram Look.
-
-“We’ve sort of found out each other all at once. Let’s call this place
-here ‘Orphan Hill’ and always remember it. Let’s kind of brace from now
-on. We can’t be angels, none of us. We’ve been too much handicapped. But
-we can brace!”
-
-He didn’t seem to dare to trust himself to talk any longer, but closed
-the doors on the girl and called to her that she must be very quiet
-while the van stood in the farmer’s yard, explaining that he would
-secure food for her.
-
-Then he perched himself beside Peak and drove on, each busy with his own
-thoughts.
-
-The woman of the house promptly appeared at the door when the van swung
-into the yard.
-
-“Well, it’s best for you that you did stop on your way back,” she
-snapped. “You never paid a single mite of attention to me when you went
-past this morning, but kept goin’ like the mill-tail of Tophet. I said
-to my husband that peddlers’ teams was gettin’ pretty stuck up, prancin’
-past with four horses and not payin’ no attention when, a lady comes
-to the door sacking a bag of rags. Now here they be. Have you got your
-st’ilyards? I suppose you have and that you cheat as much as----”
-
-“That woman seems to be the open-faced, self-windin’ kind,” Hiram
-growled to Peak through the corner of his mouth. Then he interrupted
-her.
-
-“You’d better buy a good pair of far-sighted specs from the next peddler
-that comes along this way, marm,” he suggested with some insolence.
-“You’ll be able to tell the diff’rence, then, between a tin rag peddler
-or a rag tin peddler, or whatever you call ’em, and two gentlemen
-ridin’ out for pleasure to take the air. Now, to come to bus’ness--will
-you sell me a baitin’ for my horses, and three lunches--two to be et on
-the spot and one to be took away?”
-
-Her first impulse, evidently, was to refuse this blunt request. But
-Hiram waved a bill at her. She called a freckled youth from the barn and
-continued to stare at the vehicle and the two strangers.
-
-When the boy led away the horses, after Hiram and Peak had unhooked
-them from the cart, the woman broke her silence and there was suppressed
-excitement in her tones.
-
-“I’ve got you placed. You’re the circus man that’s come back to live
-down to P’lermo, and this is one of your carts, and you’ve come up here
-to help catch that dratted el’phunt that’s been rampagin’ ’round here
-since noon. You ain’t come none too soon, Mr. Circuser. You’ll have a
-nice bill to pay in this neighbourhood--and you can start right in by
-settlin’ with us first of all. You come here, the two of ye.”
-
-In silent amazement the men followed her around the ell.
-
-“There’s where he come through,” she rasped, pointing to two lengths of
-a picket fence laid flat; “there’s where he went out.” On the opposite
-side of the garden more lengths of fence were cast down. “Half the
-pickets busted where he stepped on ’em! Three of our little Sopsyvine
-trees knocked down, and there--look there!”
-
-She had evidently reserved this climax. She pointed to the slope of a
-little hillock.
-
-“Two webs of ‘Fruit of the Loom’ that was bleach-in’, all trampled and
-torn and gurried up! A ding-blamed el’phunt and a dozen men skyhootin’
-acrost herer without aye, yes or no and not payin’ the least attention
-to anything underfoot! I say if you’re the circus man from P’lermo
-you’ve got a good nice bill to settle in these parts.”
-
-“_My_ elephant!” demanded Hiram, amazedly, tapping himself with his
-knuckles on his breast and staring from Peak to the woman.
-
-“I don’t know of any other fool that’s keepin’ el’phunts for pets or
-raisin’ ’em for market,” she retorted. “If an old gray gob o’ meat
-with ragged ears and dirty feet as big as saucepans--as you can see by
-the smooches on my unbleached cotton--is your el’phunt, then it _is_
-your el’phunt with a passul of howlin’ men after him, and my husband
-chasin’ off along with the rest instead of stayin’ here and protectin’
-his home and his wife.”
-
-“Do you suppose it’s Imogene got away?” gasped Hiram, staring at Peak.
-
-“Well, for a guess I should say it was,” replied that friend,
-unconsolingly. “Elephants are not as common as woodchucks around here.”
-
-The two men stared away up the hillock and across the field to the fence
-that bordered it. There was no need of asking the woman the course of
-the parade. A huge gap in the fence and torn bushes in the adjacent
-woodlot marked the route.
-
-“I consider that a man that introduces el’phunts into a quiet country
-neighbourhood is worse than he would be if he put damanite bumbs under
-folks’ houses,” sputtered the woman.
-
-“You just shut your mouth for a minute and let me think, will ye?”
- roared Hiram. “Sime,” he went on after a little reflection, “you’ve
-got to go along with the--the----” He saw the woman’s eyes fixed on
-him inquisitively and he checked himself. “You deliver the goods,” he
-directed, “right to Phin and he’ll do the rest. Get along just as
-soon as the horses are baited and don’t forget the lunch for the--the
-gayzelle,” he added for the benefit of the curious woman. “I’ll take
-my grub in my hand and chase up Imogene. There’s no knowin’ what them
-farmers will da with her if I don’t. Here’s a two-dollar bill,” he
-said hastily to the woman. “That’s lib’ral pay for three lunches and
-hoss-baitin’.”
-
-“I never heard of gay-zelles eatin’ lunch,” she said, suspicion in her
-tones. “I s’pose you’ve got a wild man o’ Borneo in that cart to let
-loose on us next.”
-
-“It’s no matter what we’ve got,” retorted Hiram. “You give me my grub in
-my hand and let me get away.”
-
-He went stamping into the kitchen and she foh lowed him with some
-apprehension. Five minutes later he trotted at his best gait across
-the field along the trail of Imogene and her pursuers, munching ham
-sandwiches and scattering crumbs upon the breeze.
-
-A stern chase is always a long one, and after Hiram had crossed the
-woodlot he found himself on a parallel road where there were still other
-indignant women and clamorous farmers to shake off when they hailed him
-as the presumptive owner of the fugitive elephant and sought to collect
-damages.
-
-“A Kansas cyclone is a kitten beside of her,” he muttered as he surveyed
-one scene of devastation after another and hurried on.
-
-“Them farmers must be aggravatin’ Imogene something awful to make her
-cut up this way. But I don’t blame her. If I had a trunk and weighed
-twenty-seven hundred pounds I’d smash down what she ain’t finished up.
-She and me agrees on farmers.”
-
-So, scattering right and left profanity and promises to settle, he
-toiled on, his tall hat in his hand and the perspiration streaming
-down his face. There was no such thing as keeping the trail in a team.
-Through copses and meadows, down water-courses and valleys and across
-farm dooryards the animal had led her pursuers. The trail was devious,
-too, as though Imogene, harassed on all sides, had kept turning, either
-to attack or dodge. In one place a considerable array of various samples
-of trousers cloth fluttering from a barbed wire fence indicated that
-there had been a hasty retreat. Hiram stopped and surveyed this scene
-with grim satisfaction.
-
-“You pocketed ’em in this corner, dum ’em,” he muttered. “Bully for
-you, old gal!”
-
-The showman, in his many twistings and turnings along the trail, stopped
-taking note of his general direction of progress, and just before dusk,
-leg-weary and panting, found himself coursing down a hillock that
-was strangely familiar. He suddenly stopped in the midst of trampled,
-tattered and bedraggled cotton sheeting and stared about him. He had
-come’ back to the place where he had started on the chase and for a
-moment thought he had unconsciously crossed his own trail somewhere and
-had followed back. A woman’s voice, shrill with anger, hailed him from
-the ell window.
-
-“’Tain’t enough, is it, for your tarnation old el’-phunt to hooroosh
-over our primises once, but she and her rag-tag must come back and
-slambang through again!”
-
-The farmer came out of the barn, mopping his brow.
-
-“They ain’t five minutes ahead of ye,” he said. “I should ’a’ kept
-right on chasin’, but I had to stop off and do my chores. I reckon
-they’ll catch her pretty quick. She’s about beat out.”
-
-Hiram slouched down the hill, puffing.
-
-“But there ain’t no use in ’em catchin’ her,” continued the farmer.
-“It will be like catchin’ smallpox. You can’t do nothin’ sensible with
-it when you do get it.”
-
-“If you infernal fools would let her alone she’d be all right and go
-home,” bellowed Hiram over his shoulder as he leaped across the highway
-fence and began to run with his last remaining strength.
-
-A quarter of an hour later, after struggling in the dusk through an
-alder swamp, he came out in the rear of some farm buildings. He saw men
-sprinkled in straggly line about a barn, men who leaned on pitchforks
-and clubs and guns.
-
-“Where is she?” he shouted at the first man he came across--an
-individual who was scratched by bushes and brambles and whose blue,
-drilling overalls hung about him in shreds.
-
-“Ain’t much need of askin’ that if you’ll listen a minit,” returned the
-elephant hunter surlily.
-
-From the bam came frantic neighings of horses and melancholy lowings
-of cows. An occasional crash, rattle or clatter indicated that either
-Imogene was trying to get comfortably into a safe shelter, in spite of
-the interference of farming tools, or that the terrified inmates were
-struggling to get out.
-
-In the house a woman could be heard plaintively mourning, once in a
-while her voice breaking into a scream as some fresh and louder tumult
-sounded in the barn.
-
-“That’s the widder Abilene Snell that owns this stand,” explained the
-man solemnly. “She was jest gittin’ over the hysterics she had this
-noon. Us and el’phunt was here once before this to-day. She’s an awful
-high-strung woman. I shouldn’t wonder if this second trip would fix
-her.”
-
-The showman did not hesitate.
-
-He clapped his hat on his head and rushed into the barn. The men flocked
-together, the word having passed that Hime Look had at last arrived to
-claim his own.
-
-For a little space there was utter silence in the barn---Imogene
-evidently listening in an attempt to determine whether this new arrival
-were friend or foe. Then there sounded joyful trumpetings as the
-exhausted and frightened animal recognised her master. The men could
-hear Hiram’s voice soothing her, and after a time he appeared at the
-tie-up door.
-
-“I’ve got another time and place,” he said, addressing them as they came
-crowding up to him, “for tellin’ you all what I think of a parsul of men
-that will chase a poor elephant nearly to death. I ain’t goin’ to tell
-you now. I’ve been runnin’ too long. I ain’t got breath enough. When I
-start in to tell you I shall need a lot of it.”
-
-“Well, we got your brother Phin’s word to come after her,” said one
-of the bystanders, sulkily. “There ain’t any of us got any partic’lar
-relish for an el’phunt bee, but we come ’cause he asked us to.”
-
-“You may be good barn-raisers,” returned the showman angrily, “but what
-you snoozers don’t know about elephants would make up the most that’s so
-about ’em.”
-
-Several women came to the door of the house and one of the men called to
-them:
-
-“Tell Mis’ Snell that the man that owns the animile has come to git her.
-There ain’t no more danger.”
-
-The mournings within ceased promptly and a plump and fair matron
-appeared among the women on the door-stoop.
-
-“What have you got to say for yourself, lettin’ loose such critters
-to ruin and destroy?” she demanded, with the ready and hot anger that
-succeeds fright.
-
-Hiram, still framed in the tie-up door, took off his hat gallantly.
-
-“It ain’t any doin’s of mine, marm,” he said. “Prob’ly a kinder or
-sweeter-tempered elephant than Imogene is has never teased for peanuts
-over a guard-rope. But it don’t improve no dispositions to be chased by
-a pack of goramuses--it wouldn’t improve your disposition, it wouldn’t
-improve mine.”
-
-“Don’t you go to classin’ me with your menagerie, yourself included,”
- she snapped. “What I want to know is, who’s goin’ to pay me for the
-damage that’s been done here to-day? It ain’t goin’ to be no shillin’
-and a thank-ye settlement, now, I can tell ye that.”
-
-Hiram came out of the tie-up door and trudged forward a few steps.
-
-“I’m a widder, but you needn’t think you are goin’ to jew me one cent’s
-wuth,” she flung at him.
-
-“I’ve got forty thousand dollars in the bank, and I don’t care who knows
-the same,” retorted Hiram, “and I stand good for all bills incurred by
-me or Imogene--now don’t you forget that for a second.”
-
-He started across the yard toward the widow, for this arm’s-length
-conversation, with so many eavesdroppers, annoyed him. The persecuted
-Imogene had been trying to squeeze through the narrow alley from the
-barn floor. Now that she had recovered her friend and defender she did
-not propose to lose him again. With an eagerness candid and child-like,
-she sought safety at his side.
-
-“I want you to understand that though I’m a widder I ain’t without
-friends and protectors,” said Mrs. Snell. “The bill for damages will be
-sent to Cap’n Nymphus Bodfish, at P’lermo, and he’ll have full power to
-act for me. And now if you’ll take your el’phunt in tow and git off my
-primises I’ll be much obleeged to you. I’ve been through all I want to
-for one day.”
-
-The name of Bodfish acted on the showman almost galvanically.
-
-“Him,” he muttered, “settle with him? Not by a----”
-
-He strode across the yard.
-
-“You and me----” He began, but at that instant Imogene, who had heard
-his voice in the space before the barn, whirled from her attempt to
-squeeze through the tie-up and crashed out through the big doors. With
-screams the women jammed back into the entry and slammed the door. The
-men in the yard ran in all directions.
-
-“Go back, Imogene!” the showman shouted wrathfully, but the anxious
-beast ambled sidewise toward him, waving her trunk appealingly.
-
-He jumped at her and threw up his arms. She stopped and gazed
-reproachfully, and came toward him again.
-
-“I say, she won’t hurt a soul,” he shouted, but the women kept up their
-clamour in the house, and the men were hidden in the dusk. Then his
-anger wreaked itself on the only thing in sight--and that was the amazed
-Imogene.
-
-There was a pile of fitted wood in the yard, and he began to bombard her
-with it. She retreated a few steps, and then bowing her devoted head,
-received the missiles meekly, yet with an evident determination to stay
-that touched the showman’s heart.
-
-“Poor old gal,” he muttered, “you’re worth all the rest put together.
-But there ain’t no Widder Snell goin’ to pass me and my bus’ness along
-to Cap Nymp’ Bodfish, and if this is the place where that old wharf-rat
-thinks he’s goin’ to nest in the sweet by-and-by--well, no man ever
-kicked me in the face and eyes of the public before!”
-
-He set his teeth with obstinate resolve and walked up and rapped on the
-widow’s door. When it was not opened to him he pushed vigorously,
-and two women who had been holding it ran away into the sitting-room,
-screaming that the elephant was coming.
-
-But it was only Hiram who appeared to the terrified widow, backed into a
-corner and surrounded by her retinue of comforters.
-
-“Mis’ Snell,” said Hiram, bowing low and striving for an especial
-purpose of his own to put his best foot forward, “a man ain’t to be
-judged by first appearances nor while standin’ in a dooryard in the dark
-tryin’ to handle an elephant that’s been scared to death by tomrotted
-fools. Now, I can see that you’re a lady that’s used to the world and
-that’s too polite and ladylike to refuse to have an understand when a
-gentleman comes to you humbly like I do.”
-
-He noted the little flush on the widow’s fair cheek and reflected that
-Captain Bodfish displayed eminent good taste.
-
-“I hope it won’t ever be said of me that I didn’t know my manners,”
- replied Mrs. Snell, with pride, but visibly affected by Hiram’s gallant
-admiration and homage.
-
-“And as it is allus best when talkin’ private and personal bus’ness
-to make that bus’ness strickly personal and private,” continued Hiram,
-bowing to the women, who now stood back from the widow, “I feel that
-I ain’t askin’ too great a favour from you, Mis’ Snell, if you could
-arrange it so that we could have the room to ourselves.”
-
-The women retired to the kitchen with no very good grace.
-
-As Hiram began to speak there was a queer fumbling and rustling at the
-window, and the widow turned and with difficulty repressed a cry. There
-stood Imogene, with the lamp-light touching the broad head pushed close
-to the glass. She was blinking appealing eyes, and with the “thumb” of
-her trunk was feeling along the sash in an aimless, selfconscious way.
-
-“Now, marm,” expostulated the showman, “that elephant is tamer than a
-tab cat, ’cause a cat will scratch and that elephant wouldn’t harm
-a hair--a single spear of your--your--” (Hiram let it come out, but
-bashfully)--“your pretty head. It’s affection that brings her to that
-window--affection for me. She’s the only one in the world that cares a
-rap for me--but it shows that I ain’t all bad when an animile can love
-me like that.”
-
-He sighed and the widow looked at him with new interest. She apparently
-forgot the elephant at the window, and in a few minutes she certainly
-had forgotten Imogene’s presence, for she was leaning forward toward
-Hiram and listening intently.
-
-The women were listening as intently at the crack of the kitchen door,
-but Hiram spoke low and rapidly and they could not understand. But the
-interview must have altered Mrs. Snell’s opinion of Hiram Look, for at
-the end of half-an-hour she came to the kitchen door and said:
-
-“I wish you’d plan to stay here with me to-night, Nellie.”
-
-The young woman assented.
-
-“My nerves ain’t jest all right yet,” continued the widow, and then she
-looked them all boldly in the eye, though her cheeks were red, “and I’ve
-asked Mr. Look to stop all night and put his elephant in the barn.
-It would be an awful traipse for him to travel ’way back to P’lermo
-to-night, and I really feel that I could get to like elephants, he has
-talked to me so nice about ’em.”
-
-She went to a cupboard in a corner, took down a box of sweetmeats,
-carried them into the sitting-room, and, to the inexpressible horror
-of the women, shoved up the window at which Imogene was still wistfully
-fumbling. With fingers that trembled at first she dropped a few bits of
-the candy into the animal’s moist “porringer,” and Imogene tucked them
-into her mouth and munched with supreme satisfaction. The widow fed the
-candy to the last bit, manifestly enjoying the comments on her bravery.
-
-Then she carried the lantern to the barn when Hiram led the elephant
-away to domicile her for the night.
-
-“I don’t want to draw no wrong conclusions nor do anyone wrong in my
-thoughts,” said Mrs. Wes Johnson, on her way home that evening, speaking
-to a woman who walked with her. “But if I was any judge I should say
-that Cap’n Nymphus Bodfish better be lookin’ to his buttons in a certain
-quarter.”
-
-“By the style she spit out there before us all tonight, you might think
-her intentions was serious toward him,” commented the other.
-
-“I know they’re serious,” replied the other with decision. “Nymp’ has
-made his brags already, and I’m knowin’ to it that she’s been havin’
-extra sewin’ done.”
-
-“You don’t s’pose she’d mitten him now, do you?’ asked the other in
-horrified tones.
-
-“Well, I don’t want to wrong nobody,” said Mrs Johnson, “but if I was
-goin’ to say, I shouldn’t be that Cap Nymp’ Bodfish would get Abby Snell
-till I see ’em comin’ down the aisle together. I tell ye, when a man’s
-got forty thousand to put into the bank ’side of the twenty thousand
-that Number One left to ye, a woman does a little second-thought
-thinkin’.”
-
-The Widow Snell stayed awake a long time that night, listening to the
-distant rumble of Hiram’s snores shuddering under the door of the best
-room. Possibly she was fulfilling Mrs. Johnson’s prediction about second
-thoughts.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XV--SOME OF THE POSSIBILITIES IN A “CORNET BRASS BAND”
-
-AS FIGURED BY ITS PROMOTER, HIRAM LOOK
-
-
-               Open order and forward march!
-
-               Major in bearskin and stiffer than starch,
-
-               Knees like a thoroughbred--he’s the kind!
-
-               And all the musicianers marchin’ behind,
-
-               Then poum-ta-roum! Oh, ain’t it grand
-
-               To march with the Atkinson Full Brass Band?
-
-                        --From “Village Ballads.”
-
-
-When Hiram turned in at the dooryard of the Look place next day it was
-late in the afternoon, and he was riding in the rear of a farmer’s beach
-waggon, his long legs dangling over the tail-board. Imogene followed
-docilely at the end of a rope, her affectionate gaze on her master.
-
-Squire Phin and Peak, who had been sitting on the porch, came along to
-greet the new arrival and congratulate him.
-
-“Well, it’s taken leg-work a lot and head-work a lot,” said Hiram with
-a sigh of relief as he slid stiffly down from his perch. “Look-a-there!”
- He pointed to the horse that had drawn the waggon. “Had two runaways and
-one smash-up before I got that invented.”
-
-Two saplings were lashed to the thills and extended beyond the bit-rings
-through which they were thrust. The horse was unable to turn his head to
-look behind, and for further precaution the apprehensive country youth
-who drove had tied his ragged coat around the animal’s head like a
-muffler.
-
-“I never saw a section, hoss-kind and human-kind both, get so
-foolish over one mild and inoffensive elephant before,” Hiram went on
-disgustedly. “I should have been home before this, but I stayed and
-squared up. Went along the whole trail and, as you might say, settled
-damages along the right o’ way. They ain’t got no kick comin’. Ain’t
-that so, son?” he demanded, addressing the youth on the seat.
-
-“I don’t see how anyone could be any perficker a gent,” said the driver,
-warmly. “Our folks lost a row and a half of nurs’ry stock and one cosset
-lamb stepped on and squashed, and Mr. Look just up and slapped what it
-come to right down into dad’s fist, with a half a dollar extry for a
-laylock bush that we didn’t make no account of. And at Abby Snell’s,
-where the most damage was done, why, you jest ought to hear Abby
-tell----”
-
-“Well, that’s all right, son,” interrupted Hiram, hastily. “All is I
-wanted to stand square up that way, and give the gossips a chance to
-chaw on something sweet ’stead of something sour.” He handed the youth
-a silver dollar. “That’s for yourself, son,” he said, “and now you’d
-better be hustling for home ‘fore dark.” He looked more comfortable when
-the waggon went clattering away under the elms.
-
-“I guess what they don’t know about Abby Snell down this way jest yet
-awhile won’t hurt ’em any,” he muttered as he led away Imogene into
-the barn, and into the companionship of the eight horses once more
-assembled. “Sime is such a soft old fool he would think I am in love,
-and Phin would pitch into me on account of my temper for gittin’ even,
-the same as he allus does.”
-
-“Hiram,” said his brother, when the showman joined the two men on the
-porch, “I want to ask your pardon for trying to stop you yesterday. Mr.
-Peak has told me how you managed at the other end. At this end it all
-worked to perfection. Wat Mayo only knows that she _ran_ away on account
-of a mistaken notion that she would be helping him, and that she loved
-him too much to _stay_ away.”
-
-“There’s mighty few cases where women’s concerned when judicious lyin’
-ain’t a benefit all ’round,” said Hiram, lighting his cigar.
-
-“It’s only the strong natures that want and can stand the whole truth,”
- replied the Squire, sighing. “I did what I thought was for the best.”
-
-“He’s a cosset and allus will be and you warmed his milk for him,”
- snorted Hiram. “That’s all right! You ain’t done anything wrong. Any
-other kind of feedin’ would give him an attack of love-colic that would
-tie him up into knots so that he’d never get untangled.”
-
-He smoked in silence for a little while.
-
-“Ain’t there any ding-blasted thing in this world that the critter knows
-how to do?” he demanded. “There’s no young and pretty girl that’s goin’
-to stay very hard in love with a swipe in a liv’ry stable, no matter how
-she tries. I pity the poor little gaffer, Phin. We had a talk together
-on the road--me and her and Sime here. I ain’t all bristles, Phin. I’d
-do somethin’ for the feller if I could--anything short of charity, and
-I’ll be cussed if I’ll give money to an able-bodied man that’s able to
-earn it. She’d hate him then, if there’s anything to her, and if she
-didn’t I’d hate her--and there you have it. Gad! I don’t understand how
-a chap can grow to be over twenty-one and not know how to do some one
-thing.”
-
-“If his folks had taught him to play a fiddle instead of a cornet,” said
-the Squire, “he might have been able to fiddle for dances and earn an
-oyster supper and a dollar-fifty once in a while, as old Eb Lancaster
-does.”
-
-“Does the Mayo boy know how to play the cornet?” asked Hiram, with
-reviving interest.
-
-“His folks paid that bandmaster, that has his summer cottage down on
-Prout’s Point, two hundred dollars and over for lessons to Wat.”
-
-“But can he _play?_” persisted Hiram.
-
-“How should I know?” snapped the Squire impatiently. “All I know is he
-near drove me crazy with his practising--and nigh every one else in the
-village.” But after a moment he went on with gentler tone:
-
-“Yes, Hiram, some of the men around here who understand such things say
-that Wat Mayo plays wonderfully well. I remember that the bandmaster
-used to brag about him, but what with folks jawing about the noise he
-made, and his natural laziness, he hasn’t done anything with it. And
-a bulldog might as well try to chew with a set of store teeth as a man
-start out to earn a living in Palermo with a cornet.”
-
-“Well, he’ll earn one from now on,” said Hiram.
-
-The two men stared at him.
-
-“He’s jest the man I’ve been lookin’ for,” said the showman. “Life ain’t
-worth livin’ for me without band music. I’m homesick for it. Wat Mayo
-can consider himself hired as the teacher and leader of ‘Look’s Cornet
-Band,’ and I’ll bet you ten dollars I’ll have twenty men practisin’ in
-Hobbs’s hall before next Saturday night.”
-
-“You’ll never find twenty men in this place who can afford to buy band
-instruments,” objected the Squire.
-
-“I’ll buy ’em myself,” cried Hiram, stoutly. “Great Caesar, what’s a
-little expense beside good band music when a man’s hungry for it? I’ll
-buy the instruments, I’ll buy the uniforms--it’ll be my band, and I’ll
-buy a bearskin cap for Sime, here, six feet tall, and advertise him
-for the tallest drum-major in the State. Why, hustlin’ Cicero, men,” he
-cried, as his enthusiasm warmed his showman’s heart, “I can make Look’s
-Cornet Band an organisation that will be wanted in ev’ry parade from
-Quoddy to the Scarb’ro clam flats. And when your young friend Wat Mayo,
-Phin, gets ahead of that band in his spick-and-span uniform, you won’t
-have any more trouble about any critter ever cuttin’ him out with his
-wife. Why, she’ll love him to death!” He stamped his big foot on the
-piazza and laughed.
-
-“I knew there was something I was hankerin’ for,” he chuckled. “’Twas
-a band. Why, we can serenade you, Phin, when you get elected Congressman
-or hog-reeve or culler of staves or to some other high office.”
-
-“Of course, you are able to have such a plaything, Hime,” said the
-Squire, without enthusiasm, “and if it helps poor Wat Mayo to get out
-of his troubles I reckon the rest of us ought to be willing to stand the
-hullabaloo.”
-
-With a rather grim smile he left them and went around into his kitchen.
-
-“Sime,” said the showman after he had smoked reflectively for some
-time, “I have taken you in with me as a sort of a side partner. It’s
-no use--there’s a few things that Phin and I can’t hitch hosses on, and
-they are things that’s derned important to me. No matter what they are,
-not jest now, at any rate. But I don’t mind tellin’ you that there’s
-more comin’ out of that Palermo Cornet Band than biff-bangs and
-toodle-oos. The thought of gettin’ it up was an inspiration--that’s what
-it was. You see now what comes of doin’ a good deed! Gettin’ that girl
-back makes us talk about Mayo, and from Mayo to a job for him, and thus
-around to the band. Yess’r, a good deed brings it own reward. Now, I
-ain’t popular with the people of this place. I want to be popular, but
-I never could cater to the old moss-backs by soft-soapin’ ’em. To do
-what I’ve set out to do I need to have a followin’. Now I’m goin’ to
-start that band, pay ’em wages when they play, furnish free concerts
-and music for dances, and if I ain’t popular then, why, I don’t know my
-people, that’s all.”
-
-“Goin’ to run for office, I persume?” suggested Simon.
-
-“Run for your grandmother!” snorted Hiram. “What have I ever done to you
-that you should twit me that style? No, s’r, I’ll jest say this much to
-you, Sime. There’s a certain old son of a pickerel that I’m layin’
-for in this town, and I’m goin’ to have him. I’m goin’ to walk one way
-acrost him and then come back the same way and wipe my feet on him. I
-tell ye, Sime, when an old harker that has got plenty of his own, jest
-gets out his knife and lets the financial blood out of a poor old man
-and a strugglin’ boy, only for the sake of lettin’ it, then if he don’t
-get it handed to him here--well, I may be lodged in another part of hell
-from him and shan’t be able to see what is passed to him there. So it’s
-me for him in this life! I tell you, Sime, our trip to Square Harbour
-wa’n’t all for nothin’. We done a good deed and we are gettin’ our pay
-passed right back to us.”
-
-With this curious but entirely characteristic reflection on the
-dispensations of Providence, Hiram tossed away his cigar butt and
-answered the supper call of Aunt Rhoda.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVI--THE DISAPPOINTING “TEST CASE” OF SUMNER BADGER,
-
-A “SAMPLE CITIZEN” OF PALERMO
-
-
-               There once was a Quaker, Orasmus Nute,
-
-               With a physog. as stiff as a cowhide boot,
-
-               And he skippered a ship from Georgetown, Maine,
-
-               In the ’way back days of the pirates’ reign.
-
-               And the story I tell it has to do
-
-               With Orasmus Nute and a black flag crew--
-
-               The tale of the upright course he went
-
-               In the face of a certain predicament.
-
-                   --Ballad of “Orasmus Nute.”
-
-
-There was at least one secret in his life that “Fig-ger-Four” Avery
-kept. He never told what inspired Imogene to make her dash for liberty.
-
-Squire Phin didn’t exactly understand the tableau he had beheld, and
-charitably refrained from mentioning to his brother how music, as
-rendered by Uncle Wharff, failed to soothe the savage breast. As for
-Hiram, he did not seem to be interested enough to ask any questions.
-
-Whenever he mentioned the elephant’s escapade to Peak, he referred to
-the affair with a sort of grim blithesomeness.
-
-Weeks afterward, when the first damp, swirling snow of winter was
-clotting itself on the windows of the little sitting-room, he sat for a
-long time, figuring in a grimy account book with a stubby lead pencil.
-Every once in a while he chuckled.
-
-“J. B. Sawtelle,” he murmured, “items: four begonies and three geraniums
-mashed in front yard, one washin’ scattered hoorah-ste’-boy--say, Sime,
-Imogene with a night gown on one tush and a pair of J. B.’s flannel
-drawers flyin’ distress from the other, and sheddin’ assorted articles
-such as found on a well-regulated clothes-line, as she hurrooped down
-through the beech growth, must have been worth double the price of a
-high-dive feature.”
-
-His shoulders, hunched in the rocking-chair, shook with suppressed
-mirth.
-
-Peak, his slippered feet resting on the rail of the Franklin stove,
-surveyed the shoulders and the back of Hiram’s head with scowling
-disapproval.
-
-“Some might think you relished chances to throw away money,” he growled,
-with a freedom of criticism accorded the favourite. Simon now appeared
-to be settled as a fixture in the showman’s household. The old horse
-Joachim had died with the first frosts, and the battered van lurched
-under one of the poplars, exposed to the beating of the elements.
-
-“What bills do you think Imogene incurred on that trip--now, jest for a
-guess?” demanded Hiram, in high good humour. “I’ve been figgerin’ it for
-fun.”
-
-“It reely must be a good deal like a joke book,” observed Peak, with
-fine satire.
-
-“I can set and pee-ruse them figgers,” said Hiram, slapping the little
-book on his knee and chuckling afresh, “and think how Imogene must have
-looked passin’ through them way stations, as you might say, and then
-think how them farmers and old maids and women-folks run and squawked
-and hollered, and I get fuller of tickles inside than a settin’ hen is
-full of clucks. The trouble with you is, Sime, you ain’t got no humour.”
-
-“Well, I’ve had mostly troubles in my time, and I ain’t got no forty
-thousand dollars in the bank, either,” said Peak, sourly.
-
-“Say, you’ve been twittin’ me about that forty thousand a good
-deal lately,” snorted Hiram, glaring around over the back of the
-rocking-chair. “You ain’t begretchin’ me my own, be ye?”
-
-“Ev’ry man’s welcome to all he’s got, for all o’ me. I ain’t ever had
-nothin’. I don’t ever expect to have anything. But I tell ye, a
-man don’t gain in the long run by slingin’ his money around too
-permiscuous.”
-
-Hiram whirled in his chair and put his little book into his pocket.
-
-“For more’n a fortnit now, Sime, you’ve been slurrin’ more or less.
-You’ve got some kind of a duflicker’s egg that you’re settin’ on. Now
-come off’n the nest and if you’ve got any cacklin’ to do, out with it so
-that I can join in!”
-
-Simon was too certain of his position as a favourite to be backed down.
-
-“I guess if speech of the people is correct,” he replied sturdily, “it’s
-well enough known why you’re ticklin’ out when you think of Imogene’s
-trip up-country.”
-
-“F’r instance, now,” suggested Hiram, his face very hard.
-
-Peak bent and poked the fire, sniffing disdainfully.
-
-“F’r instance, I said,” repeated the showman.
-
-“Say, look-a-here, Hime,” snapped Peak, whirling in his chair in his
-turn, “do you think for a minute that I don’t know why you’ve been
-makin’ all these trips up-country lately--and you a-sayin’ that you’ve
-got to go up and transact a little more bus’ness about them damages of
-Imogene’s? Now it’s about time to take some of the cuss of the thing
-off’n that elephant.”
-
-“F’r instance, I said!” yelled Hiram, standing up and clacking his
-fingers imperiously under Peak’s nose. “Out with it!”
-
-“Don’t you suppose I know that you’re courtin’ that tow-headed widder
-that’s got a farm and twenty thousand dollars in the bank? Do you think
-that you can fool me that’s summered and wintered with you? You’re
-courtin’ her, that’s what you’re doin’, and you’re layin’ it all off
-onto that elephant. Now don’t give me no more flim-flam. ’Tain’t
-professional. It’s pickin’ me up for a sucker.”
-
-The narrow eyes of the giant sparkled with suspicion and with the
-jealousy of the companion who is being supplanted and realises it.
-
-For a little while Hiram stood and glared at him and then sat down in
-his chair again. Either a sense of guilt, craft or desire to placate a
-friend caused him to moderate his demeanour.
-
-“See here, Sime,” he began, lighting a cigar to keep himself in
-countenance, “you have figgered the thing all wrong. You know I ain’t
-a marryin’ man. You and me neither of us is. I want you to live with me
-and you’re goin’ to.”
-
-“I should think that the both of us has suffered enough from women as
-it is,” grumbled the giant. “Both of us knows the other’s troubles
-with ’em. And now for you to go and ram yourself right into the
-bramble-bush again, and me here to advise you, makes me mad and
-disgusted. I’m thinkin’ of you first of all, Hime. I ain’t selfish. But
-I can see jest how it’s goin’ to be: you’re goin’ to git hitched and
-then the first thing she’ll do will be to put the spittoon in the
-woodshed and kick me out-doors. I thought you knowed more than to do
-it--I honest thought so.”
-
-Peak bowed his head in grief.
-
-“In my whole life long I never was judged right yet by any human bein’,”
- wailed Hiram. “And now here you go off the handle jest like the rest.
-_You_ know what Nymp’ Bodfish done to me. _You_ know what I propose to
-do to Nymp’ Bodfish. That’s all there is to it. He wants her and the
-twenty thousand, and he’d ’a’ had her a year ago if he wasn’t hangin’
-off about bein’ a farmer. He wants her to sell and put the money into a
-schooner, and he’s jest as much reckonin’ on that as on flood tide when
-the moon’s right. His heart is set on it. I’m goin’ to make him the
-sickest man ’tween here and the North Pole.”
-
-“There was a man once that give an elephant a chaw of terbacker,”
- related Simon, “and when the doctors was tryin’ to fit some of the least
-mussed-up pieces together at the hospital, he opened his eyes and said:
-‘It was a good one on the elephant, wasn’t it?’ and then give one hiccup
-and died.”
-
-“If you was only jest--well, say, ‘Figger-Four,’ and made such talk to
-me,” snarled Hiram, “I’d drive you right down through the floor there,
-like I’d drive a tent peg. But I’m willin’ to argue with _you_, Sime,
-and if that don’t show that I’m a friend of yours, then I don’t know
-what does.” He wiped his flushed face. “You understand, I can’t bust
-this thing in a minit.”
-
-“Didn’t you yourself ketch him right in a caper that would queer him
-with any decent woman--lug-gin’ off another man’s wife ’cause he was
-hired to?”
-
-“Don’t you know that would be givin’ away the trouble of the young
-Mayos--and them livin’ together now like turtledoves?” roared Hiram.
-“Look at my brother Phin--one of God’s own gentlemen, if there ever
-was one. Him a-breakin’ his heart and misjudged and old Willard’s girl
-passin’ him by be-. cause he smashed King Bradish before her face
-and eyes--and Bradish with the last word to her! Don’t you suppose my
-brother could square himself with her by just one word of what he knows?
-But will he do it after he has passed ’Rissy Mayo his word that so
-long as she behaves herself he won’t give her away to any livin’ soul?
-You can say he’s a fool if you want to, but I tell ye, Sime, when a man
-has got as far along in life as Phin has without breakin’ his solemn
-word, you can’t blame him if he’d rather gnaw himself inside than have
-those whom he gives away scorch him outside.”
-
-He had furiously puffed his cigar down to the end. Now he lighted
-another.
-
-“I never approved of him carin’ a snap for the Willard girl, Sime. I
-don’t like her. I don’t like the breed. But this lovin’ of folks ain’t
-to be regulated jest the way you’d like to have it. If my brother can
-keep his mouth shut about King Bradish’s rottenness when, as you might
-say, it’s a wife at stake for him, then I guess I can keep still when
-it’s only a grudge that I’m workin’.”
-
-“Then it ain’t no wife in your case?” pursued Peak, suspiciously.
-
-“I tell ye, all I can do now is to hint,” insisted Hiram, evading the
-main question. “I’ve jest got her on the anxious seat. It’s the way I
-struck up her interest first of all. I couldn’t have got near her with
-a ten-foot pole if I hadn’t got her curiosity started by hints. Then,
-of course, she wanted to know what I meant and I’ve been puttin’ her off
-ever since. You never saw a woman so worked up as she is, Sime--never.
-She can’t hardly stand it till I come again. Then she lets into me to
-tell her all about Cap Bodfish. She don’t want to leave go of him till
-she knows definite. I reckon she wants to have him around so as to peel
-him when she does find out that there really is something in what I
-hint.” The showman chuckled again. “And it’s kind of what you might call
-a lingerin’ death for him--one of the slow kind like bein’ gnawed by
-ants. Ev’ry time he goes up to see her she don’t know whuther to love
-him or club him off’n the premises--and she blows hot and she blows cold
-all in one minit, and if he ain’t the wust puzzled man that ever tried
-to box compass in the sea of matrimony, then I’ll eat the celluloid peel
-in a side-show lemonade.”
-
-“Don’t he suspect what it all means?” inquired Peak, beginning to
-appreciate the situation with the malice of a man who has been fooled
-and enjoys seeing others in the same boat.
-
-“Keeps a-grabbin’ ev’ry which way like a man that hears a moskeeter
-buzzin’ round him in the night,” giggled Hiram. “I’ve set right in the
-other room sev’ral times and he didn’t know I was there, and I’ve heard
-him coax and beg and guess and promise and almost blubber, and me behind
-the door in t’other room swellin’ up and swellin’ up and then lettin’ it
-out through my nose easy, and then swellin’ up again. I don’t believe I
-shall be able to stand very much of that. I’m li’ble to bust some time.”
-
-“I should think it would be well wuth list’nin’ to,” agreed Peak. Then
-he said artlessly: “I like fun myself. Why can’t I go along with you
-after this? Then there won’t be no such thing as her gettin’ her cobweb
-around you.”
-
-“You talk as though I was runnin’ matinées up-country,” said Hiram, the
-red on his bristly cheeks. He detected Peak’s selfish apprehension, and
-the giant’s gaze shifted under his scowl. “I never had any trouble
-in runnin’ my own bus’ness yet and I don’t expect to have to call in
-understudies right away.”
-
-In considerable dudgeon he marched along to a narrow secretary in the
-corner and began to mumble figures in an undertone as he went over
-his accounts. Peak sat gazing into the fire, twirling his huge thumbs
-thoughtfully.
-
-The sound of some one stamping off snow on the porch broke upon the
-silence of the two. The visitor came in without knocking and, fumbling
-his way along the dark entry, opened the sitting-room door.
-
-It was old Sumner Badger, the wet snow splotching his faded overcoat.
-
-“’Pears to be one o’ these ’ere sticky storms,” he observed amiably,
-pulling a chair up before the stove.
-
-“Yes, seems to hang to _you_ like dollar bills do,” retorted Hiram,
-snapping around from the secretary and squinting over his glasses. Then
-he went on with his figuring, talking half aloud. Badger surveyed the
-back of his head for some time and then said:
-
-“It’s about that money you want to borrow of me, Capt’in.” Badger always
-bestowed this title in moments when he wanted to placate.
-
-“Then you’ve collected from Willard, have you?” inquired Hiram, gruffly,
-over his shoulder. “Huh, you’ve been long enough about it. Ever since
-last fall.”
-
-“Well, I’ve seen the Jedge,” faltered Badger; “jest come from his office
-to here. He says the town can’t raise no money to take up town notes not
-till town meetin’ in March. He says it will be made all right to me if
-I’ll wait. Now he give me to understand that I’d git seven per cent, all
-hunky if I didn’t hurry things and--no, s’r, honest to Lucifer if I said
-a word about your wantin’ the money,” he expostulated as Hiram swung
-angrily to face him.
-
-“I told you I’d kill you if you did,” roared Hiram. “And I didn’t,
-Capt’in! No, s’r, when it’s money concerned I can keep my mouth shet.
-Ain’t I kept it shet all these years about the Jedge havin’ it?”
-
-“Let’s see!” remarked Hiram, with a sly look in his eye, as though he
-wished to test this Palermo voter. “How much money does Palermo owe,
-anyway?”
-
-“I don’t have the least idee,” blandly returned Badger, crossing his
-knees. “We all trust the Jedge to ’tend to that. _He_ knows.”
-
-“So you are goin’ to let your money stay with the Judge, hey?”
-
-“Well--blorh hum! Well, as I was sayin’, Jedge Willard seems to
-be perfickly square about makin’ it right and--and--well, Capt’in,
-nat’rally it’s--it’s bus’ness--well, to make it an object to shift you
-might---there’s the taxes, too----”
-
-“You old harker,” cried Hiram, irefully, “what you want me to say is
-that I’ll pay you eight per cent.! ‘You’ve been whifflin’ back and forth
-for two months between Judge Willard and me. I thought you got all ready
-to die a while ago. What are you waitin’ for--to place your money out at
-eight per cent, first?”
-
-“I ain’t goin’ to die,” blurted Badger. “A man’s got the right to change
-his mind, ain’t he? And they’ve found out about that Mis’ Achorn. She
-used a wax hand to make folks believe ’twas some one dead that was
-touchin’ ’em and---”
-
-“Shet up!” barked Hiram. “Do you think I’ve been in the circus line
-thirty years to need to have fakes explained to me? It’s bus’ness I want
-to talk with you, Sum. Don’t you read your town report, you fool? Don’t
-you know that Judge Willard says there over his name that this town owes
-only a little over two thousand dollars? And yet you know, yourself,
-that he has borrowed seven thousand from you on a town note! Don’t you
-stop to think about those things? And now I’ll tell you something
-to make your hair curl! I have found out that there are twenty-five
-thousand dollars’ worth of town notes held around here by just such old
-blind moles as you are that he has told to keep still. Lord knows how
-many more there are. I don’t imagine that some would let it out if you
-took a knife to ’em.”
-
-He wiped the perspiration from his face and gazed at Badger as though he
-expected the information to wilt him. The avenger of the wrongs of the
-Looks was not entirely ready with the thunderbolt that he was
-forging for the town treasurer of Palermo, but the serenity of the
-dollar-blinded Badger exasperated him. For a test he wanted to see how
-one citizen of Palermo would receive the disclosure.
-
-“I tell you your treasurer is fooling the whole of ye!” he shouted. “He
-has stolen from your town.” The creditor blinked at him. “Now will you
-sit by and let him fool you with his talk of makin’ it right? Now will
-you try to screw eight per cent, out of me who’s tryin’ to bring him to
-the ring bolt? Now will you hand that note over to me or pitch in and
-collect it yourself?”
-
-To Hiram’s intense astonishment Badger slowly leaned forward, set his
-elbows on his knees, began to tap his finger-tips together, winked one
-eye, and smiled shrewdly and composedly.
-
-“Don’t you worry none about Coll Willard,” he said. “He’s a financier.”
- He rolled the word over his tongue. “His folks was financiers before
-him. Nobody can’t fool him. He’s sly. So’m I. He’s ready to help the
-sly folks. You’ve got money, but you ain’t no financier. You’re jest a
-circus man. And we ain’t your monkeys, here in P’lermo. If you want your
-nuts pulled out of the fire, pull ’em out yourself.”
-
-Hiram got up and stamped around the room in an ecstasy of rage.
-
-“I’m a good mind to let you all go to Tophet by the short cut, your
-tails tied together with kerosened rags,” he gasped. “Here I am, givin’
-up time and money to save this town from being lugged into bankruptcy,
-and what do I get? I get laughed at! Damn it!” he stormed, “there’s your
-last town report! Look for yourself! He’s lied there under oath.”
-
-With the words he threw a pamphlet into Badger’s lap. The old man
-promptly tossed the report upon the table.
-
-“You’d better stop tryin’ to work out your old grudge on Jedge Willard,”
- he advised, with a bland sapience that made the showman grit his teeth.
-“If he finds out that you’re a-slanderin’ him he’s li’ble to have the
-law on ye.”
-
-“If I should stand up in town meetin’ and call on you to rise and
-say whether or not you hold a town note for seven thousand dollars, I
-suppose you’ll lie, won’t you?”
-
-“I shall allus stand behind the man who has allus helped to put some
-extry dollars in my pocket,” said the old man, stiffly.
-
-Hiram seized him by the arm, hustled him to the door and thrust him out
-into the entry.
-
-“If you wasn’t rank poison I’d chop you up and feed you to Imogene,” he
-shouted as he slammed the door. “If you come into my house again I’ll
-take chances and do it.”
-
-The door opened promptly and the unterrified Badger poked in his head.
-
-“I don’t s’pose you’re goin’ back on your brother Phin as a legal
-adviser, be ye?” he inquired. “Well, he advised me to hang onto my town
-note for a while and keep still till I heard from him. It wa’n’t two
-hours ago that he told me the same thing. Now I----”
-
-But when Hiram clutched a chair with a threatening motion Badger fled.
-
-“Sime,” said the showman, “I’m blasted glad I had them carts painted
-up. It’s me and you for the road again next season, both of us with our
-knives out for blood and our little tin dippers held ready to catch
-it. I’m sick of tryin’ to do favours for anyone. I never saw such an
-ungrateful town as this one is.”
-
-He looked sullenly out into the driving snow.
-
-“The band seems to be doin’ well,” said Peak. “They’re havin’ three
-rehearsals a week and are pretty nigh blowin’ their lungs out. You can’t
-ask nothin’ better from the band than what you’re gittin’.”
-
-Hiram turned from the window and gave his friend and confidant a long
-and searching stare.
-
-“Peak,” said he, “sometimes when you talk to me I think you’re in with
-the rest a-tryin’ to do me.”
-
-Simon surveyed him with eyes mutely expostulating.
-
-“Other times I think you are a dummed fool. You can take your pick. Now
-I am goin’ out to associate with some one that ain’t tryin’ to pick my
-pocket the whole dog-blessed time nor spreadin’ on hair-oil talk when it
-ain’t called for.”
-
-He trudged out to the barn where Imogene was spending the winter
-in dignified ease, occupying a corner of the building that had been
-sheathed and boarded for her comfort. Here “Figger-Four” Avery tended a
-little air-tight stove, relegated to the post of menial.
-
-Hiram sat in silent communion with Imogene until the dusk came down.
-Once in a while he fed to her a lump of candy. Each time she curved down
-her trunk he poked a thick finger against it roguishly.
-
-“I’ll bet ye know who sent ’em to ye--now, don’t ye?” he would
-chuckle, when Imogene gazed down on him with amiable blinkings.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVII--WHAT DEVELOPED AT THE FORUM IN ASA BRICKETT’S STORE,
-
-TO AN OBBLIGATO BY LOOK’S CORNET BRASS BAND
-
-
-               “Always a seat for another,
-
-                   Providin’ we squeeze ’em tight;
-
-               Stampin’ in from the smother,
-
-                   For ’tis snowin’ hard to-night.
-
-               Time for a bit o’ smokin’,
-
-                   Time for another tale,
-
-               Time for a little jokin’,
-
-                   Waitin’ here for the mail.”
-
-                   --Ballad of “The Grocery Store.”
-
-
-I think there’s more git-up and ginger in a fife and drum,” said Uncle
-Lysimachus Buck. He had cocked his ear to listen. Then he held his cane
-beside his lips and fingered imaginary stops.
-
-The windows of Hobbs’s hall, across the street from Asa Brickett’s
-store, shed their yellow gleams out upon the crisp winter night. A band
-rehearsal was going on there. The loafers who hovered about the stove
-in the store could hear the voice of the leader haranguing his men, then
-the robust attack on the tune--bass horns bellowing “oomp-pah oomps,”
- cornets blaring and clarinets wailing; then the false note, the wavering
-in the melody and the sharp command of a voice, at which the music
-shredded out into jargon and ceased. More harangue and away they all
-went again from the start!
-
-“If the dummed calves ever git so they can play a whole piece to once it
-will be wuth while list’nin’,” growled Marriner Amazeen, settling down
-once more to his whittling, after he had cocked his ear for a time.
-
-“Near’s I can find out, Hime ain’t lettin’ ’em practise nothin’ but
-them high-diddle-diddle circus tunes,” observed Uncle Buck. “Now, you
-take a fife and drum in ‘The Girl I Left Behind Me,’ or a good fiddler
-in ‘The Devil’s Dream’ or ‘Miss McCloud’s Reel,’ or even an accordion
-in ‘Alice, Where Be Ye?’ and, by swanny, you’ve got the real old
-ear-ticklers. But this squeaky-weaky, biff, bang, boom stuff ain’t music
-no more’n poundin’ on a tin wash-boiler is.”
-
-But when Brickett began knocking a soap box into pieces for firewood,
-Uncle Buck bawled at him angrily.
-
-“Band tootlin’ don’t keep _me_ warm,” said Brickett, as he stuffed the
-fuel into the stove. “Any time my system of runnin’ things in this store
-don’t suit the loafers, said loafers know what they can do.”
-
-“Ain’t no need of goin’ ’round makin’ noise jest for the sake of
-makin’ it,” replied Buck.
-
-“Then you whistle whilst I pound boxes,” said the storekeeper, grinning,
-“and p’raps it’ll remind you of a fife and drum.”
-
-“Shet up a little while, won’t ye, now?” asked Micajah Dunham,
-wistfully. “Here I drive clear in from my place on band-practisin’
-nights so’s to git a little music, and you run your clack so that a
-feller can’t hear.” He sat on the edge of a box, his purchases heaped in
-his lap, his fur cap on the floor in order that the earlappers might
-not obstruct his hearing. “Here’s a piece now that they play well,” he
-added, with the air of conviction of one who had followed faithfully the
-work of the new Palermo band.
-
-The men around the stove listened, Uncle Buck tapping his cane
-appreciatively.
-
-“There! Ain’t that good?” sighed Dunham as the band came down the
-homestretch and wound up the selection in a fine burst of melody.
-
-“I guess there ain’t no doubt but what Wat Mayo is hunky-dory as a
-musicianer,” agreed Amazeen. “I hear that the Port boys are gittin’ up a
-band, and they’re even talkin’ of one over to Newry Gore, and are goin’
-to have Wat to teach both of ’em. I s’pose it’s all right for him to
-spend his time that way and earn a dollar, but it don’t seem much like
-man’s work to me.”
-
-“I s’pose you think the only real bus’ness a man ought to foller is to
-raise pertaters and fat shotes?” sarcastically observed Dunham. “I tell
-ye, I admire the Mayo boy’s spunk in makin’ something out of himself
-instead of a day-labourer. You can’t fit square pegs into round holes.
-He’s been woke up and put into the job that he fits. Now he’ll amount
-to some thing. Folks gen’rally amount to something when they git woke
-up--if it ain’t too late,” he added with a sigh. He snuggled his heap of
-parcels together on his knees. “I ought to be goin’ home,” he said, half
-to himself. “But, I swan, I’d like to hear one more tune.”
-
-“You seem to be livin’ pretty well nowadays out to your house,” remarked
-Uncle Buck, with a sly look at the bundles.
-
-“’Tain’t no more than bringin’ up the gen’ral av’rage, when you think
-of what we’ve missed to our house,” was Dunham’s stout rejoinder. He
-was ready nowadays to meet fearlessly the malicious thrusts of his old
-neighbours, with his new gospel of life.
-
-The music recommenced again across the street. This time the band was
-playing an accompaniment for a cornet solo by its leader. The notes,
-dulcet in the distance, seemed almost phrasing a song. Dunham’s eyes
-moistened with the sudden emotion of his simple nature.
-
-“I know you all have a good deal of fun behind my back about the way
-I’ve shifted over,” he said, quietly. “I know that it makes you laugh
-to hear me go ’round preachin’ about gittin’ a little something out of
-life as you go along. I don’t care if you do laugh. Laugh! The more ye
-laugh, the less you’ll growl. But me and my wife has woke up, and we
-don’t care who knows it, and if some of the rest of you would wake up,
-too, you’d find that the only thing the sun shines for ain’t to raise
-crops and make freckles.”
-
-“P’raps if all of us could git holt of a ready-made, grown-up daughter,
-as good as the one you’ve got, we might improve some,” said Buck, with a
-wink at his associates in “hector.”
-
-“P’raps you could,” Dunham answered, simply and earnestly.
-
-“Well, it makes a pretty good berth for a poor girl, ’Caje,” said
-a man behind the stove. “Most anyone would like to be adopted into a
-fam’ly like yours.”
-
-“It ain’t that way, neighbours,” Dunham said softly, his face in the
-direction of the music. “When we adopted ’Liza Haskell we was gettin’
-the best end of the bargain, if ye want to put it on that kind of a
-basis. We was both all corners before--sharp corners at that. I ain’t
-backward about ownin’ up--we f’it, me and Esther, like fury, and we
-didn’t know what was the matter with us. But somehow there don’t seem to
-be any corners in our house now. Them that ain’t filled with new chairs
-and pictur’s is all full o’ sunshine. There ain’t a room in the house
-that looks like it used to--with the furniture standin’ round jest as
-though it had been used at a funeral last and was where the undertaker
-arranged it. We didn’t know what the matter was, I say--me and Esther
-didn’t. We don’t know jest how it’s come about nov. But we do know
-that we’ve adopted something besides a poor little girl--we’ve adopted
-sunshine and sweetness and comfort and new notions about livin’ and
-lovin’ and havin’.”
-
-He stood up and piled his parcels upon his arm.
-
-“That’s the way it is to our house nowadays, neighbours. I used to like
-to set here the whole ev’nin’ in the store before--but now--well,
-when I git to thinkin’ about how home is, why, it takes more than them
-pretty tunes to hold me here. There’s music to our house that’s better
-than all the brass bands in the world.”
-
-He went out and they heard the jingle of his sleigh-bells threading
-through the mellow notes of the cornet.
-
-“He was allus sort of a soft old fool when you got under his shell,”
- scoffed Uncle Buck, grinding his cane against the rusty stove. “What I
-can’t understand is how Esther ever come ’round as she did. I allus
-thought she was harder’n nails.”
-
-“Oh, it took Squire Phin to warm her ear-wax,” said Amazeen. “And when
-you know how to handle a woman like that, why, you’ve got her--that’s
-all. I cal’late there ain’t a man in the county that understands human
-natur’ better’n Squire Phin does. He can handle ’em all right when he
-makes up his mind to.”
-
-Uncle Buck was plainly nettled by Amazeen’s air of easy confidence.
-
-“Well, there’s one woman that he don’t seem to be able to handle--and I
-reckon he’d like to at that,” he snorted. “Sylvene Willard ain’t hardly
-spoke to him since he knocked her feller down.”
-
-“I don’t cal’late as how you’ve got any right to call King Bradish her
-feller,” objected Amazeen.
-
-“I donno why not,” snapped Uncle Buck. “Jedge Willard come right out
-after that happened and said that Sylvene and King was goin’ to git
-married at Christmas time, and Sylvene didn’t dispute him. It’s past
-Christmas time now, to be sure, but as I understand it, King is tied up
-in New York by bus’ness and ain’t been able to git back since he went
-away a little spell ago.”
-
-“Little spell ago!” cried Amazeen. “He ain’t been back since he went
-away that time in the fall when Hime’s el’phunt got loose.”
-
-“Mebbe, but time slides away kind o’ fast,” grudgingly admitted Buck.
-“Howsomever, they’ll git married all right when he comes back. If Coll
-Willard says so, then they will, that’s all! Phin Look can’t stop it.
-His cake was dough when he licked Bradish.”
-
-“As I’ve allus understood the row, King had the right of it,” observed
-the man behind the stove.
-
-“Why, the Jedge himself told me,” said Buck, “that all King done in the
-world was to step up to the Squire and call him into line for braggin’
-round how he’d cut out King the night before and walked home with
-Sylvene from the schoolhouse out Dunham’s way. Jedge told me so himself.
-That’s comin’ pretty straight!”
-
-“Well, now, that don’t seem like Squire Phin Look,” broke in Amazeen,
-wagging his head decisively. “I’ve heard that version, but it don’t seem
-like Squire Phin--and we’ve known him a long time, too.”
-
-“He ain’t ever given the lie to the Jedge,” said Buck. “He ain’t ever
-said aye, yes or no about it. Nat’rally think, then, he must be ashamed
-of it, wouldn’t ye? I tell ye, boys, when there’s a woman in the case we
-don’t none of us know what the best of us might do. Squire Phin Look is
-an almighty nice man, good and kind-hearted and smarter’n a whip. I’ve
-allus stood up for him, and I was in the scheme----” He checked himself
-suddenly in some confusion with a side glance at Amazeen. “I was in
-hopes that the match wouldn’t come off with Bradish. But the Squire
-went and lost his head and kicked up---like the best do sometimes when
-there’s a woman in the case. Sylvene Willard ain’t the woman to stand
-that kind of bus’ness. You can’t blame her. I say she and Bradish will
-git married, and you can mark my word on it.”
-
-A man sat on a bit of board that was laid across an unheaded keg of
-nails. He had been listening, elbows on his knees, his brown hands
-braiding and unbraiding a length of rope with a sailor’s deftness. This
-man was Mate Seekins of the _A. P. Bristol_, home in Palermo for his
-midwinter lay-off.
-
-“What do they hear here in town from Bradish?” he inquired. There was
-a suppressed note of meaning in his voice that the little crowd did not
-catch.
-
-The men about the stove looked at each other. “Nothin’,” at last blurted
-Uncle Buck.
-
-“What bus’ness is he a-follerin’ of in New York?” asked Seekins.
-
-“As near’s I’ve ever come to it,” said Buck, “him and the Jedge is in
-some kind of financierin’ together and King’s handlin’ that end of it.
-But the Jedge don’t put his bus’ness into the _Seaside Oracle_ and King
-ain’t the kind that writes letters to be read out loud here in Ase’s
-store,” he added grimly. “I s’pose his mother hears reg’lar and the
-Jedge and Sylvene, but the Bradishes and the Willards never messed in
-very thick with their neighbours. Sum and substance is, we don’t know
-not the first dum thing about King Bradish nor his bus’ness, nor why
-he closed up bus’ness here in the hurry that he did and got out of the
-place. And I donno as I care. I never had no use for the skunk, anyway.”
-
-He pared a corner from a black plug of tobacco, stuck it into his cheek
-and relapsed into dignified silence.
-
-The man on the keg braided at his rope-end.
-
-“I shouldn’t want him to do no gre’t amount of financierin’ for me,” he
-said at last. “Bradish, I mean.”
-
-“I donno ’bout that,” Amazeen said. “He was allus pretty sharp on a
-dicker ’round here.”
-
-“I say I shouldn’t want him to do my financierin’ for me,” persisted
-Mate Seekins.
-
-The group waited for him to go on, but he kept at his braiding.
-
-“Well, you’ve gone that fur. Keep on,” commanded Uncle Buck.
-
-“I ain’t no hand to peddle gossip,” said Seekins.
-
-“Who said ye was?” Lysimachus’s tone was indignant. “And there ain’t no.
-call for you to hint that we’re gossips here. If you ain’t man enough to
-dast to say what you know, then keep still and much good may it do you.”
- But the old man’s eyes gleamed with curiosity. “Half truths are wusser’n
-whole lies,” he muttered. “I ain’t no hand to talk and tell,” went on
-Seekins, “but when I say I don’t want him to financier for me I mean to
-say that I don’t want any man handlin’ my money that keeps drunk as a
-fiddler’s hoorah.”
-
-The music from across the street bellowed in louder blast, for the store
-door opened with a bang and Hiram Look came stamping in.
-
-“Do me up a slab of cheese and plenty of crackers, Colonel Brickett,”
- he called. “Wider’n that,” he snapped as Brickett set his knife on the
-cheese. “Look’s Cornet Brass Band ain’t eatin’ no half rations so long
-as old Hime himself is on hand to buy for ’em.”
-
-He beamed on the circle of faces about the stove, for the inspiration of
-his favourite tunes made him genial.
-
-“How does that sound to you, old turkles?” he cried, with a backward jab
-of his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of Hobbs’s hall. “It’s
-sort of wakin’ up Palermo, hey?”
-
-“I suppose it will be good enough when they can play without soundin’
-like bullfrogs with the croup,” returned Uncle Buck, sulkily. Hiram had
-come in at just the time when he had edged forward to put some leading
-questions to Mate Seekins. He turned to the sailor again.
-
-“You was sayin’----” he began.
-
-“You never heard nothin’ in your life before but a melodeon and a jew’s
-harp, you old Fiji,” shouted Hiram, thrusting forward close to the
-stove. “There’s about a half dozen of you old mossbacks that ain’t come
-to enough to appreciate what I’m doin’ for this place. But I’ve got the
-crowd with me. I’ll show ye in town meeting next March! I can run that
-band myself, so fur’s that comes to; but I’m goin’ to make some of
-you old hogs of taxpayers chip in to support it. I’m goin’ to have an
-article put in appropriating two hundred dollars for band concerts next
-summer, and I’ll carry it through.”
-
-“This town won’t vote for no such dum foolishness,” retorted Buck.
-He turned to Seekins again, his curiosity mastering his spirit of
-controversy.
-
-“You was sayin’ as how----”
-
-“Bet you fifty, and put the money in Brickett’s hands right now,”
- bellowed Hiram, ever eager for opportunities to browbeat the old men of
-the village. He dug into his trousers pocket.
-
-“Why don’t you wear that wad o’ money hung round your neck out in
-plain sight?” demanded Uncle Lysimachus, angrily. “You seem bound and
-determined to have it under our noses all the whol’ time.”
-
-“Put up your stuff,” cried Hiram. “Make a pool if ye want to. I ain’t
-afraid of the gang of you.”
-
-He whirled and ran his hale eye along their faces. Dow Babb, who had
-been chief of the Palermo hand-tub brigade for many years, unhooked his
-toe from his instep, recrossed his legs and said with decision:
-
-“You can’t run the _whole_ of this town, Hime, even if you are runnin’ a
-part of it jest now. You wait your turn with your brass band. I’ve been
-before town meetin’ for four years, now, a-askin’ and implorin’ the
-voters to appropriate enough to repair Hecla and buy some more hose.
-They ain’t give me a cent. Now if you go to work and bull through any
-such article in the warrant as you’re braggin’ you will, then all I’ve
-got to say is that the next time a fire breaks out in the village, your
-darned old band can go and play on it. The Hecla comp’ny never will.”
- Uncle Buck, unable to control himself any longer, got up and pounded his
-cane on the floor.
-
-“I’ve heard all the tow-rowin’ I want to hear. Here I be tryin’ to talk
-with Mr. Seekins about something that amounts to something. And ye can’t
-hear yourself think. Take your cheese and your crackers, Hime Look, and
-go over and stuff ’em into your toodle-oodlers. Let gentlemun that’s
-a-talkin’ serious bus’ness go on with their serious bus’ness. Now,
-Seekins, you said as how you’d seen King Bradish drunker’n a fiddler’s
-hoorah. What else?”
-
-“I never said I seen him,” returned the man, sullenly.
-
-“It’s the same thing; you meant it. Go ahead.” The old man’s tone was
-imperious.
-
-Hiram and the rest of the crowd turned to him, inquiry on their faces.
-The showman leaned forward with especial insistence.
-
-“I ain’t no hand to tattle----”
-
-“You said that before, consarn ye!” This persistent delay that baffled
-Uncle Buck’s curiosity made him furious.
-
-“No matter what you see or what you didn’t see,” said Hiram. “The
-idea is, what do you _know?_” There was no resisting the force of
-circumstances. “Well,” roared Seekins, “I know that King Bradish is
-keepin’ full of licker in New York and throwin’ money right and left and
-over his shoulder--or has been so long’s he had it to throw. He’s gone
-to Tophet, that’s what he’s done, and if what I hear up at the other end
-is true, he’s got a string hitched to certain parties in this place and
-he’s goin’ to drag ’em with him. Now that’s all you’re goin’ to git
-out of me,” he concluded, throwing the rope-end into the wood-box and
-rising. “I don’t propose to git into no trouble by talkin’ and tellin’.
-I’ve seen people that done that. If any’s interested, let ’em go to
-New York and to the right people and they’ll find out for themselves.”
-
-He pushed through the little circle and went out of the store.
-
-Hiram seized his crackers and cheese and started after him, overtaking
-the sailor in the middle of the square.
-
-One after the other, the old men blunted their noses against the frosty
-panes of Brickett’s front window, trying to spy and to hear. But only
-the mumble of voices reached them, Hiram’s tone insistent, Seekins’s
-deprecatory.
-
-But at last Hiram slapped him cordially on the back and the two
-separated. A sudden cessation in the band music showed that the
-refreshments had arrived in the hall, and the old men yawned about
-Brickett’s stove and one by one went home.
-
-One or two persons saw Hiram Look drive out of the yard of the old place
-the next forenoon and take the road toward Square Harbour, his tall hat
-projecting just above the high back of his sleigh, and fat ear-muffs
-cosily snuggling his ears.
-
-These one or two asked “Figger-Four” Avery about the showman’s
-departure, when he came to the store during the day, after a “fig” of
-tobacco.
-
-“Here’s what he said to me,” stated Avery: “Says he, ‘I’m goin’ to
-Europe, I-rope and A-rope after wild animiles, and I’ll be back when I
-git damation good and ready. If you miss feedin’ Imogene on the dot
-or let the fire git low in the stove, I’ll warp t’other leg for you.’
-There! That’s what he said, and if you can git any more out of it than
-what I have, you’re welcome to. I guess you’d better give me another fig
-o’ terbacker, Ase, for I’m goin’ to stay pretty clus to that barn till
-he gits back.”
-
-“I s’pose you know all about el’phunts now, don’t you, Avery?” inquired
-one of the men who lounged about the stove, toasting their shins.
-
-“Wal, I know this much,” said “Figger-Four,” putting away his weed and
-buttoning his coat before facing the cold; “I know that an el’phunt
-wants meals reg’lar--a lot of it, can’t understand a joke and don’t like
-music on the flute. There may be other things about ’em to know, but
-they ain’t things that I need in my bus’ness.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XVIII--YANKEE DISPOSITION IS NOT EXACTLY UNDERSTOOD,
-
-EVEN BY ITS POSSESSORS.
-
-
-               “Old Zibe Haines had a corn on his toe
-
-               And it ached like ginger ev’ry step he’d go.
-
-               He reckoned that toe had all them pains
-
-               Jest for to hector old Zibe Haines.
-
-               He grabbed up a mallet and a chisel, too,
-
-               And clear’n to the woodpile swore things blue.
-
-               He put that toe on the choppin’ block
-
-               And off he whacked it, slap, ker-chock!
-
-               And he throwed that toe ’bout ha’f a mile--
-
-               Oh, that was old Zibe Haines’s style.
-
-               Tum-diddy-dum and tum-diddy-dee,
-
-               Queer old crab was Haines, was he!”
-
-                   --Narrated by Marriner Amazeen.
-
-
-Squire Phineas Look, during the life of his love for Sylvena Willard,
-had become pretty thoroughly accustomed to having his heart affairs
-marked “Continued till next session,” as he half-bitterly termed it in
-his meditations.
-
-Coupled with Squire Phin’s natural reserve was that quality of his
-trained lawyer mind that was willing to abide delays till “his case was
-prepared.”
-
-In some men this would have been timidity.
-
-In others it would have been half-heartedness.
-
-In Squire Phin it was fixity of purpose and the steady loyalty of a
-firm, pure, true love that could wait.
-
-Down in Smyrna the summer visitors still listen with mingled emotions to
-the story of the loves of Moses Britt and Xoa Emerson.
-
-After they became engaged Moses worked for eight years accumulating
-enough money to buy three-eights of a fishing schooner. Xoa toiled
-at housework in various families, picked blueberries for the canning
-factory, and, by any employment that came to her hand, earned and saved
-for the little home that they had planned.
-
-“We won’t get married till we can have our house built and furnished and
-ready to step into,” was the mark they had set thriftily for themselves.
-
-The house went up, so old Mell Cowallis remarked, like the way
-“Figger-Four” Avery walked--steady by jerks: one year the foundation,
-another year the side walls and roof, a third year the chimneys and the
-lathing and clapboards--and so on for successive seasons, according as
-the fishing prospered and the work-stained fingers of Xoa tucked away
-the clinking change and the worn dollar bills.
-
-Now it came to the time when Xoa resolved to fulfill the dream of her
-life and have a bow window of ample dimensions, the model of the one
-on Sheriff Morton’s big house, where she had worked for years in the
-kitchen, envying all the time the luxurious ease of the sheriff’s wife
-lolling on a divan in the window. But this window meant postponing the
-marriage a year, and with the house so nearly completed Moses had begun
-to express an entirely natural anxiety to get married.
-
-Xoa, with the bow window filling her vision, could not understand this
-sudden haste in one who had been always as philosophic over delays as
-she herself.
-
-“You think more of your old bow winder than you do of me,” cried Moses,
-in sudden jealousy. And he sailed away on a trip to the Banks, biting
-his stubbly gray beard in pique.
-
-And ere one week had gone a legacy came to Xoa from her aunt
-Persis--just enough of a legacy to put on that bow window. So she hired
-carpenters in haste and set them at work, determined to have her way
-before the return of Moses. On one evening when the expanse of glass in
-that window was glowing redly in the beams of the setting sun, the “Xoa
-and Laura” sailed up the reach with her flag at half mast, and reported
-the loss of Moses Britt and his dory mate, smashed under in a fog by a
-roaring steamship.
-
-Those who know say that Xoa knelt all night in her new bow window,
-with her face against the glass, and when morning came she called the
-carpenters again, and with clamour of hammers and rasp of saws they took
-off the bow window and boarded the side of the building up. And then--it
-being a case where the solemn ceremony could be deferred till all was
-ready--she secured a casket from the city, put into it all the pathetic
-old clothes that had been turned over to her with Moses’s dunnage-bag,
-called in the parson and the neighbours, and the funeral of Moses
-Britt was decorously carried out in a house upon which the soul of the
-bridegroom-elect could look down from on high and not take exceptions.
-
-For forty years after that, until death took her, Xoa lived an old maid
-in the bow-windowless house.
-
-It is not likely that Squire Phin Look used this case or any others
-similar for precedents in heart affairs, as he would have employed
-law-court decisions in his legal practice, but he had in his New England
-temperament a finer grade of the same iron-stone that is found in such
-dispositions as those of Moses and Xoa.
-
-So much for the steadiness and the reserve of his affection in the past.
-
-Since that unfortunate day in the fall there had been something else
-than reserve to make him walk hastily past the Willard place, to keep
-him away from the little social gatherings in the meeting-house vestry,
-and he avoided Sylvena Willard with as much anxiety as she appeared to
-avoid him. He was as ashamed of that blow as he would have been of a
-crime. Now that the rage of the provocation had departed, he knew that
-his act had been a vulgar street affray--there was no other word for it
-in his vocabulary.
-
-When some of the jesters in the attorneys’ room at county court
-mentioned the affair at the December term with many humorous inquiries,
-he was so overwhelmed with shame that he asked continuance for most of
-his cases and hurried home.
-
-Yet he heard other things at that term of court that disquieted him
-more.
-
-“Why, Look, I _know_ it!” one of his lawyer friends had insisted, when
-he ventured to remonstrate at certain gossip. “I don’t know how much
-property Judge Willard has got, nor what resources are back of him. But
-I do know that he is as pinched for ready money as the devil. I can
-talk with you without it’s going any farther; but being a trustee in
-a savings bank and a director in a national bank, I come pretty near
-knowing when a man is hustling hard for loans, and you can tell how
-hard he is hustling from the kind of collateral he is offering. I’ve
-got nothing against the Judge, but I’m afraid he’s in over his head with
-Bradish. Your Bradish has been a country plunger for a long time--and
-the country plunger is the worst of the breed. He thinks he knows it all
-and is working the stock market at arm’s length. I know, myself, that
-one bucket shop let him down for sixteen thousand in a single blind
-pool. Willard seems to have played fox with you folks in Palermo
-through it all, and, of course, he’s had a great start of you with his
-reputation and all that. But if he’s your town treasurer, as I hear he
-is, and custodian of about all the funds of widows and orphans and old
-codgers in your town, give him a looking over and do it right away. You
-can’t afford to let even a Willard dump the whole of you--especially
-when it looks to me as though this Bradish is the chap responsible for
-getting him into this mess and has gobbled most of the money.”
-
-But even with that warning to spur him, Squire Look allowed the weeks to
-pass without setting about any thorough investigation of Judge Willard’s
-finances. If he were any other than Seth Look’s boy---Hiram Look’s
-brother, he felt that the case would be different. Whenever he paused
-in his work to ponder on the matter and on his duty to the citizens, he
-groaned under his breath and put the thing away from him once more.
-
-And as the winter went on the Squire found less and less time to think
-upon anything but his own matters.
-
-The State legislature had recognised his modest but just reputation as
-one of the best-grounded “straight” lawyers in the State, and on the
-recommendation of the judges had selected him as the reviser of the
-statutes, a labour that he found exacting and absorbing.
-
-Then on the heels of this work came a syndicate with a scheme for
-helping municipalities to instal and own their own water plants, despite
-the statutory restrictions that allow towns to assume so much debt and
-no more. The syndicate had heard of the Squire’s legal invention of
-“water districts” that he had studied out in the dumbly approving
-presence of his “Creosote Supreme Court” and expounded to the amazement
-of lawyers who studied for a while and then accepted.
-
-And the syndicate would not listen to a nay and laid a certified check
-in his hands of a size that would have caused Asa Brickett to swoon had
-he realised that so large a consideration had passed over his head, and
-on the first warming days of March thousands of picks and shovels were
-ready to follow Squire Phineas Look when he had brushed away the last
-tangle of litigation.
-
-Uncle Buck had passed the necessary word among the veteran loafers who
-used to occupy the lawyer’s shaky chairs.
-
-“He’s busier’n a yaller dog with a tin can of snap-crackers tied to his
-tail, and he don’t want nobody up there unless they come on straight
-bus’ness.”
-
-So all day long, whether the snow beat against the panes or the sun
-shone warm upon his broad back down through the bare elms, the Squire
-sat at his big table, his pen busy, scratchity-scratch, or his eyebrows
-frowning above some volume of reports, his old dog Eli curled on the
-dusty floor at his feet.
-
-And the only ones who stamped up the slippery outside stairs were those
-who came on business.
-
-It was on business that Judge Collamore Willard came one snowy, blowy
-day in March, the wind whipping his cloak about his skinny legs as he
-toiled up the stairs leading to Squire Phin’s office. He came in with
-the gust casting a last handful of snow at his back, as a roguish youth
-snowballs a figure that is aged and eccentric.
-
-It _was_ a queer figure that sat slowly down in one of the Squire’s
-chairs, unwrapping fold on fold of a huge shawl that was coiled about
-his head and long, thin neck. He had pulled the mitten from one of
-his hands and the gaunt phalanges looked like a bundle of reeds tied
-together by skin-strips. The skin was speckled with the brown spots of
-age and the hand fluttered as it tugged at the shawl.
-
-The Squire put his knees against the edge of the table, sat back in
-his chair, and poised his pen in silent amazement for a moment. Then he
-pointed the pen at the stove.
-
-“Better sit close, Judge,” he admonished. “The draughts get to
-sky-larking through here pretty lively on windy days.”
-
-“I ought not to have come out this day,” said the old man querulously.
-“But I didn’t want to send word to you to come to my office for fear you
-would think it strange and not come. And I felt that I had much need to
-see you, Lawyer Look.”
-
-“I would have come if you had sent word,” said the Squire, simply. He
-did not utter his curt “What can I do for you?” so common with him in
-these busy times, but looked at his visitor with inquiring gaze.
-
-“Haven’t you got any influence or control over that fool brother of
-yours?” demanded the Judge, bluntly and indignantly.
-
-“I don’t care to reply to questions of that sort put in that fashion,”
- returned the lawyer, knitting his brows.
-
-Willard stared a moment into his face with its hard lines and then
-shifted his eyes under the steady gaze of the Squire.
-
-“I don’t mean to be tart with you, Mr. Look,” he said, moderating his
-tone, “but I don’t think you ought to let your brother come into this
-town, after all that’s happened, and do what he is trying to do to me
-and mine. You’re a man of standing and I’m going to say to you that I
-think you are above such things.”
-
-His apology was awkward and half-hearted.
-
-“Aren’t you going to handle him and prevent him from making a fool of
-himself?”
-
-“I don’t care to enter into any statement to you, Judge Willard, of
-certain family discussions that have already occurred between my brother
-and myself. I simply want to state for your benefit that I have no
-sympathy with certain movements of his. But my brother’s business is his
-own, Judge. He has adopted his own manner of living and occupies his own
-apartments at our house, and if you care to talk this matter over with
-him you’ll find him there at any time. I shall not interfere in his
-affairs.”
-
-“I can’t talk with him,” remonstrated the old man. “There isn’t any
-sense in him. With him it is either a curse or a blow, and the Willard
-family has had enough of both from him. I have come to talk with you,
-Mr. Look. Whatever else I have said to you and of you, I’ll acknowledge
-that you are a fair man to talk with.”
-
-The lawyer made no reply.
-
-“I’ll say nothing to you of his under-handed tricks to interfere in my
-business of loans and private banking,” went on Willard, stroking his
-trembling hand along his withered neck. “But now he is going to mix
-into town politics with his brass band and his free suppers and free
-dances and his circus flapdoodle. It’s hurting this town, Lawyer Look,
-and I appeal to you as a good citizen of Palermo to pull him back and
-make him behave himself and not bring discredit on the place that I and
-mine before me have been proud of so long.” There was some dignity as
-well as earnest appeal in the old man’s voice.
-
-“I understand that he has the hoodlums with him,” he went on. “He can
-make a lot of trouble in our town meeting this month. We have always got
-along so well that it will be a shame to bring uproar and contention and
-cheapness into our town affairs, Mr. Look.”
-
-Delicacy of touch at critical moments was not one of Squire Phineas
-Look’s attributes. Now he leaned his elbows on the table, locked his
-fingers together, and bending toward the old man said bluntly:
-
-“What you mean is, that it would be bad for you if you were defeated
-for town treasurer, after your thirty years of service, since that would
-mean that your books would be examined.”
-
-He pitied Willard when he crumpled down in his chair. In the silence
-the lawyer had the queer thought come to him that the old man’s flabby
-neck-skin looked like turkey’s wattles, flushed with dull red as they
-were now.
-
-“That is a cruel taunt--an unjust advantage to take of a man who has
-served his town so many years, Lawyer Look. I’ll own to you that I do
-have some pride in the fact that I have been treasurer of this town so
-long. I have set my heart on being reelected. It’s an old man’s whim,
-Mr. Look--just an old man’s whim, and it would hurt my feelings cruelly
-if the voters allowed your brother to work out his grudge in that way.
-If I could only have another year--if I----”
-
-The lawyer, who had been steadily staring into his shifting eyes, broke
-in upon his faltering appeal.
-
-“I always hate to see any living creature squirm, whether it’s an
-angle-worm on a hook or a man on the rack of his own conscience,” he
-said in his blunt, brusque manner. “I never delighted in torturing
-anything, Judge. This is something like killing a creature to put it out
-of its misery, but I’m not going to beat about the bush.”
-
-Willard had hooked his thin hands around the rungs of his chair and was
-staring at the attorney with horror in his eyes.
-
-“I know why you want to be re-elected town treasurer,” went on the
-Squire. “You want to cover up the fact that you’re an embezzler of
-almost forty thousand dollars of the town’s funds-----Oh, I know what
-you are going to say,” he cried, holding up his hand; “you are going to
-say that you’ve only hired this money on town’s notes and are going to
-pay it back, and that if you can be re-elected no one will be the
-wiser. You are begging for time, Judge. But I tell you”--he stood up and
-pounded the table--“you have stolen that money! You cannot pay it back.
-It’s no use for you to deceive me by stories. Every dollar of property
-you have in the world is mortgaged for every cent it is worth, and that
-money and the money you have stolen from this town have gone--gone down
-into that hole of speculation, to the side of which King Bradish led
-with his devilish arts and promises. You’re ruined, Judge Willard,
-you’re ruined--and God only knows how many other poor people you will
-drag down with you in this town--people whose little capital is all in
-your hands! I curse Bradish, first, for I believe if it hadn’t been for
-him no Willard would have turned out of the straight path his ancestors
-always followed. But I curse you, Judge Willard, for having allowed
-yourself to be inveigled into dishonesty and the betrayal of the great
-trust that has been placed in your hands. You have called me various
-names in the past,” he went on, his eyes flashing and the passionate
-anger of the Look temperament getting the better of his self-control; “I
-simply want to say to you now that you”--he leaned forward, supporting
-himself by his knuckles on the table--“are as miserable a thief as I
-ever knew. For when you fall--a man trusted by all--you have taken away
-Palermo’s strongest prop of good example from the poor, weak devils who
-are trying to be honest in their poverty.”
-
-For a long time the two men looked at each other, the Squire stern and
-angry, the Judge writhing in his self-abasement.
-
-Then the old man’s secret passed from his desperate clinch on it. He
-trembled like a leaf, but there was a certain air of relief in his
-confession and appeal.
-
-“God help me, Squire,” he wailed. “No, God cannot help me. But you can.
-I am in awful trouble, Squire Look--awful! But it mustn’t be exposed
-now, it mustn’t. If I can only tide it over this town meeting I can work
-out of it. We got caught on the wrong side, King and I. It happened that
-way right along until I knew it was wrong for us to work at arm’s
-length from the market. But now that King is up there where he can study
-things, we’re coming out all right. We can’t help coming out all right.
-I have sat up night after night for weeks, Squire, and figured. I
-haven’t slept for weeks and weeks. I have raked and scraped together
-all I could and now we are going to win. King has it in his hands.
-It’s going to win, I tell you! Only help me to tide it over this town
-meeting, Squire. It was a mistake going into it. I realise it now. But
-I had to stay in. I was tied up with King. But this time we are going
-to win. We can’t help winning. Here’s King’s letter explaining the last
-deal.”
-
-He tore at the breast of his frock coat and pulled out a crumpled
-envelope.
-
-“Oh, it’s got to come out right now,” the old man mumbled on
-appealingly. “I have sat up nights at my desk till my eyes were almost
-burned out, planning and figuring. Here’s the letter, Squire. I’m going
-to be honest with you at last. You can help me. You’ve got to help me!”
-
-His trembling fingers pulled the letter from the envelope, but the
-lawyer motioned it back.
-
-“Excuse me, Judge,” he said, “but I don’t want to touch it. I’d rather
-take hold of an adder from Watson’s bog. There’s less poison in the
-adder. He has poisoned you through and through, Judge. I know more of
-King Bradish in New York than you do. I----”
-
-“It’s your brother that has come back and lied about him!” cried the old
-man with reviving passion. “It’s all lies! Lies!”
-
-“I say that I know about King Bradish,” pursued the lawyer with the
-calm, dispassionate tone of utter conviction. “He has become a rake, a
-spendthrift and a drunkard. He was all three when he lived here, but
-he hid his passions. He ran away because he had stolen from you and was
-afraid to face your ruin. He has thrown away the money you have sent
-to him. You have nothing to hope from him, Judge. If I am cruel I am
-at least honest, for now is the time for honesty. You are in an awful
-position. Glossing over the situation cannot help you.”
-
-He looked with pity into the gray face of the village magnate, for
-he never saw anguish drawn in more agonising lines on the human
-countenance. Then the face puckered with the sudden emotion of an old
-man, wearied, driven to his last ditch and become a child again. He wept
-weakly, and the lawyer sat back in his chair and watched him without a
-word, his brows knitted in thought.
-
-At last the old man rose and gathered his shawl about his neck. With a
-pitiful attempt he had regained some of the old-time dignity.
-
-“I had no right to come to you, Mr. Look,” he said. “I didn’t realise
-how the interview would come out. I hoped that you would control your
-brother, that’s all, and give me one chance to save myself from State’s
-prison. I can understand perfectly why you should not be willing to
-help. I don’t blame you. Probably I should do the same under similar
-circumstances. It’s only human nature. Excuse me for giving way, but--it
-was pretty sudden for an old man.” His lips quivered.
-
-The Squire overtook him at the door and led him back to his chair
-gently, but with a quiet decision that the Judge did not attempt to
-resist. Then the lawyer leaned against one corner of the table and
-looked down on the man before him.
-
-“It’s bad, Judge Willard! It’s bad,” he said earnestly. “Both of us have
-passed our opinions of each other in the past, and it didn’t do either
-of us any good. Neither of us will now make any false pretences of
-friendship or forgiveness. We’ll leave affairs between us just as they
-stand. I am going to own up to you that in an investigation of the
-town’s affairs I shall show up badly myself, for I have been knowing to
-irregularities for some months and I have no explanation to offer why
-I did not report and interfere. It is for my interest, therefore, to
-attempt to arrange this matter. It is for the interest of Palermo in
-general to arrange it if we can. Your family has been our model of
-integrity for a long time. To say nothing of money loss, the showing
-up of this terrible thing will have an effect on morals and business
-confidence that our poor little town will not recover from in years. It
-is on my own and the people’s account that I am willing to say this to
-you--and that is: If it is within the power of one man to do it, I will
-try to avert this calamity from this town. I cannot tell you just how,
-for I do not know myself. I haven’t had time to think about it. It is
-too painful to talk about any longer now. Go home and put your
-affairs into such shape that I may determine your obligations and your
-resources.”
-
-The Judge weakly stammered promises, explanations and appeal, and would
-have stayed, but the lawyer, with some impatience, helped him to tuck
-his shawl about his neck, handed him his cane and opened the outside
-door.
-
-But he stopped him on the threshold.
-
-“If I hear that you have sent one more dollar to Bradish or have had
-truck or dealing of any sort with him after this talk of ours, I’ll have
-no more to do with the affair. I’m not much of a man to threaten, but
-that’s something you can depend upon.”
-
-The lawyer stood at his side window and watched the old man buffeting
-his way up the street, the corners of his shawl streaming on the wind,
-his slender legs quivering like reeds.
-
-“I’d hate to be cross-examined on a witness stand as to why I made such
-a promise to him,” he muttered, and then he put another stick into the
-stove, spatted his hands, gave the old dog an affectionate cuff, and
-went back to his work.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XIX--SQUIRE PHIN SEES AND REPLEVINS WHAT BELONGS TO HIM
-
-IN MANNER DECIDEDLY SUMMARY
-
-
-               Then twice and thrice the youth’s parched lips
-
-                   Strive hard to frame the longed-for word;
-
-               And twice and thrice he tries again,
-
-                   Yet not a single sound is heard.
-
-               There’s just an upward flash of eyes
-
-                   Like starlight in a forest pool;
-
-               She may have said, “Take heart, dear one!”
-
-                   She may have said, “Go on, thou fool!”
-
-                        --The “Quaker Wooing.”
-
-
-Some of the older voters in Palermo relate that once a constable obeyed
-the injunction to post a caucus call “in a public place” by sticking the
-paper on the wall under the roller towel in Asa Brickett’s store. It
-is further related that no one heard of that caucus until it was over,
-except the few chosen ones let into the secret.
-
-But the warrant for the annual town meeting in Palermo that March, done
-in the best roundhand of the second selectman, one copy tacked onto
-the townhouse door, another copy pasted up in the post-office, another
-nailed to the round centre post in Brickett’s store, received the
-careful attention of every voter.
-
-Each sheet was banded by several broad smooches that distinguished the
-articles in the warrant to which especial public interest attached. Each
-voter, as he read these, carefully ran his finger along the lines across
-the paper, so as not to miss a word, for it was understood that the
-new faction in town politics, captained by Hiram Look, had obtained the
-insertion of those articles.
-
-One was, “To see if the town will vote a sum of money for the support of
-the ‘Look Cornet Brass Band,’ or act anything thereto.”
-
-Popular interest in this measure was shown by a fair amount of
-discoloration on the paper.
-
-A deeper tint attached to Article 15: “To see if the town will vote to
-pay its floating indebtedness, statement of complete amount of same to
-be furnished the voters from his books by the town treasurer prior to
-the call for the ballot.”
-
-Article 16 was banded darkest of any. It was: “To see if the town
-will vote to oblige its treasurer to secure bonds acceptable to the
-selectmen.”
-
-The people discussed these articles freely, but only as evidence that
-Hiram Look was still busy at the working out of the old grudge against
-the Willard family. No hint that irregularities existed in Judge
-Willard’s accounts had been breathed.
-
-First of all, he had borrowed shrewdly from such men as Sumner Badger,
-who clung to their little money secrets desperately, secure in their
-faith in a Willard.
-
-Squire Phin Look was silent with the silence of a man who walks beneath
-an avalanche poised for its plunge, and realises all the danger.
-
-The tempestuous Hiram, with teeth set close and growling under his
-breath since his return from New York, was silent from motives ingrained
-in his showman’s temperament. The fall of Palermo’s tower of financial
-strength was a sensation that he was planning with as full an eye to the
-dramatic as he would have planned a slide for life from the peak of the
-round-top.
-
-“Blast him,” he muttered to Simon over and over in the moments when he
-“had to talk to some one or bust,” as he expressed it, “he has always
-put the twisters on our fam’ly before the face and eyes of the people.
-It’s there I’ll take him, then! I wouldn’t even joggle him now. I want
-him just as high on the pedestal as he can be. Not a whisper, or I’ll
-murder you. I want him high, I tell ye! And with these two hands I’ll
-push him off whilst they are all lookin’ at him. And he’ll fall a
-thousand miles a minute and he’ll light in a cloud of splinters that
-will make the sky dark. And then I’ll jump on him and crow three times
-and a tiger, whilst the band plays ‘Yankee Doodle Dandy.’”
-
-During these harangues Peak wriggled his toes in his carpet slippers and
-blinked appreciatively, but without venturing a word.
-
-“God!” blurted Hiram, spanking his hands upon his knees, “I’m givin’ him
-a taste of the ling’rin’ agony he gave my poor old father till he run
-him under ground. I’ve let him know just enough, Sime, to realise
-that I’ve got the hooks fast into him. Now let him squirm! There ain’t
-nothin’ that ties human natur’ into knots like bein’ sentenced and
-knowin’ the day set for the hangin’. Old Coll Willard knows it’s for
-town-meetin’ day, and that I’ve got the rope soaped for him. Let him
-squirm! He’s a-writin’ two letters a day to that drunk in New York and
-firin’ along three telegrams daily, sweatin’ blood all the time. Let him
-squirm! I wonder now if he can’t see in his dreams poor old Seth Look
-beggin’ for a little leeway on the notes the old pirate had bought up
-against our fam’ly. He’s been down on his knees to Phin already.”
-
-Hiram rubbed his rough palms with satisfaction.
-
-“Ain’t your brother li’ble to daub in, seein’ that him and you ain’t
-gittin’ along the best ever was jest now?” inquired Peak.
-
-“My brother is a fool in some directions, as I’m free to say both to him
-and to inquirin’ friends,” reported Hiram. “But he’s a fool only about
-so fur and then he stops. Don’t you set up nights worryin’ about that,
-Sime. Phin has got a blister or two from the Willard fam’ly lately and
-the swellin’ ain’t gone down yet.”
-
-After freeing his mind on such occasions as this, Hiram lighted another
-of his long cigars, hunched down in his chair, and perused figures in a
-dog’s-eared notebook with intense satisfaction.
-
-On the afternoon of the day before town meeting something that Squire
-Phin had been vaguely dreading happened to him.
-
-He was walking slowly home, avoiding the sidewalk pools that the chill
-of late afternoon had crusted. His head was bowed, either in thought or
-to watch his steps, and he did not see Sylvena Willard standing at the
-gate until she spoke to him.
-
-“Phineas, I would not have troubled you, but the matter is of the utmost
-importance. I do not feel like discussing it by the roadside. Won’t you
-step to the house?”
-
-He glanced at her with a sort of timidity in his demeanour. Her face,
-half shielded by the shawl caught lightly around her head, was very
-grave. It seemed to him that her temple locks had more gray in them than
-when he saw her last.
-
-He hesitated only for a moment, then opened the iron gate and
-accompanied her up the broad path to the porch. Neither spoke on the
-way.
-
-In the big, gloomy parlour, in the corners of which old-fashioned
-chairs of dark wood seemed to lurk like uncouth animals in the afternoon
-shadows, he sat gazing at her, still without speaking.
-
-Her hands picked restlessly at the fringes of the shawl that she had
-dropped across her lap.
-
-Beyond the closed double doors that shut off the adjoining room there
-sounded music faintly. It was the tinkly melody of an automatic
-music box, but the Squire, having no very keen ear for tunes, did not
-recognise what this one was playing, only vaguely realising that it was
-something he had heard before, probably at a vestry meeting. It seemed
-to have a hymn flavour.
-
-“I don’t know enough about business to talk this matter over with you as
-it should be discussed, Phin-eas,” she said at last. “I only know that
-some dreadful trouble is killing my poor father. And I also know that
-your brother is at the bottom of it. I have found out that he wants to
-have father dismissed from office to-morrow. Father is old and childish,
-Phineas. In the last few months he has grown much more so. He is
-breaking down. I can see it, for I have a loving daughter’s eyes. I wish
-he did not care for the office. It is only a little one, I know. But the
-Willards have been treasurers of the town for many years, and he seems
-to have set his heart on holding it. It is a small favour for an old man
-to ask, Phineas, and you know that there is no honour that father thinks
-as much of as he does an honour from his own people.”
-
-She looked at him wistfully. Yet he missed the old-time frank and candid
-friendship in her eyes.
-
-Now it came to him suddenly that the tune on the music box in the other
-room was, “Where is My Wandering Boy To-night?”
-
-“It is King’s mother,” she said, noting his look at the closed door.
-“She is very lonely nowadays and spends her afternoons with me. She
-seems to enjoy listening to the little music box that the Sunday-school
-gave to me. I hope it doesn’t disturb you. We have grown used to it here
-in the house. As to the office that father----”
-
-“I am only one of the voters in this town,” he said brusquely. The
-kindly sympathy had suddenly gone out of his face. A curious feeling
-of hostility entered his heart. The sudden angry thought came to him in
-these surroundings, and with that element on the other side of the door,
-“I’m only Seth Look’s boy, to be pitied, then used, then pitied some
-more and tossed aside.”
-
-“There is no one who exerts as much influence as you,” she persisted.
-“But I don’t appeal to you to secure for my father an office to which he
-is entitled by all fair play.” Her tone was proud now. “I only ask you
-to restrain that wretched brother of yours, who apparently has come
-back to this town simply and solely to make trouble. He is meddling in
-affairs that do not concern him; he is stirring up strife and factions
-in our town, and for the credit of Palermo and your family it is your
-duty to put him where he belongs.”
-
-The subdued clicking of a spring ratchet had sounded in the other room,
-and now the music box started in again on “Where is My Wandering Boy
-To-night?”
-
-“Where he belongs, eh?” he said in a voice that he tried to make calm.
-“And where would that be?”
-
-“Well, somewhere so far away that we’d never again hear the bellow of
-that elephant and the discord of that brass band,” she replied smartly,
-for the suppressed sneer in his tone touched her.
-
-“So it’s my wild beast brother who is responsible for all the troubles
-of your father, and you want me to cage him and ship him out of town?”
-
-He scowled at the door that shut off the music box and its persistent
-operator.
-
-“Night after night my poor old father sits there in his office alone,
-white and sick and weak and----”
-
-“I’ve seen a poor old father sit up nights, too,” he broke in, “and he
-was sitting up fighting off mortgages and executions and bills of sale
-let loose on him by _your_ father before he tucked himself away on his
-bed of down. Don’t let us get to comparing fathers, Sylvena! It will not
-be profitable.”
-
-His tone was harsh and his eyes flashed.
-
-“But it’s _my_ father,” she cried, “and I’ll fight for him. It’s well to
-know who all our enemies are. I was shocked and disappointed, Phineas,
-when you----”
-
-“Not one word about that affair--not a word from you!” he commanded.
-“You can tell me nothing that I don’t know and understand.”
-
-She paused stammeringly, frightened by his heat. After a moment she rose
-and pushed back her chair.
-
-“If I am to class you with your brother,” she began, but he checked her
-again by a furious exclamation. He stood up and threw upon his chair the
-soft hat that he had been crumpling between his broad palms. The music
-box kept on its monotonous tune.
-
-“That’s enough about my brother--enough!” he cried. “You are bound to
-have it that he is the man who has made your father sleepless and old,
-and childish and haggard. You are facing Hime Look--the Look family, as
-though it were your only enemy, when the wolf is behind you, Sylvena,
-behind you!”
-
-His voice was so intense that she cast a look over her shoulder
-instinctively.
-
-He came close to her, took her by both arms and held her so.
-
-“You listen to me,” he said, with tone of the master. “I don’t know very
-well how to make love. I never have known. I even was fool enough and
-quixotic enough to think I’d let another man have you if that would make
-you happy. But I know now that I wouldn’t. I know that you are mine.
-I’m going to be so much of a braggart now--so conceited that you won’t
-recognise me! I’m going to say to you that you have never loved any one
-else but me, and you never will love any one else. But life has been
-too easy for you, Sylvena, and your heart has never been stirred and
-awakened like the hearts of some of us poor devils. You have followed
-your one duty as you saw it. Others have filched from me, who deserved
-it most, this bit of love, that bit of loyalty. Now I, Phineas Look,
-stand forth here and demand my own. Understand me! I demand it. You are
-mine, Sylvie Willard, because I love you better than myself. You are
-mine because you love me. You are mine because you need my arm about you
-in the bitterest hour of your life. That hour is now upon you. I’m going
-to strike the blow, Sylvie, because it will make you mine.”
-
-His voice trembled in sympathy for her. But he went on:
-
-“It is not my brother who is keeping your father awake. It is King
-Bradish, the rascal, the sneak, the drunken villain who has plunged him
-into ruin. It has been weeks--yes, months--since you or your father, or
-even his own mother, have received a word from him.”
-
-He checked the expostulation that was on her lips. Her eyes were wide
-and fixed on his. Her face worked pitifully.
-
-“His mother has lied for him. You have lied for him, Sylvie, because
-your father asked it of you. I know all about it. There are times when
-a woman’s lie for a man is holy, but not in this case. I say to you that
-King Bradish is a profligate drunkard, a thief--a worse than thief,
-for he has dragged your father into dishonesty as well as ruin. There!
-There’s the bitter blow. Bear it, Sylvie, bear it, for it will make a
-truer, nobler woman of you.”
-
-Her knees trembled so that he put his arm about her. The music box
-started in once more on the same tune.
-
-With a growl under his breath he placed the half fainting woman on her
-chair, strode into the hall and entered the other room by a side door.
-He seized the music box from the lap of the astonished and frightened
-operator, slammed up a window and threw it as far as he could. Its
-plaintive query ceased in a crash.
-
-He found Sylvena on her knees beside the chair, clutching the rungs and
-staring into vacancy. He knelt beside her and took her white face into
-his strong hands.
-
-“Little girl,” he said, “forgive all of my brutal ways. Forgive what I
-just did. But perhaps it was that infernal tune that made me so cruel
-with you and so blunt. I love you! I love you! I can’t say that with all
-the pretty words that some men use, for I haven’t had practice, Sylvie.
-Please put that much to my credit. But I love you. I cannot _say_ any
-more---but I can _do!_”
-
-His voice was firm and full of rugged encouragement.
-
-“I have told you the bitter truth about your father. Honesty is best
-between folks who are going to be married.” He spoke this with a tone of
-conviction that brought her astonished gaze up to meet his. “You had to
-know it. I have told you. You are a brave woman, and you can bear it.
-You can bear it because from this moment I put my body, my strength, my
-brains, my love, my eternal devotion between you and all those who
-would be your enemies. Your battles are now my battles. My ways must
-henceforth be your ways. I have told your father that I would help. Go
-and talk with him, poor girl. The truth is bitter, but it’s time now to
-be honest. Don’t say anything to me now. I have said enough for both.
-And I am going away to do my best for you and yours, knowing that a good
-and true woman will be ready some day to tell me that she loves me best
-of all the world.”
-
-He still held her face between his hands, and bent and kissed her on her
-forehead and then on her lips. She attempted to say something, but he
-gently kissed her once more to check her speech, then rose, took his hat
-from the chair and went out of the house.
-
-The old dog was waiting for him on the porch, and gave him an amiable
-glance from appreciative eyes.
-
-“It isn’t the sort of wooing that’s laid down in the books, Eli,”
- muttered the Squire; “but I reckon that when you’ve made up your mind
-that a thing really belongs to you the best thing to do is to go right
-ahead and replevin.”
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XX--PALERMO’S “MARCH MEETIN’”
-
-HOW IT WAS PLANNED TO BE RUN, AND HOW IT WAS RUN
-
-
-                   When a hen is bound to set
-
-                   Seems as if ’tain’t etiket
-
-                   Dousin’ her in water till
-
-                   She’s connected with a chill.
-
-                   Seems as though ’twas skursely right
-
-                   Givin’ her a dreadful fright,
-
-                   Tyin’ rags around her tail,
-
-                   Poundin’ on an old tin pail,
-
-                   Chasin’ her around the yard--
-
-                   Seems as though ’twas kind of hard
-
-                   Bein’ kicked and ammed and shooed
-
-                   ‘Cause she wants to raise a brood.
-
-                        --Meditations by Bill Benson’s Boy.
-
-
-Palermo’s town house is like a roofed dry goods box, its clapboards
-unpainted and weather-beaten. It is perched on the gray ledges of
-Cross Hill in the centre of the town in order to accommodate the three
-villages, and here in lonely state, with no other building nearer than
-half a mile, it faces a buffet from every gale and a drenching from
-every storm. It is opened once each year--for the annual town meeting in
-March.
-
-Solomon Norton, who combined in his person the duties of Palermo’s
-hearse driver, sexton and custodian of public buildings, struggled with
-the rusty padlock on the outer door of the town house, and then stamped
-in and sniffed at the musty atmosphere. The March sun was just rising,
-and Solomon Norton was in good season.
-
-“Canned terbacker smoke and left-over speeches,” he growled. “I donno
-which smells wust.”
-
-He forced up the warped windows and began to sweep with a stout broom.
-The floor was thickly sprinkled with stale sawdust, in which were
-flotsam of charred matches, cigar stubs and pipe dottles. The crumpled
-ballots of last year’s election lay scattered everywhere. In a few
-moments the March breezes were playing with the dust clouds that rolled
-from open doors and windows.
-
-The early vanguard of Palermo’s voters was even then on hand--a few men
-grouped around horses of uncertain age, whose points and pedigrees they
-were discussing with animation. The first “shift” of the day had already
-been made, and a tall man with ginger-coloured whiskers was unbuckling
-the harness from a stump-tailed bay horse. The man who had traded with
-him was as briskly taking the harness from a rangy gray mare.
-
-“Now honest, Lem,” whined the tall man over his shoulder, “what’s the
-‘out’ with her? ’Tain’t fair if you don’t tell me, if it’s anything
-dang’rous.”
-
-The other man chuckled, and the tall man repeated his plaintive appeal.
-But it was only after the transfer of harness had been completed that
-the ex-owner of the gray mare replied:
-
-“It’s understood there ain’t goin’ to be no backin’ outs?” he inquired,
-after he had again poked a swelling on the stump-tailed horse’s leg and
-noted with satisfaction that the animal did not wince. “I gen’-rally
-believe in lettin’ t’other feller find the ‘outs’ for hisself.”
-
-“I ain’t goin’ to cry-baby unless she’s a biter--and swappin’ biters
-ain’t no fair,” protested the tall man.
-
-“No danger of her bitin’ anything harder’n porridge with them teeth,”
- said the man called Lem, with great good humour. “I’d jest’s soon tell
-ye. She’s high pressur’.”
-
-“Wind’s broke, hey?”
-
-“’Ep!”
-
-“Bad?” The tall man eyed the gray mare with interest.
-
-“Wa-a-al,” drawled the other, buckling the ends of his reins and
-preparing to climb into his waggon, “she ain’t blowed out ary cylinder
-head yit, but she sartinly does whistle loud enough so’t your wife can
-git supper ready on to the table after she begins to hear ye comin’.”
-
-The bystanders laughed, and Lem climbed into his waggon in still greater
-good humour. He turned a beaming face on the new owner of the gray mare.
-
-The aforesaid owner of the gray mare was not a whit disconcerted. He
-pulled a bit of strap iron from his pocket and pinched it over the
-mare’s nostrils.
-
-“There’s some ‘outs’ that’s wusser’n whistlin’,” he said mysteriously
-as he adjusted the strap iron. “You might as well git your laugh in now,
-Lem. There’s nothin’ like gittin’ in a laugh at one end or t’other of a
-trade.”
-
-Most of Lem’s gayety left him, and he looked at the stump-tailed horse
-with some anxiety.
-
-“Now look-a-here, Ben,” said he, “I don’t want no circus animile tucked
-off onto me to-day, for I’ve took a contract from Hime Look to haul some
-of the old lamed-up codgers to town meetin’.”
-
-“You didn’t say nothin’ to me about your contracts,” replied the tall
-man, clawing a freckled hand through his beard. “All I got to say is,
-lamed-up old codgers better crawl here on their hands and knees instead
-of ride with you. Now, you know there ain’t goin’ to be no backin’ outs
-on this trade,” he expostulated as he saw a dubious look come on Lem’s
-face.
-
-“Who said there was goin’ to be?” retorted the other. He started to lay
-the reins down across the dasher with the evident intent of getting out
-to investigate his purchase a little closer, when the horse, who had
-been peering around at him from the corner of a bloodshot eye, performed
-a sudden and surprising action. He whirled his stump of a tail as though
-it worked on a pivot, clutched the reins under it, and started with a
-jump that lifted both fore wheels of the waggon off the ground.
-
-The man tugged desperately at the reins, his feet against the dasher,
-but the “webbin’s” remained fixed under the tail, and the horse kept on
-down the muddy road with speed undiminished. When the outfit went out of
-sight around a turn the man was down on his knees tugging at the stump
-and shouting “Whoa!”
-
-“I reckon,” said the possessor of the gray mare, twirling a strand of
-his ginger-coloured beard into a spill and reflectively tickling his
-nose, “that Lem has got holt of a pa’snip there that he won’t pull up in
-no great hurry. That’s a hoss,” he continued, turning to the bystanders,
-who had watched the runaway with astonished silence, “that I got
-plastered on to me about three weeks ago and then found out that I’d
-got holt of that Iron Tail Ike, as they call him. He’s give more folks a
-h’ist than any other hoss in this county.”
-
-“What will happen to Lem?” inquired one of the men.
-
-“It all depends on how high he flies and what he strikes on when he
-comes down,” calmly answered the tall man.
-
-“Hoss swappin’ is hoss swappin’, of course,” said another in the group;
-“but this sellin’ folks blastin’ powder with red hair on it ain’t very
-neighbourly, as I look at it.”
-
-“Any man that grins at me ’cause he thinks he’s got me stuck and sells
-himself out to haul voters for that Hiram Look can nat’rally expect
-to have somethin’ comin’ to him and can’t blame nobody if it comes,”
- replied the callous tall man. “I’m goin’ to haul men that will vote for
-law and order in this town and for them that’s allus led us as citerzens
-ought to be led--and that’s with pride and dignity. This slambangin’
-style and tryin’ to throw down good men ain’t my notion, and I’m goin’
-out to hunt up folks that think my way.”
-
-He hopped over the wheel, tucked his long legs under the waggon seat,
-and drove away, the gray mare wheezing past the restraining strap iron.
-
-A man who had been standing in the lee of the town house trying to light
-his pipe came away coughing and strangling.
-
-“A chap that runs a threshing machine, like I do, can stand a fair
-amount of dust,” he said, wiping the tears from his eyes; “but I got
-a couple of whiffs from the tail-end of ‘Wolf’ Doughty’s last year’s
-speech as it come out o’ that winder there, and I’ll be blamed if it
-didn’t almost put me out of bus’ness.” The men in the little crowd
-grinned at him.
-
-“I’m hearin’ that it will be a hotter one that ‘Wolf’ makes this year,”
- said one of the men. “He’s got most of the Dunham deestrick crowd lined
-up ag’inst Squire Phin’s clique this year.”
-
-“Hime let him have four hundred on a second mo’gidge,” said another.
-“You hold a silver dollar in front of ‘Wolf’ and he can’t see over nor
-around it.”
-
-“Oh, it goes furder back this time,” returned the first speaker. “The
-Dunham deestrickers ain’t ever forgive the Squire for yankin’ the
-Haskell girl away from ’em just when they was gittin’ ready to make
-a meal off her. It’s lucky the women-folks out that way can’t vote. I
-reckon they’d swing town meetin’ ag’inst him.”
-
-“It’s li’ble to be swung, as ’tis,” rejoined another man. “I tell
-ye Hime Look is cuttin’ a bigger swath in this town nowadays than most
-folks realise. It’s money that talks, and he’s been puttin’ out a lot of
-it one way and another.”
-
-“It’s a fact, ain’t it, that him and the Squire don’t hitch at all?”
- queried a bystander as he crooked his leg to light a match.
-
-“Wa-a-al,” drawled another voter humorously, “Hime ain’t tried to black
-the Squire’s eye yit, the same as he has most others in town, but I
-shouldn’t be a dummed bit surprised if it come to that unless they stop
-brustlin’ up at each other.”
-
-“Hime wants to look out for his buttons,” observed the man who had
-lighted his pipe. “’Cordin’ to stories that have passed ’round town
-since King Bradish went away the shoulder hitters ain’t confined to one
-branch of the Look fam’ly.”
-
-Solomon Norton came out and got a huge basket of clean sawdust from the
-tail of his waggon.
-
-“Put on plenty this year, Sol,” called one of the men. “It’ll be needed
-to sop up the blood.”
-
-The soil of the town-house yard, soggy from the March rains, began to
-thaw as the sun grew higher and warmer. In increasing numbers waggons
-gullied and rutted it. Mud dripped from the wheels and was splattered
-on the backs of the voters. Men arrived in pairs or in fours, in narrow
-buggies or in double-seated waggons, whose bodies bumped upon the axles
-as the wheels slumped into the highway honey-pots. The seiners from the
-Cove road, whose horses were their dories, clubbed together and came
-in hay-racks. To the front rail of one of these a joker had fastened
-a sprit-sail, and the lead horse had a pennant floating from a little
-staff set into his bridle.
-
-Before nine o’clock the yard was well filled with men, most of them
-assembled in knots that constantly changed personnel as voters trudged
-through the sticky ooze from one to the other, shouting jovial greetings
-or mumbling certain confidences in undertone. The town clerk, the
-selectmen and a constable or two had gone into the town house, trailing
-mud upon Solomon Norton’s fresh sawdust; but the main body of the voters
-remained outside. The assemblage wore a general air of expectancy.
-
-But the citizens of Palermo were certainly not expecting one spectacle
-that day.
-
-When the Willard family carriage scraped its muddy wheels against the
-platform in front of the town house Squire Phineas Look was the first to
-lift the flap and step out. He gave his hand to Judge Collamore
-Willard, whose thin leg trembled as he put out his foot to grope for the
-platform.
-
-The space before the door was thronged with men, and the Squire, who
-held the old town treasurer’s arm, waited for them to open a passage.
-
-There was a certain grave dignity on the Squire’s face that morning that
-the men of Palermo had not been accustomed to see there before. Their
-old, free-and-easy greeting seemed out of place now. It was not because
-they were astonished at beholding him in company with Judge Willard.
-Nor was it the presence of the Judge that restrained them. Somehow, Phin
-Look was different, and they instinctively realised it. His isolation
-during the past few months while he had been engrossed in his work, the
-knowledge that the outside world had begun to give him honour and money,
-accounted for a part of the respect that Squire Phin suddenly detected
-in the eyes of his townsmen, but there was something in his bearing more
-potent still--the intangible aura of the man who had suddenly come to
-full knowledge of himself and his abilities.
-
-That intangible something had been in his face, in the poise of his
-body, in the straightening of his shoulders and the lift of his chin
-ever since he had walked out of the parlour of the Willard house. It is
-not surprising that the assembled voters of Palermo did not understand
-it, because Squire Phin did not wholly understand it himself. He passed
-among them with quiet greetings that made those upon whom they fell
-grow warm with pleasure and pride. Selfaggrandisement can bestow no
-such favours. The people of Palermo, unconsciously almost, had suddenly
-elevated their best citizen to the height his merit but not his modesty
-claimed. And through that subtle attribute that attaches to such
-elevations they were correspondingly proud of him.
-
-The voters closed in behind the two and followed them into the town
-house, mumbling surmises to account for this astonishing situation.
-
-“Politics makes strange bedfellers, so they say,” observed Deacon
-Burgess, squinting at the Squire and the feeble old man whom he was
-leading, “but if them two there don’t have nightmares and git to kickin’
-each other it will be somethin’ to be talked about in words that ain’t
-laid down in the dictionary.”
-
-But the surge into the town house was promptly succeeded by a rush for
-outdoors. The bellow of band music summoned them.
-
-Fully appreciating what the dramatic stood for, Hiram Look had timed
-his arrival carefully. He wanted all the voters to witness it. His eight
-horses drew the band chariot, whose gilt and glass were resplendent,
-even through the mud-streakings. The showman drove, perched upon the
-high seat, his new silk hat flashing in the March sun. But the hat was
-dwarfed on that occasion.
-
-Simon Peak sat beside him, and for the first time since Palermo had
-known him Simon Peak was really erect. It was his initial appearance as
-drum-major of the “Look Cornet Brass Band.” His trousers were white,
-his coat was crimson, with huge yellow shoulder knots, and an absolutely
-gigantic bearskin shako towered from his head. When the big waggon swung
-into the town-house yard the voters got a peep at the new uniforms of
-the bandmen and, inspired by the gorgeous spectacle and by the lively
-music, broke into a cheer.
-
-Hiram’s grim features relaxed. He wheeled his horses skilfully and
-brought the big cart to a standstill opposite the crowded platform,
-twisted the reins about the brake bar, arose and removed his hat.
-
-The ruling passion of the mob is the same in Palermo as it is in the
-metropolis.
-
-“Speech!” yelled the crowd enthusiastically above the blare of the
-instruments.
-
-“It ain’t no time, gents, for speeches now and here,” said Hiram Look
-in the first silence. “I only want to present to you, the voters of the
-town of Palermo, your new brass band, with the tallest drum-major in
-New England, if not in the whole world. It’s a band that no one can be
-ashamed of. It has taken enterprise and hard work to _get_ it to goin’.
-It needs a boost from the voters of this town to _keep_ it goin’. A word
-to the wise is sufficient. This ain’t no time for speeches, as I’ve just
-said, but I want to ask you, one and all, to show me and this band here
-to-day that you appreciate it when a man comes into the place and lets
-out a few reefs and tries to get the grand old town of Palermo sailin’
-on a new tack.”
-
-It was the younger men who cheered now, as they had cheered before.
-The older voters, from natural gravity and other reasons of a personal
-nature, were silent. Many of them went back into the town house
-grumbling about “hitchin’ circus fol-de-rols on to a bus’ness town
-meetin’.”
-
-This faction, which was a very considerable one, glared when the band
-marched in behind its Gargantuan major and set the windows to rattling
-with one of its liveliest airs. In the close, low-ceiled room the uproar
-of the instruments and the clamour of the drums made hideous din of the
-music.
-
-“I’ll be deefer’n a haddock if this keeps up,” growled Uncle Lysimachus
-Buck to Marriner Amazeen. “There don’t seem to be no law and order to
-nothin’ in this town nowadays. It strikes me it’s about time for P’lermo
-to set down on Hime Look, and set down so hard that he won’t get the
-creases out of him for awhile.”
-
-The town clerk, a thin, hump-shouldered little man, stood beside a
-rickety table on the platform, his huge cane poised ready to pound for
-order, and waiting with manifest impatience for the band to finish. He
-began to whack the table the moment the echoes of the music died away,
-and while the voters were shuffling to their places on the settees read
-the warrant for the meeting in a shrill voice.
-
-Hiram Look had planned to win the first move that day and elect a
-moderator from his own faction. The keynote of his canvass had been
-“Give some one else a show!” His whole campaign had been an attempt to
-stir factional feeling in town.
-
-“It’s a mighty dead-and-alive place that let’s one clique run it year
-after year and lead you all by the nose,” he had stormily argued. “You
-might’s well have an emp’ror for life and be done with it.”
-
-He had promptly won the element that is always jealous of those in
-authority, almost as promptly enrolled the unstable element that is
-ready to follow new gods when a band leads the procession, and after
-a little effort had succeeded in convincing many voters, who had never
-stopped to think of the matter before, that they were being cheated of
-their rights of representation in town affairs. He had talked to them
-until they were bitter with his own bitterness. But he did not let drop
-one word of the sensation that he planned to precipitate.
-
-The moment the clerk stopped reading “Wolf” Doughty was on his feet with
-a fiery harangue that wound up in denunciation of the men who had bossed
-the town so long. He declared that it was time for a new deal, and
-nominated Deacon Burgess as moderator. The band attempted to play when
-he finished, but the little clerk rapped it into silence, though he
-split his table in doing so. The name of Deacon Burgess was uproariously
-seconded by Hiram’s claque.
-
-But Squire Phin had been prepared for just such an outbreak. He arose
-and said that he would assume that Mr. Doughty’s remarks had reference
-to him, who had served the town as moderator for so many years. He
-reminded the voters that he had acted in the capacity because he had
-annually been requested to preside by the unanimous voice of the voters.
-He had always felt that others should share in this honour, he said, and
-this year he should do what he had before intended to do--refuse the use
-of his name.
-
-There was so much of gentle rebuke in his tone, and in his air such
-quiet dignity, that Doughty’s flaming speech became a piece of insolence
-that the voters were manifestly anxious to repudiate.
-
-At this psychological moment, foreseen by the Squire’s sagacity, one of
-his lieutenants nominated the teacher of the high school at the upper
-village, and the natural, sudden impulse of the meeting did the rest.
-
-Deacon Burgess was snowed under.
-
-Hiram Look, in the midst of his adherents, fully understood all the
-guile under this apparently innocent manoeuvre, and twisted his trailing
-moustache and glared at his brother with malice.
-
-In a similar manner the rest of Hiram’s slate was broken. He had trained
-his speakers to go against the opposition with all the force of their
-lungs and their invective. But the opposition didn’t appear to be there.
-It was like fighting the summer breeze with a park of artillery. The old
-office-holders were no longer candidates. New ones appeared, introduced
-in calm, earnest speeches--men against whom no word could be said. Under
-such circumstances the assaults by Hiram’s cabal began to sound like
-bombastic nonsense, and there was too much Yankee hard-headedness in
-that town meeting to listen patiently.
-
-Violent sentiments were greeted with laughter, and the men who persisted
-in attacking the old régime were hooted down.
-
-While the tellers were counting votes for the third selectman Hiram
-signalled his band to play up. But the moderator ordered silence and
-sent two constables to enforce his commands.
-
-Hiram, endeavouring to shout remonstrance, was threatened with expulsion
-from the hall. He had lost his grip on the situation.
-
-His supporters had not deserted him, by any means, but they were too
-confused to act in concert. The new men were better men than their own
-candidates. They were nominated with a certain spontaneity that disarmed
-the opposition. Each time the polling was in progress Hiram stood on
-a settee waving handfuls of ballots and shouting the name of his
-candidate. But many voters who accepted slips from him secretly dropped
-them upon the sawdust floor at a word whispered to them as they filed
-along toward the ballot box.
-
-It was not until the meeting reached the election of a town treasurer
-that the opposition saw its real opportunity.
-
-The Squire, who had made no nominating speech up to this time, secured
-recognition from the moderator before Hiram’s lieutenant could struggle
-to his feet, even though the showman had reached over two settees and
-thrust a broad hand against his back.
-
-The lawyer walked to the little space before the platform and stood
-there, his hands behind him, his expression amiable, yet with something
-of that new determination in it that Palermo had just begun to note.
-
-“The hankering for new brooms is a natural and proper one,
-fellow-townsmen,” he said, “and I am glad that Palermo has shown so
-much good sense here to-day. We have chosen an admirable board of town
-officers up to this time, and I am sure that those still to be elected
-will be just as good and true men. You are now to choose a treasurer for
-the town. We have plenty of good material for other officers, but I
-want to say to you earnestly I am convinced that we have only one man in
-Palermo who by training and ability is suited to be our treasurer.
-
-“It is an office that requires tact and good judgment, even though the
-sums that pass through the hands of our treasurer are not large.
-These qualifications are possessed in abundant measure by the present
-incumbent of the office. But there is a personal reason why we should
-reelect Judge Willard, and in a little town like ours--a neighbourhood,
-you may call it, almost--a personal reason of this nature should
-sway us. Judge Willard’s father and grandfather before him were town
-treasurers. The office has become associated with the family name. It
-will be recalled by you that no Willard has ever charged the town one
-cent for his services. It is one of those peculiar cases where the
-rule of rotation in office is overweighed by sentiment. I’ll confess
-to having sentiment myself about this matter. I’d as soon be a party
-to cutting down our big elm where Lafayette sat in the shade while his
-dinner was being cooked at the old tavern.”
-
-His face grew grave.
-
-“I hardly think I need to state to the voters here to-day that the very
-fact of my standing forth to make this plea for Judge Willard indicates
-how necessary I think it is to put aside my personal feelings for the
-sake of the town.”
-
-The expression on the faces of the listeners showed that they fully
-understood his allusion. It required no very close observation to see
-that Phineas Look, appealing for his old enemy, had won the majority of
-his townsmen to his side.
-
-“I had heard that certain persons were planning to make a cowardly
-attack on him here to-day, and I did not propose to have my attitude
-toward him misunderstood, townsmen.”
-
-The Squire shouted this.
-
-“In Judge Willard’s presence I apologise for my frankness, but I say to
-you that he is an old man, to whom certain small things--small honours,
-if you care to say it--have much significance. I don’t believe the
-voters of this town will venture to wound an old man by any lack of
-generosity here to-day. I don’t believe they will listen to attacks made
-on him to satisfy selfish spite. I ask you, therefore, to treat this
-aged citizen with the consideration that is due to him. I ask you to
-nominate him by acclamation.”
-
-He put both of his hands out to them, palms up, and smiled upon them
-with appeal in his eyes.
-
-“That’s the way I feel about the town treasurer-ship, neighbours, and if
-the most of you don’t feel that way, too, I shall be disappointed. Will
-you not make it by acclamation?”
-
-So accustomed were his townsmen to see the Squire at the head of their
-meetings that there was a chorus of “Ayes!” A half dozen men popped up
-and seconded his proposal. Squire Phin did not attempt to speak above
-this clamour, but smilingly motioned toward the moderator and took his
-seat beside Judge Willard.
-
-The aged treasurer, during the time that the lawyer was speaking, sat
-twisting his thin hands under his shawl. His head swayed from side to
-side with a tremulousness that no one had observed in him before. His
-eyes were fixed appealingly on the face of his sponsor.
-
-“You set down!” roared a voice. The voters turned and beheld Hiram
-shaking his fist at the man who was striving to present the name of the
-opposition candidate. “Set down, I tell ye! I’ll ’tend to the rest of
-this thing myself and do it right.”
-
-“Question! Question!” shouted many voices.
-
-But the showman was not to be choked off. He leaped upon a settee and
-roared, vibrating his fists above his head, until by dint of bellowing
-he had driven the others into silence.
-
-“I’m a voter in this town, and I don’t propose to have bus’ness rammed
-through without discussion. I know how some of you feel toward me. You
-think that ev’rything I try to do I’m doin’ just to make trouble. You
-give me the big end to h’ist ev’ry time. But I’m good for it!”
-
-He brandished his long arms above their heads.
-
-Again the voices broke out into cries of “Question! We want to vote!”
-
-“Vote! Vote!” he screamed, unable to control his passion. He had
-intended to lead up to his sensation more skilfully. In his rage he now
-fired it at them like a bombshell.
-
-“Vote for what? For a thief to be your town treasurer? For a man that
-has stolen forty thousand dollars from this town? That’s what you’re
-votin’ for. I can prove what I say. Now do you want to vote?”
-
-He leaned far over, propping himself on the shoulders of the man in
-front of him, and gave them look for look. His sound eye blazed.
-
-He thrust out his arm and shook his long finger at the cowering Judge.
-
-“Ask him how many town notes are out with his name on ’em!” he yelled.
-“Ask him--your honest old town treasurer, who has skun you as he would
-skin a woodchuck, who has cheated, has stolen------”
-
-But now fifty men were on their feet howling threats and epithets at
-him.
-
-“What shall I do?” screamed the moderator, leaning from the platform
-and appealing to the Squire.
-
-“Tell the band to play! Pass the word. Tell the band to play,” the
-lawyer replied. And the band, not understanding in that din of voices
-from whom the order had emanated, struck into one of its most clamorous
-selections, and kept on doggedly despite the hoarse objurgations of
-Hiram. He finally stood up and wiped his dripping face and let them go
-on. But he swore under his breath with the vigour of a captain whose own
-guns had been trained on him.
-
-While he stood there, high on the settee, waiting for the band to play
-through to the end, Hiram singled out several men in the crowd with his
-eye, and promptly on the heels of the last blare he shouted:
-
-“Sumner Badger--you, there, Sum Badger! You, Ezra Mayo! You, Nelson
-Clark! You are hidin’ town notes with Collamore Willard’s name on ’em.
-You can’t stand up here in town meetin’ and say that you aren’t. This
-town thinks it only owes two thousand. Ask those men, you voters!
-They’ve let Collamore Willard have fifteen thousand between ’em. Ask
-’em!”
-
-He waited, and the assemblage turned amazed and inquiring gaze on the
-men.
-
-Badger stood up first.
-
-“I’m free to say, and I’ll swear it on a stack of Bibles, that there
-ain’t a cent owin’ me from this town.”
-
-“You’re an old liar,” yelled Hiram.
-
-“I’ll bet you five thousand dollars, even money, and put it into the
-hands of any one you say?” Badger shrieked excitedly. “And there’s a
-taste of your own med’cine that you’ve been so willin’ to ladle out to
-the rest of us. Put up or shet up!”
-
-This sturdy retort caught Hiram napping, and his open mouth and the
-confusion on his face showed it.
-
-The other men whom he had called upon leaped up and made similar
-overtures of wagers.
-
-The crowd began to laugh boisterously.
-
-For the first few moments the voters had wavered between shocked
-astonishment and anger. But the town understood so well the showman’s
-extravagances of speech and actions that on second thought this last
-performance seemed only another of his prodigious bluffs. Now to behold
-him badgered in the same fashion in which he had badgered Palermo, and
-backing away from the bets, was too much for their risibilities. The
-more they laughed the more utter became his confusion. The whole thing
-had turned out so differently from what he expected.
-
-“I’ll bet ye five thousand to two,” shrilled Badger, excited by his
-success and by the applause. “And I’ll stump ye to bet! I’ll stump ye!”
-
-The mirth broke out again, for Hiram pulled out his handkerchief and
-scrubbed it over his reddening face.
-
-“This has gone far enough, townsmen!” called the Squire. “It isn’t
-seemly to conduct town affairs in this manner.”
-
-He had mounted the platform, and his firm tones quieted them.
-
-“It isn’t seemly, either, for an irresponsible person to lose his head
-and make accusations that he cannot back up. It is a deplorable thing
-that has just happened here, townsmen.”
-
-They all became grave with his gravity.
-
-“No personal feelings of my own shall check me from saying that a man
-who stands up in a public place and perpetrates criminal libel deserves
-the severest punishment that the law has for such a crime. But under the
-circumstances I ask from you this one bit of forbearance: It is that
-you will forget what this person has said here and allow him to go, on
-condition that he will not repeat his offence, here or elsewhere. If
-he does--” the Squire’s face grew hard and stern--“I will prosecute him
-myself, brother though he be of mine.”
-
-For a moment there was utter silence, and then, with callused palms and
-thudding boots, the voters roared their applause.
-
-Hiram strode off the settee and into the centre aisle, and was about to
-speak, his face black with rage.
-
-“Not another word, sir,” the Squire shouted. “Not one word, or I’ll
-withdraw my protection.”
-
-But Hiram whirled at the door on his way out, unable to repress the
-furious indignation that surged to his lips. He began to understand
-the manner in which he had been cheated out of his vengeance. His anger
-shifted from the voters, who had so blindly followed, to the man who had
-led them--and that man was his brother.
-
-“I’ll bet ye ten thousand dollars to one that I know who lifted the lid
-that let the old rat out of his trap,” he shouted. His eye flamed redly
-on Phineas. “It took ready money to do it. It was your money, Phin Look!
-Some of it was money that I earnt! Our old father turned in his grave
-this day. I stand here before the whole of you and tell you, Phin Look,
-that you are a----”
-
-“Constables, put that man out of this meeting!” commanded the Squire in
-stentorian tones, and three brawny men who had followed Hiram down the
-aisle and appeared to be awaiting just such an order hustled the showman
-out of doors with much alacrity.
-
-Simon Peak marshalled the band behind him, and in a little while the big
-waggon went rumbling out of the yard.
-
-But the band did not play.
-
-Later in the day, when this business was reached, the articles in the
-warrant relating to the “Look Cornet Brass Band” and the investigation
-of the accounts of the town treasurer, as well as the article requiring
-bondsmen for the same, were killed by a hilarious viva voce vote.
-
-On their homeward way, after a long pause, Squire Look said:
-
-“Judge Willard, you have been able to see some of the visible results to
-me for my share in helping you compound your felony. You are man enough
-to understand what it means to go through a public scene like that with
-a brother, who was right, even if he was misguided. I am ashamed to meet
-him; I am almost ashamed to look my townsmen in the eye.”
-
-“But you agreed that it would have been worse the other way,” quavered
-the old man.
-
-“There are people who talk of the right path,” broke out the lawyer
-impatiently, “as though it were like this village road branching
-from the four corners here; that all you need to do is to look at the
-guide-board and go on. I may have got tangled up at that four corners
-where you and I met the other day, Judge Willard, but I want to tell you
-that I see a mighty straight road ahead of me now.”
-
-He clutched the old man’s arm and spoke low so that the driver on the
-other side of the leather flap might not hear.
-
-“You have got to liquidate, Judge. You have got to put every cent
-of property you have in the world into my hands in order that I may
-untangle it. You may be town treasurer in name, but not one dollar of
-the funds shall you handle. The widows and the orphans and the old folks
-in this town must be paid to the last farthing. You are going out of
-business---do you understand? You will resign the town treasurership
-when I tell you to--and that will be when your books can be safely
-turned over to some one else. You need not worry about exposure, for
-the men who were paid and surrendered their town notes to me have their
-tongues tied fast and solid by methods that I understand how to work.
-Now for your own tongue! If you breathe one word to your daughter that I
-supplied the money to square this thing, or that you owe me a cent,
-I’ll drop you and your affairs as I’d drop a hot plate on to a brick
-sidewalk. And you know what will happen then!” A moment later the Squire
-checked the old man’s mingled promises and thanks with an impatient word
-and sank back into a corner of the carriage. His ponderings could not
-have been very satisfying, for he scowled and growled.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXI--WHY HIRAM LOOK WENT OUT OF THE CIRCUS BUSINESS
-
-FOR GOOD AND ALL
-
-
-          Now study the ways of the world, my son; oh, study the ways of life!
-
-          It’s the hustling chap that gets the cash or the girl he wants for his
-wife;
-
-          It’s the fellow that spots the place to grab, as Chance goes swinging
-by,
-
-          Who gets his dab in the juiciest place and the biggest plum in the
-pie.
-
-                   --Philosophy of S. Peak.
-
-
-It was almost the first of the warming days of April. Muddy little
-brooks ran beside the highway, robins bounced along the turf, the waves
-in the Cove sparkled in the mellow sunshine, and the silver poplars in
-the Look dooryard bristled with catkins as long as one’s finger. One of
-them dropped lightly upon the knee of the abstracted Hiram Look, sitting
-in his chair on the porch, and he jumped and cuffed it, thinking it was
-a green worm.
-
-“First spring I’ve seen them things for a good many years,” he growled,
-squinting up into the branches. “For that matter, it’s the first spring
-I’ve seen a good many things,” he added bitterly. He slouched down in
-his chair, his hat-brim low over his eyes, smoked his long cigar and
-watched the approach of Simon Peak, who was picking his way up the muddy
-road.
-
-“There’s thirty-seven of ’em to-day, Hime,” said Simon, tossing a
-packet of letters into the showman’s lap. “Some of ’em’s fat, and
-there ought to be con-sid’able good readin’ for us.” He licked his lips
-expectantly.
-
-Hiram joggled down the contents of an envelope and nipped off the edge
-with broad nails. He passed the contents over to Peak, who fixed his
-spectacles on his nose and promptly began to read aloud, his general air
-showing that this was a regular daily programme.
-
-****
-
-“‘Look & Peak--Gents: Seeing your ad. respecting show you are going to
-start out with in near future, I would like side-show privilege for my
-wife, who is the celebrated Fat Emma, with beard two feet long. She----
-
-“Nothing to it!” growled Hiram, breaking in with disgust. “Tear it up.”
-
-“But there’s some kind of funny stuff about her here,” appealed Simon,
-running his eye down the page. “It makes good readin’.”
-
-“Frame it, then, if you want to,” retorted the showman gruffly. “I don’t
-want to listen to no such sculch.” He was nipping at the edge of another
-envelope.
-
-Simon took advantage of the pause.
-
-“I see your brother steppin’ into Judge Willard’s office same as usual
-this noon,” he said.
-
-“He can step into Tophet three times a day and fry steak if he wants
-to,” snapped Hiram ungraciously.
-
-“Well, you asked me to keep tabs on him when I see him go in there, and
-I’m doin’ it, ain’t I? I don’t see no need of yappin’ my head off when
-I’m tellin’ you what you wanted me to tell you.” Simon was plainly
-indignant.
-
-“You show altogether too much relish for stickin’ your nose into other
-folks’ bus’ness,” said Hiram, still in bad temper.
-
-“You’re gittin’ to be wusser’n a quill-pig to live with,” Simon flung
-back. “I don’t git more’n two decent words out of you from one day’s end
-to another. I ain’t no husk door-mat for you to wipe your feet on, even
-if I am poor and you’ve got your old forty thousand in the bank.”
-
-“You go ahead with your readin’,” barked Hiram, slapping open a letter.
-“You want to get so that you can unpin that mouth o’ your’n without
-saying forty thousand dollars ev’ry time, or I may stick my fist down
-your gullet some day.”
-
-The giant read on sullenly.
-
-“‘Messers. Look & Peak---------’”
-
-“‘Gentlemen Sirs!’” thundered Hiram. “Ain’t I told you more’n five
-hundred times how to read that? We ain’t ‘_Messers_.’”
-
-Peak surveyed the tyrant with baleful gaze and started to read again.
-
-While they were absorbed in their quarrel a woman had come tip-toeing
-up the street past the muddy spots, and now she stood in front of the
-porch--a thin, wiry, alert woman. Her voice startled them. She tripped
-a few steps nearer and curtsied with extravagant politeness. Both arose
-and doffed their plug hats before they saw her face. She tossed her head
-to throw back a draggly plume that rested against her rouged cheek and
-stared at them.
-
-“You don’t hold your ages as well as I do, boys,” she commented
-flippantly.
-
-“It’s the old army game, gents,” squalled the parrot from his cage
-overhead, excited by this new arrival, gay in colours and ribbons.
-
-“It’s _her!_” gasped Hiram.
-
-“It’s Signory Rosy-elly!” choked the giant.
-
-She came up and sat down beside them sociably in one of the porch
-chairs.
-
-“Honest, boys, it was some time before I could place those names,” she
-chattered. “‘Look & Peak’s Consolidated Aggregation,’ says I to myself.
-‘Look & Peak,’ I says. And, thinks I, them two old codgers must have
-gone to Kingdom Come. ‘Look & Peak,’ says I,” she went on cheerfully,
-oblivious of the grim stares. “It’s their sons, I says, and so I come
-right along, for I need the job.”
-
-“Didn’t that ad. say,” demanded Hiram, “that there wa’n’t goin’ to be no
-personal interviews till later arranged for?”
-
-She poked each in turn with her parasol, “Oh, I knew if it was their
-boys I’d be taken on after I’d explained the romantic part, which I
-couldn’t do in a letter. But I don’t have to tell _you_, boys.” She
-poked them jocosely again.
-
-“A little old, you say?”
-
-They had not spoken.
-
-“Why, not a bit of it for a jay-town circuit. Of course, it isn’t
-a three-ringer job for me any more, or else I wouldn’t be down here
-talking to Look & Peak. But I’m still good for it all--rings, banners,
-hurdles, rump-cling gallop, and the blazing hoop for the wind-up. You
-know what I can do, boys. Remember old times. Take me on for old times’
-sake.” She gave each one the leer of the faded coquette.
-
-Hiram was the first to recover, for the edge of his regret had been
-dulled by the long course of treatment he had received from Simon. This
-worn-out creature completed the job.
-
-“Ain’t you ashamed to face us two?” he rasped. “You that run away from
-_me_ and ruined _him?_”
-
-“My sakes!” she cried. “You ain’t so unprofessional as to remember all
-that silliness against me, are you? I was only a girl then, and you
-couldn’t expect me to love you--either of you. I’m a poor widow now,”
- she sighed, “and I need work. You don’t mean to say that you’ve been
-layin’ up grudges against me all these years--the two of you? What would
-your wives have said?”
-
-“We never got married,” returned Look and Peak in mournful duet.
-
-“You’re lucky!” she snapped. “I married a cheap, worthless renegade,
-and he stole my money and ran away. He fell off a trapeze and broke his
-neck, and I was glad of it.”
-
-“So’m I,” grunted Hiram, casting a soulful glance at Simon. “No, I
-ain’t, either,” he corrected himself hastily. “I’m sorry he didn’t live
-to torment you. No,” he roared, “I ain’t sorry for anything, except it
-was poor Sime Peak’s money the two of you got away with.”
-
-Peak sighed.
-
-“But I want to say to you, Signory Rosy-elly,” went on Hiram, tipping
-his hat to one side and hooking his thumb into the armhole of his vest,
-“it wa’n’t _my_ money you got, and it never will be my money you’ll get.
-You just made the mistake of your life when you run away from me, and
-you can chew that cud for the rest of your life.”
-
-“He’s got forty thousand dollars in the bank,” hoarsely whispered Simon
-behind his hand, willing to add his mite to her discomfiture.
-
-“Correct!” agreed Hiram. It was really a moment worth waiting for
-through the years, he reflected.
-
-“Twenty can play as well as one,” croaked the parrot, his beady eye
-pressed between the bars of his cage.
-
-The signora glanced up at this new speaker, eyed Absalom with a sage
-look that he seemed to return, and, after a moment of thought, said:
-
-“Thanks for the suggestion, old chap! Three can play as well as two.
-Now, Look, you know that I’m always outspoken and straight to the point.
-No tinderhanded bluff for me. I’m going to sue you for ten thousand!”
-
-“Crack ’em down, gents!” remarked Absalom with grim patness.
-
-Hiram could not resist casting a malevolent stare at the unconscious
-humourist in the cage.
-
-For one startled moment he stared at the woman in fear, and then,
-recovering composure, tilted his cigar in the corner of his mouth with
-cocky assurance.
-
-“I want to know,” he blurted sarcastically. “Breach of promise, I
-_per_-sume?”
-
-“Good aim! You’ve rung the bell!” replied the lady coolly.
-
-The impudence of the bare suggestion fetched a gasp from both men.
-
-Hiram was striving to be haughtily indifferent and disdainful. But this
-thrust was too much for his composure. He felt one of those old-time
-fits of rage come bristling up the back of his head, the fury of old,
-when he had tried to wither that same giddy creature in his spasms of
-jealousy.
-
-But she broke in on him with the same icy assurance that used to put him
-out of countenance.
-
-“I know all that, Look. But how are you going to prove that I’ve been
-married? Where are you going to hunt for witnesses? Professional people
-are like wild geese--roosting on air and moulting their names like
-feathers. You two are going to seem like a couple of old frauds standing
-up in court against me! You haven’t got the first elements of acting to
-you! Observe how I take my cue! Jury a-listening! I’ve been hunting the
-world over for you. You hid here. Here I find you--I, a poor, deserted
-woman, whose life has been wrecked by your faithlessness. Me with a
-crape veil, a sniff in my nose, crushed-creature face make-up and a
-smart lawyer, such as I have in mind this very minute. And the jury
-knowing that you’ve got the money! Why, Look, you can save thousands by
-handing me your bankbook!”
-
-In his fury Hiram grabbed her chair and tipped it forward violently in
-order to dump her off his sacred porch. She flew out into space with
-a flutter of skirts, landed as lightly as a cat, and pirouetted on one
-toe, crooking her arms in the professional pose that invites applause.
-
-“This is the first time Signora Rosyelli, champion bareback rider, ever
-tried to ride a mule,” she chirped, “but you see she can do it and make
-her graceful dismount to the music of the band. I’ll be at the tavern
-down here two days, ready to listen to any kind of talk that combines
-pleasure and profit. After that you take your own chances.”
-
-She tossed to each of them a kiss from her finger-tips and went
-switching jauntily down the road.
-
-“That beats Tophet and repeat!” remarked Simon after a time. He had
-watched her nearly out of sight.
-
-Hiram held his peace.
-
-“What are you goin’ to do?” his friend inquired falteringly at last.
-
-“Fight her!” roared Hiram, leaping to his feet and striding up and down
-the porch. “Fight her clear’n to the high, consolidated Supreme Court
-aggregation of the United States, or whatever they call it!”
-
-“Nobody has ever beat her out yit, except Delly-bunko, and we ain’t in
-his class,” sighed Simon, with much despondency.
-
-“You don’t think, do you, that I’m goin’ to set down and lap my thumb
-and finger and peel her off ten thousand dollars?’”
-
-“Well, it’s lucky that you’ve got a brother that’s the smartest lawyer
-in the county,” said Peak, with an attempt at consolation. “He has
-showed that much out pretty plain, even to me. I never see him manage
-anywhere, except in town meetin’, but I----”
-
-Hiram had been sunk in reverie, but this unfortunate remark brought him
-out of it.
-
-“Hain’t I told you never to mention my brother to me except when I ask
-you to?” he demanded fiercely. “I don’t want any man that I ain’t spoke
-to for four weeks slung into my face. Hain’t I goin’ to take to the ro’d
-again to get rid of him? If he was the last lawyer on God’s footstool he
-couldn’t take a case for me.”
-
-He resumed his striding.
-
-“Why don’t you and she git married, and we’ll all live here happy ever
-after?” suggested Peak, wistfully, following a period of pondering. “If
-it was in a book it would end off like that--sure pop!”
-
-“Well, there ain’t no book to this, not by a dum-sight!” replied Hiram
-tartly.
-
-“But it would settle one thing, and you ain’t hitched up in any other
-direction,” persisted Simon stubbornly, yet warily. Hiram’s renewed
-visits up country since he had so definitely and precipitately retired
-from town affairs in Palermo had again been stirring the jealous fears
-of the anxious old “grafter.” He feared the widow Abilene Snell with the
-fear of the bird that sees the hunter approaching its nest.
-
-“I thought I told you never to twit me on that point again,” snarled
-Hiram, trying to be calm.
-
-“I ain’t twittin’,” expostulated Simon. “If you hadn’t got so touchy
-lately you would see that I ain’t twittin’. But if you ain’t no idee of
-gittin’ married up country, why, you----”
-
-“You--shet--up!” shouted Hiram, with a wag of his head for each word.
-
-Long silence followed.
-
-“So you’re bound to go to court?” asked Peak, recovering courage when he
-saw Hiram peering at him wistfully, as though seeking encouragement.
-
-“Low court--high court--clear’n to the ridge-pole---clear’n to the
-cupoly, and then I’ll shin the weather-vane with the Star-Spangled
-Banner of justice between my teeth.” He slapped his hand on his knee.
-
-“I heard a breach of promise trial once, a long time ago,” related
-Simon, half closing his eyes in reminiscence. “Of course this ain’t
-nothin’ to do with you and your case, but I can’t help sayin’ that that
-trial was the funniest thing I ever heard. I never laughed so hard in my
-life. It beat a show, that trial did. ’Twas all of twenty years ago,
-and I’ll bet the people down there laugh yet when they see that feller
-walk along the street. Them letters he wrote was----Is there letters in
-your case, Hiram?”
-
-He turned an innocent gaze on the showman.
-
-Hiram mopped his face.
-
-“I--I b’lieve there was,” he faltered. “She flung out somethin’ about
-havin’ ’em now. Mebbe she has. A cussed woman never loses anything
-that you want her to.”
-
-“Oh, prob’ly your letters ain’t like his letters,” continued Simon,
-trying to console. “You’ve got sense about such things.
-
-“But I remember that them letters that that feller wrote was certainly
-the squashiest--why, ev’ry one of ‘em seemed to woggle jest like a
-tumbler of jelly--sweet and sloppy, as you might say. It bein’ so long
-ago when you wrote to her, I don’t suppose you remember just what you
-wrote, do you?”
-
-His stare was still full of innocence.
-
-Hiram was sitting looking down into a knot-hole, a hot flush crawling
-up from under his collar. He took off his plug hat and scuffed his wrist
-across his steaming forehead.
-
-“But prob’ly yours was all good sense,” Simon went on. “Why, there was
-men lugged right out of that court-room in hysterics, and had to be
-pounded on the back by dep’ty sheriffs to bring ’em to. I remember
-one letter called her ‘Ittikins, Pittikins, Popsy Sweet,’ and she was
-settin’ there in the court-room with a face on her sourer’n a dill
-pickle. Thought I’d die a-laughin’! Of course you didn’t git no such
-sculch as that into your letters, and so the trial won’t be funny. But
-you bein’ so prominunt now and havin’ forty thousand in the bank, and
-bein’ known to a good many people ’round up country since Imogene’s
-scrape there took you out amongst folks----”
-
-Hiram couldn’t detect any hidden meaning in Simon’s guileless mien
-and reference to “up country,” and though he stared hard, he did not
-interrupt. “As I say, bein’ now, as you might call it, a solid citizen,
-it will certainly tickle folks somethin’ tremendous if there is any such
-mushiness in your trial.”
-
-A student in physiognomy might have read that memory was playing havoc
-with Hiram Look’s resolution.
-
-“I was tryin’ to think,” went on Peak, knuckling his forehead, “what it
-was that the signory was tellin’ me that time when she rode away with
-me. She’s such a liar that there ain’t no tellin’ nothin’ by what she
-says, but it seems to me she told me that you called her something like
-‘Sweety-tweety’ or ‘Tweeny-weeny girlikins’--somethin’ like that. She
-lied, prob’ly, and of course you’d never put anything like that into a
-letter. How them newspapers do like to string out things--funny kind
-of things--when a man is prominunt and has got money in the bank! Folks
-can’t help laughin’--they jest nat’rally can’t, Hime! There you’ll be
-settin’ in that court-room lookin’ ugly as a gibcat, and her lawyer’ll
-be readin’ them letters with that kind of sassy----”
-
-Hiram got up, kicked his chair off the porch, and in rage that he
-couldn’t control he shook his fist under Peak’s nose.
-
-“Twit me another word--just one other word--and I’ll drive that old nose
-of your’n clear’n up into the roof of your head!”
-
-He stumped away around the corner of the house and disappeared in the
-barn.
-
-“If the Court ain’t mistook,” soliloquised Simon, settling himself into
-a more comfortable position in his chair, “Hime Look has got at least
-three elephants on his hands now. He’s got one out there in the barn
-with him that eats hay, one down to the tavern that eats money, and one
-up country that will eat him, if he don’t look out.” Then he spread his
-handkerchief over his face and went to sleep.
-
-Hiram waked him up an hour or so later.
-
-“Sime,” he said humbly, “I’ve been out there set-tin’ down on the hay
-and rememberin’ back about what I wrote to her--and it’s all of it
-pretty clear in my mind, ’cause I never wrote love letters to any one
-else. And I can’t face it. I can’t set in court and hear it. I couldn’t
-ever face any one that knowed me here or elsewhere.
-
-“I couldn’t start on the ro’d with a circus and have the nerve to stand
-in front of the big tent after it and bark like I used to. There’d be
-somebody there a-knowin’ to it, and they’d grin me out of bus’ness. I’d
-be backed into the stall. No, I can’t do it. If I git to talkin’ with
-her again there’ll be murder done. It can’t be known that I’m havin’ any
-truck with her. I can’t ever see her again. You got to go down, Sime,
-and see what she’ll compromise for.”
-
-“It has got to be compromised, has it?” asked the other earnestly. A
-little gleam in his eye showed that he had something on his mind--a
-doubt that he wanted to satisfy at last.
-
-“Now the only way for us to go into this thing, Hime,” he said, “is
-for both of us to be square and open. Don’t you yap out at me that I’m
-nosin’ into your bus’ness or tryin’ to twit. But if you want this whole
-thing fixed up secret, so that--so that--” he gulped--“so that your
-widder up country won’t get track of it, then it’s only right for you to
-tell me whuther your intentions up that way is serious.”
-
-For a little while Hiram scowled at his companion in perfectly fiendish
-manner.
-
-“You talk about bein’ persistent!” he growled. “Talk about a bull-dog
-hangin’ to a tramp’s leg! For four months conversation between us ain’t
-ever took a turn but what you’ve tried to get your little gimlet into
-me. Now ’cause you’ve got me into a corner you’re out with an auger.
-Well, I’ll tell you, dum blast ye! I’m courtin’ Mis’ Snell, and I’m
-goin’ to have her if she’ll have me. There! Chaw on that gumdrop a
-while!”
-
-The showman glared at Peak and the latter shifted his gaze.
-
-“Much obliged,” he said. “There’s nothin’ like having straight facts to
-go on.”
-
-He clapped his hat hard onto his head with a hollow tunk.
-
-“What’s the final instructions?” he inquired.
-
-“Nothin’ but to settle it as cheap as you can and shet her blasted
-mouth,” returned Hiram, setting his elbows on his knees and looking
-again into the knot-hole.
-
-If he had changed his steady gaze from the knothole two hours later, it
-was not apparent to Simon Peak when he returned.
-
-“I wrassled with her, Hime, just as tough and tight as though it was
-my own money that I was handlin’. If I done it right or not I donno. I
-ain’t ever been used to talkin’ about so much money before. But I’ve got
-her beat down to,” he drew a long breath, “sixty-six hundred, and
-she swears she won’t take a cent less. You know how set she gits on a
-thing!”
-
-Hiram bored him suspiciously with his eye for a moment and snarled:
-
-“It sounds to me as though she was goin’ to get five thousand and you
-was pers’nally lookin’ after your little old sixteen hundred.”
-
-A couple of tears squeezed out and down over the giant’s flabby cheeks.
-
-“There ain’t a day passed since you got back from up country, Hime, but
-what you’ve misjudged me some way, somehow. You misjudged me years ago.
-You’re doin’ it this minit. And it’s all on account of some missabul
-woman that I’m misjudged. I wish they was all in----”
-
-His voice broke here and he turned away.
-
-Sudden contrition, and as sudden fear that Peak, offended, might desert
-him in his need, assailed Hiram.
-
-“I ain’t responsible for what I’m sayin’ to-day, Sime,” he pleaded. “You
-know what has happened to stir me up. I’ve been stirred up all my life,
-somehow. You’ll have to overlook it in me. There ain’t nobody I ever
-got along with better’n I have with you--when all is said. I’ll show
-you later that I appreciate it, too. We’ll get along together all right
-after this. All is, you must see me through and keep her mouth plugged.”
-
-Then the two tall hats bent together in earnest conference.
-
-That evening one of Hiram Look’s horses, hitched to Hiram’s best
-carriage, pranced up to the door of Fyles’ tavern, and the thin woman
-hopped in lightly, snuggled herself down beside Simon Peak, and away
-they went.
-
-In Simon’s inside pocket was one of Hiram’s bankbooks showing deposits
-of a generous amount in one of the savings banks at the county shire.
-Between its leaves was tucked an order signed by Hiram Look, and
-directing that money should be paid over to Simon Peak, who would be
-identified by one of the showman’s friends in the city. There were
-blank spaces in the order for the insertion of the amount of money to be
-drawn.
-
-“I’m going to show you what I think of you, Sime,” Hiram had declared in
-a burst of enthusiasm. “You said I misjudged you. Well, here’s showin’
-you that I ain’t. I’m goin’ to leave that order blank ’cause I believe
-in you. I’ll bet you’re friend enough of mine to beat her down another
-notch. I’ll bet you can do it. Fill in the amount and draw when it’s
-settled. Stay till you get them letters, put her on a train and come
-back, and I’ll show ye that Hime Look appreciates a friend in need.”
-
-It was a piece of impulsiveness that worried the showman considerably
-during the next day or two, as he sat watching for the head of the gray
-horse to come bobbing around the alders. His hard life had taught him to
-distrust men’s honesty and faith. He wondered as he sat there what had
-influenced him to put so much trust in Peak on the spur of the moment.
-
-“It’s on account of gittin’ softened up by women, that’s what it is,”
- he grunted in soliloquy. “There I was with a tin can tied to my tail and
-runnin’ around in a circle and afraid of the two of ’em. No, I ain’t
-afraid of Abby Snell! But it’s wuth more than one five thousand dollars
-to keep it away from her that I ever fell in love with a circus woman
-and wrote such letters as----”
-
-Again the red flush came up from under his collar.
-
-“Yes, I have trusted Sime,” he would mumble aloud, after he had stared
-at the corner of the alders until his eye ached. “I’ve trusted him, I
-say! But when your old neighbours and your own brother skins you, then
-it’s time to turn to strangers and get used white. It’s your own folks
-that do you the wust--it allus has been so, it prob’ly allus will be
-so. But---I could go to the shire and ’tend to that bus’ness and crawl
-back on my hands and knees before this. She was a-goin’ to telegraft for
-them letters, cuss her!”
-
-On the third day, when “Figger-Four” Avery bobbed back from the
-post-office with the mail, there was a thick packet among the letters
-that Hiram opened first with trembling fingers, for he had recognised
-Simon Peak’s handwriting.
-
-It was the letter wrapped around the bankbook that Hiram tackled first.
-He skimmed it with his one eye bulging like a rabbit’s. It was in a way
-an apologetic letter, and yet it was flavoured with a note of complaint.
-Simon Peak went on to state that he had thought it all over prayerfully.
-Each time that a woman had come into their affairs he had been
-misjudged. Now that his suspicions as to the up-country widow had
-been confirmed, he could plainly see that he would sooner or later be
-misjudged again and, being old, he could not endure any more griefs of
-the sort, seeing that Hiram was his best and his only friend. He was too
-tender-hearted to stand it--and, besides, he had heard that the
-widow was neater than wax and smarter than a hornet, and under her
-administration spittoons and general freedom would have to be abandoned.
-Moreover, he believed that the conscience of Signora Rosyelli had
-troubled her ever since the episode of the sixteen hundred dollars.
-Furthermore, letting her have all that money to go away with and do with
-as she liked wouldn’t be the retribution that she deserved. It was too
-much money for a woman to handle----
-
-Hiram yanked open the bankbook and glared at the balance. There had been
-a withdrawal of ten thousand dollars.
-
-In the more crucial moments of his life Hiram Look had frequently
-refrained from anathema. Some situations were made too matter-of-fact by
-cursing. Now he stood up, shoved his arms above his head, gulped a half
-a dozen times, blew out his breath with a “Poof!” and sat down again.
-
-After wiping his forehead with the flat of his hand he went on with the
-letter.
-
-Simon apologised for having overstepped the first estimates, but
-explained that he had acted thus for reasons that must appeal to Hiram.
-The sum was sufficient to make the signora want to stick to him, and
-that would keep her away from Hiram. He had destroyed the letters and
-buttoned the money into his inside pocket, and told her if she wanted
-to enjoy any of it she must marry him. He said that as her husband he
-should control affairs absolutely. The writer pointed out that this was
-real retribution to such a woman, and he assured Hiram that he would
-always strive to make her realise her position daily and hourly. Under
-such circumstances the small extra amount that he had taken was moderate
-salary indeed for the services he was rendering an old friend, and he
-trusted that Hiram would hereafter enjoy life, knowing that a woman who
-had betrayed him was getting punished for her infidelity.
-
-The postscript stated that he had kept the team as a wedding present,
-and they were going to do the gift-sale graft at fairs from the
-carriage--having now the necessary capital. With deep regard for him and
-all inquiring friends, they were, etc.
-
-Hiram’s eye at last found the knot-hole in the platform, and he sat with
-his elbows on his knees and regarded it for a long time. At first his
-face was ridged and knotted with fury that his moving lips could not
-express. Then there came grief in the puckers around his mouth--the
-grief of a man who felt that the whole world was against him.
-
-He, sitting there--he who had not dared to meet the grinning voters
-of Palermo since that town meeting, the man who now held this riddled
-bankbook and that unspeakable letter crumpled in his grasp was the same
-man who had boasted that no one had ever “done” him!
-
-He pulled off his tall hat in order to wipe his damp forehead.
-
-He regarded its fuzzy nap with growing malevolence. Somehow, it seemed
-to suggest the braggart, the showman, grafting women, Simon Peaks and
-the atmosphere of tricksters. He set it upon the platform, stamped it
-into shapelessness, and then kicked it with all his might. It landed in
-the top of the lilac bush.
-
-“Crack ’em down, gents!” squalled the parrot excitedly. He had been
-watching his master with solicitude for many hours, and this sudden
-activity reassured him.
-
-Hiram glanced up at Absalom with a vindictiveness that should have
-warned the bird, and then sat down in his chair. He turned over Simon’s
-letter, flattened it on his bankbook, and began to write on the surface
-with a stubby lead pencil that he had licked carefully:
-
-“For Sale--One band waggon, one swan chariot, three lion cages, one
-round-top----”
-
-He was interrupted.
-
-Squire Phin came up the little path from the road and took a seat on the
-porch.
-
-Hiram bent his brows in a scowl and looked at him, pencil poised above
-the paper.
-
-“I’ll make my business brief, brother,” said the lawyer, with a wistful
-humility that pricked Hiram a bit, despite his rancour. “I realise how
-you feel toward me, and I have not come upon your porch without good
-reason. You may not have noticed that I have been away for a day or two,
-for you haven’t been very much interested in my movements for some time.
-But I have been absent. I’ve been at the shire on some law business.
-
-“One of my friends who is a trustee in the Union Savings Bank mentioned
-to me that one Simon Peak, accompanied by a strange woman, had drawn ten
-thousand dollars on your order, after having been identified by one
-of the traders near by. I was inter-: ested enough to want to see that
-order, and----”
-
-“Say, ain’t I got any bus’ness of any kind that I can ’tend to myself
-without some one pokin’ in their nose?” demanded Hiram with fury.
-
-“I plead guilty to being a meddler, Hiram,” returned the Squire calmly.
-“But I’ve taken the chances. I figured you could not dislike me any more
-for doing this than you did before. And whatever else we are, you are my
-brother, and Simon Peak is a man of whom I have always been distrustful.
-I saw that the amount in the order had been filled in by some one else
-than yourself. I didn’t know then what deal you could have with Peak. I
-don’t know now, for I didn’t believe a word of the yarn he told me---but
-the amount of the matter is, Hiram, I took measures to have Peak and his
-companion followed and apprehended. I interviewed them privately; I made
-them disgorge, and here is your money--all except a couple of hundred
-dollars. I gave them that much and the team so that they could get out
-of the State and not annoy you any more. You’ll not see them again. I
-told them that I’d put the two of them into State prison as blackmailers
-if they showed up here.”
-
-He laid a thick wallet upon his brother’s lap.
-
-“If I have meddled in your affairs, brother, forgive me. But I couldn’t
-stand by and see two thieves run away with what you have worked so hard
-to earn.”
-
-Hiram fumbled at the package a moment and then banged it down on the
-platform, his face working with emotion whose nature was not easily to
-be determined.
-
-“Just one moment, Hiram, before you reproach me,” said the Squire
-hastily. “Wait! Not a word’ from you now! I’m going to take advantage of
-this opportunity and be honest with you. You were right that day in town
-meeting, brother. If in everything in this world we must hew to the line
-of justice, you were right that day. But I tell you, Hiram, you and I
-both have seen that it isn’t always safe to hew to the line. I stood
-there fighting for the financial peace and confidence of our little
-town, but most of all for the woman I love, and when you got in the way
-I struck you. That’s the truth of it, brother. And I’m afraid I’d do it
-again, Hiram, for you can’t expect the perfect man to come out of the
-Look family. The only thing I can promise you, brother, is to be honest
-with you, and I am that--square with you through thick and thin, and I
-will always be that. But you have got to keep your hands off my
-treasures---and you know what they are!”
-
-He held out his open palm and smiled.
-
-“Can’t you take my hand on that, brother Hiram?”
-
-“I’ve got just a little favour to ask of you, Phin,” said Hiram, his
-hands still at his side. “I want you to leave me here on this porch ten
-minutes so that I can get fit to grip your hand. I can do a good deal
-of helpful thinkin’ in ten minutes, Phin. And when I come ’round the
-corner of that house, boy, it will be the differentest man you ever see.
-And I want you to put out your hand and shake just as if I was home for
-the first time after all those years--and I guess that’s the fact of the
-case, brother.”
-
-When the Squire, with head bowed and with a smile on his lips, reached
-the corner of the house Hiram hailed him. There was such a queer note in
-his brother’s voice that the lawyer whirled in some astonishment.
-
-Hiram stood, the points of his long moustache tightly gripped in one
-hand under his chin, as though he were trying to pull down the corners
-of his lips that were spreading into a broader and rather foolish smile.
-
-“I just wanted to warn you, Phin,” he chuckled, “that I’ve got a little
-something in the way of--of---well, as you said, ‘treasures’ to talk
-about.”
-
-“Treasures!” repeated the lawyer, wonderingly.
-
-“Well, that’s what she is!” blurted Hiram. “And you don’t ever have to
-apologise for what you did to me. I know how it is. I’ve got a critter
-to walk over in the same way.” And with this enigmatic statement he
-waved a hand at his brother and went back to his chair.
-
-He began to frown again as he wrote.
-
-“It’s goin’ to be a clean sale,” he muttered. “I don’t never in all my
-life want to see a circus, hear of a circus, talk with a circus man----”
-
-The parrot hooked his beak around a wire and rattled away jovially:
-
-“Crack ’em down, gents!” he shrieked.
-
-Hiram shot an angry glance and an oath at the cage.
-
-“No, sir, never! They may molasses ye over at first, but it’s only to
-make ye easier to swaller. Own folks don’t do that. You know just where
-to find ’em, there’s that much about ’em. It’s goin’ to be a clean
-sale. Think of it--me a man that has been through it all from A to Z
-being held up by----”
-
-“Twenty can play it as well as one!” remarked the parrot.
-
-It was a hideous scowl that Hiram flashed up.
-
-“Not only trimmin’ me, but makin’ me run the risk of goin’ to court and
-havin’ it trailed out from Clew to Erie!”
-
-“It’s the old army game, gents!” the parrot squalled. His tone was
-nerve-racking.
-
-Hiram rose, yanked the bottom out of the cage, caught the squawking bird
-after considerable damage to a forefinger, wrung his neck, walked down
-to the road, and flung him far over the opposite stone wall. When he
-came back he caught the battered hat from the top of the lilac bush and
-sent it after the deceased Absalom.
-
-Then, sucking his bleeding finger at intervals, he went on writing his
-advertisement.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXII--HOW SYLVENA WILLARD “TRIED IT ON THE DOG,”
-
-WITH HAPPY RESULTS
-
-
-          Dan’l and Dunk and the yaller dog
-
-               Were owners and crew of the Pollywog,
-
-               A hand-line smack that cuffed the seas, ’tween ’Tinicus
-
-                   Head and Point Quahaug.
-
-                   Dunk owned half and Dan owned half, and the yaller
-
-                        dog was also “joint”;
-
-               They fished and ate
-
-               And swapped their bait,
-
-                   And allus agreed on every point.
-
-                        --“Ballads of the Banks.”
-
-
-It did not surprise the people of Palermo when the word passed that
-Judge Collamore Willard had decided to retire from business.
-
-His callers had noticed his failing strength through the winter months,
-his unsteady gait, the tremulous wavering of his hands when he scrabbled
-among the papers on his table. They ascribed all this to the infirmities
-of age. Gossip that he had lost money, or that there was some basis for
-the sensational charges flung at him by Hiram Look, fell upon barren
-soil of belief in Palermo. Local confidence in the Willard fortunes and
-Willard integrity was too strong to be weakened thus.
-
-Old men, spinsters and widows came straggling in, after persistent
-drumming at them by the Squire, to receive the sums due them. The
-process of settlements covered many days, and the lawyer had need of all
-his patience.
-
-For old folks, even when the money was in their hands, stood by the
-Judge’s table and begged him to take it back.
-
-“Banks is failin’ and thieves is stealin’,” was their lament. “There
-ain’t nobody ever done so well by us as you, Judge. It won’t bother you
-none to take care of just this little. We won’t say nothin’ about your
-havin’ it.”
-
-At times like these the Judge turned a wistful gaze on the lawyer, and
-with something of appeal in his eyes. But he met; always the shake of
-the head and the tightening of the lips.
-
-“You can’t afford to take a single chance, Judge,” the Squire had
-told him at the beginning of the business. “You must not owe one man a
-dollar. Your books and your papers will be your own, then. And they must
-be burned. Evidence of this sort must not haunt your last days or your
-family after you are gone. Forgive me for having made the conditions
-that I have, but it is the only way out for all of us.”
-
-Those in town who were at first surprised that Squire Look had been
-accepted as the Judge’s man of business found ready explanation in the
-public quarrel of the Look brothers, and the fact that the Squire was
-better qualified than any one else in Palermo to manage the affairs of
-an old man whose grip on them had slipped.
-
-Outsiders saw only the relations of client and lawyer.
-
-Even such an insider as the Squire himself had been seeing not much else
-during the weeks that had elapsed since the town meeting.
-
-For on the first day of the many on which he came to Judge Willard’s
-office he had met Sylvena, and she had such a new, strange, even
-disquieting light in her eyes that he had blurted something that gave
-her final and complete proof that he understood his musty law books
-better than he did a woman’s heart.
-
-“Sylvie,” he said, “I have been ashamed of myself ever since. I had no
-right to take advantage just because you asked a favour of me that a
-friend ought to be ready and willing to grant. I’m an old brute, and I
-know it. You asked me to help your father, and I reached out across your
-heart and your needs and grabbed as a robber grabs at a pocketbook. I’m
-ashamed of it. I ought to know that that isn’t the way to win a woman,
-but I reckon I don’t know much of anything outside of my law. No, don’t
-try to forgive me! I’ve got the old grip on myself again. You needn’t
-worry!”
-
-And she, with her heart stirring ever since that day when for the first
-time a true man’s earnest, eager, imperious love had claimed her--she
-who had come to him again yearning for a confirmation even, sweeter, bit
-her lips when he whirled and left her, gazed after him with eyes that
-filled, and then--well, then she stamped her foot and muttered something
-that it would have astonished the Squire to hear.
-
-He did not see her on every visit. But sometimes she was on the porch,
-and when the weather grew warmer she was often busy with her shrubs on
-the lawn.
-
-The constant reserve on his part appeared to be contriteness for having
-once presumed in a trying moment.
-
-Her reserve was something that developed into an air that closely
-resembled irritability, and he couldn’t understand it in the least.
-It made him draw a little more closely into his shell. He thought
-that perhaps memory of his fault stirred hotly within her when she saw
-him--perhaps as the memory of that kiss burned even now on his lips.
-
-Therefore matters of the Squire’s heart were in fully as bad a way as
-matters of the Judge’s pocket.
-
-With the true status of her father’s position, financially and morally,
-Sylvena was mercifully unacquainted, for when she had fearfully
-questioned him he had as fearfully paltered and denied.
-
-The old dog Eli was the only one who was really cheered by the visits of
-Phineas Look to the Willard place.
-
-At first he had sat on the door-step of the office, meditatively gazing
-out across the Cove.
-
-Then one day he remarked a very pretty lady who was surveying him from
-the window of the house, and was apparently motioning to him. But as Eli
-had never found that pretty ladies were at any time much interested in
-fuzzy old dogs, he reckoned he must be mistaken about the beckoning.
-However, he gently wagged his tail in order to be on the safe side of
-agreeability. Then he looked away with some embarrassment.
-
-“Well, if that isn’t like master, like dog, may I be blessed,” stated
-the lady in the window to herself with much decision.
-
-She came to the door, opened it a bit, and called through the crack with
-impatient tone:
-
-“Here, you old fool, come in here and get a bite to eat. I’d like to
-speak out in just that same way to some one else,” she added.
-
-Eli promptly detected something like hostility in the voice and stopped
-wagging his tail. He hunched down his head and dropped his ears.
-
-The lady surveyed him with disfavour.
-
-“I suppose if I get down on my knees and put out both hands and smile
-and say, ‘Doggie, doggie, dear, good doggie, come here!’ why, then
-doggie will condescend to come. But I won’t do it!”
-
-She closed the door with an emphatic slam that made Eli jump, and went
-back to the window.
-
-But something in the mien of the old dog, who sat wistfully eyeing the
-closed door, touched her heart.
-
-“I’m blaming him for something he don’t know--something he don’t
-understand,” she murmured at last, pity in her eyes. She went to the
-door and opened it wide. Then she stooped forward and wriggled her
-fingers coaxingly as she said:
-
-“You nice old fellow, come here.”
-
-He hesitated.
-
-She pursed her lips and invited him with crisp little noises that
-sounded like kisses. She must have realised the suggestiveness of these
-sounds, for she suddenly blushed furiously and began to call to the dog
-softly and winningly.
-
-He came, his shaggy ears cocked up with expectancy, his tail expressing
-his most genial appreciation of the invitation.
-
-That was Eli’s first visit to the Willard kitchen in company with the
-pretty lady.
-
-If he’d had a tongue that could speak, instead of merely loll in
-thankful gusto after his repasts in that kitchen, he could have told
-Squire Phin of a pretty lady with red cheeks and a touch of gray at her
-temples who often snuggled her face close to his tousled ears and spoke
-in a tone sometimes that amazed him mightily, and who one day rose in
-haste, drove some tears from her eyes, and said with the determination
-of a woman who has searched and found:
-
-“You’d better come along, too, Eli, for it’s business that concerns that
-master of yours!”
-
-And she started from the kitchen straight for her father’s office, the
-old dog waddling at her heels.
-
-Five minutes before that Squire Phin had pushed his elbows into the
-papers on the big table, leaned forward with clasped fingers, and said:
-
-“We’ve got now, Judge, where we can see the way clear. I have turned
-into money for you everything except this house and contents. The
-mortgage on it has been paid.”
-
-The Judge began a stammering inquiry, but the lawyer checked him.
-
-“I’ve got to tell you the truth about it, Judge. I advanced the money
-myself to do it. About three thousand dollars are due you from men who
-will pay some time but can’t now without being hard put to it to raise
-the money. I’ll take those accounts and advance the cash. We have paid
-every cent you owe and squared with every depositor.”
-
-The lawyer stared at the old man in silence for a time.
-
-“I’ll be frank and say that in order to bring about this settlement I
-have put in every cent of money I have saved, all that Hiram paid me,
-and have used certain fees I have received lately from several large
-cases. But I am the only creditor you have. I want you to sign these
-notes, running to me, for that will be business. But I want to say to
-you, Judge, that I shall not press for payment, nor shall I say one word
-to any living soul that you owe me a cent or are not solvent. There is a
-residue banked and subject to your order sufficient for you to continue
-your usual way of living. Wait a moment until I have finished! I have
-asked you to lie to Sylvena, to contradict some truths that I blurted to
-her in my folly. It was a big thing to ask of a father, but you owe me
-for lying publicly on your behalf. I fear that both of us are sad liars!
-If you by word or look or action ever let your daughter know that you
-have lost your fortune I will withdraw my promise to you and put you to
-the wall. And that threat is the truth, so help me God!”
-
-The old Judge licked his trembling lips and took the notes that the
-Squire handed him for signature.
-
-“You needn’t feel under any obligation to me, Judge Willard,” went on
-the lawyer. “I’ll square myself somehow, sometime. We’ll consider it
-straight business.”
-
-“But I know it isn’t straight business,” replied the Judge brokenly.
-“I know that you have done for me what no other man of my whole
-acquaintance would have done. I may guess at part of your reason for
-it, Phineas. But that reason doesn’t absolve me from the obligation I
-am under to you. I’m too broken now to plan or promise. I am an old
-man--too old to start anew. But I don’t believe that God will take me
-out of this world until I have in some way shown you that I appreciate
-all you have done for me and can prove to you that I am sorry for the
-past. I mean that with all the sincerity of an old man that will be
-judged Above for his deeds on earth sooner than you, Phineas!”
-
-The eyes of both men were moist, and in a moment of impulsiveness the
-Squire reached across the table and took the Judge’s hand. But when a
-visitor’s touch rattled the outside latch of the door a flash of the old
-Look family feeling caused him to suddenly twitch away. He felt, with
-a certain shame, that he did not want any one to catch him shaking the
-hand of Collamore Willard.
-
-It was the Judge’s daughter.
-
-She held the door open until Eli had entered, too, with the apologetic
-demeanour of one who knew certain things and was therefore apprehensive.
-
-“Father,” she said, her eyes brilliant, her cheeks flushed, but glorious
-in all her aspect, with the poise of a woman who has fully resolved and
-therefore dares, “will I be interrupting you and Phineas too much if I
-take a moment of your time?”
-
-“I--I think our business is about finished,” said the Judge,
-falteringly. He put his hand over the notes that he had just signed.
-
-“I have come here,” she went on, “because it is a matter that both
-of you should listen to at the same time. It is simply this, father:
-Phineas Look has spoken his love for me and has shown his love for me.
-As we all know that he is a man whose word is sacred, I take it for
-granted that he is still of the same mind. There have been troubles
-between our families in which I have had no share, but which at your
-request I respected in some measure. I have allowed you to make other
-promises for me without my sanction, for you are my father and it has
-been the custom in the Willard family to honour parents and gainsay them
-in little.
-
-“I have now decided that it is cowardice instead of loyalty that has
-swayed me--for if I were truly loyal to your wishes I would not be
-loving with all my heart and soul the man you have forbidden me to love.
-The Willards have not been cowards. I know I am disobeying you, father.
-But my mind is made up. It will be no use for you to make it harder for
-us both by cruel words. That portion of property that was to have
-been mine I surrender willingly to Kleber. My husband does not want my
-fortune.”
-
-The face of the old man contracted with a sudden grimace of shame and
-pain. Squire Phin, who had been staring at her, his palms outspread
-on the table to prop himself, pushed some papers over the notes spread
-before the Judge and trembled in every muscle.
-
-She flashed a sudden look that was half-indignation into his burning
-eyes.
-
-“Have I not been unwomanly enough without your making me coax you and
-wheedle you to me, as I have had to woo your old dog?” she demanded,
-stamping her foot. And then seeing that he swayed dizzily at the table,
-confounded by the situation, she came close, reached across over the
-scattered papers and patted his broad hand.
-
-“Now what have you got to say to me, Phineas?” she whispered. “I know
-you can talk, for I have listened to you with my heart in my mouth.”
-
-But even while the Judge was scrambling up from his chair with
-stammering words on his lips, even as the Squire seized the white hand
-that fluttered above his own, another visitor entered the office.
-
-This visitor--and a very obstreperous visitor it was--threw his hat upon
-the table, squared his elbows and glared at the three in turn.
-
-It was Captain Kleber Willard of the _Lycurgus Webb_. His dark seaman’s
-face was streaked with purple blotches, his eyes were bloodshot and
-sullen, and it was apparent that passion and liquor had combined to give
-Captain Willard an unamiable temper. His gaze first singled the Squire
-with an especially furious squint of hatred, but his father spoke to him
-and he whirled on the Judge.
-
-“Why didn’t you do as you agreed?” he shouted. “Me to Buenos Ayres and
-back, off earnin’ a dollar, where I couldn’t protect myself, and you
-promisin’ to keep that deal covered! Why didn’t you do it, I say?”
-
-The old man turned a pitiful glance on his daughter and attempted to
-quiet the angry man with words spoken close to his ear, but the Captain
-twisted away from him.
-
-“It’s time the whole of this family knows what the others are about,” he
-raged. “I ain’t doin’ anything that I’m ashamed of. The rest of ye see
-to it that you ain’t, either. I tell ye I won’t keep still. Sylvene
-Willard is old enough to know bus’ness, or she can leave the room. If
-some that I can see here had any instincts of a gentleman they’d get
-out, too, when a family is talkin’ its bus’ness. I tell you, father,
-you’ve got to explain to me how you let me get dropped for ten thousand.
-You didn’t send Bradish the margins as you agreed. You dropped him, too.
-It’s no use for you to hush-a-bye me. I know you did it.
-
-“The _Webb_ wasn’t a half a day in New York when Bradish came down to
-show me the documents. It was there in black and white. You backed out
-and dumped us. You dumped Bradish. He hasn’t got the price of a meal.
-I tell you I won’t shut up! If you had gone in on that last deal that
-Bradish told you about we’d have cleaned up a fortune. We depended on
-you, the both of us, to furnish the money. You didn’t do it. You
-sent King up there and then backed out on him. There isn’t any other
-explanation for it--you backed out on him. It only needed money and you
-didn’t send it.”
-
-He stamped around the room, picked up his hat, threw it down again and
-went on with his bitter complaints.
-
-Squire Phin stood leaning against the edge of the table, very grave, and
-kept his silence. But there were two deep wrinkles between his eyes,
-and the lids narrowed slowly. On his own account the blatant, brutal
-bursting in of this man at the greatest, the sweetest, holiest moment of
-his life had shocked and angered him. The words that he wanted to speak
-to her were choking in his throat. On their account the presence of the
-man, his selfish stormings and threats and complaints, exasperated him
-in his pity for the trembling old man, and the sister, who was at her
-brother’s side as he tramped about the room, pleading with him to be
-silent and to explain to her.
-
-At last Captain Willard plumped himself down in the chair that his
-father had vacated and thumped his hard fist on the table.
-
-“The sum total is, father, you’ve got to settle with me,” he shouted.
-“You promised to protect me and you didn’t. It’s up to you to make
-good.”
-
-He had from time to time been casting angry glances at the lawyer.
-
-“If you’ve got any bus’ness here, Mr. Lawyer Look,” he said insolently,
-“I wish you’d ’tend to it and get out. My father and I don’t want
-audiences when we talk over family matters, and we don’t usually have
-audiences, either.”
-
-Squire Phin understood the dumb appeal in the eyes of the Judge. This
-unruly son had hold of one end of his secret and was tugging away
-vigorously. The father realised that the son had the right to demand
-certain explanations. But revelations made to this explosive person
-could not be kept away from the daughter. And over the Judge’s head
-swung the threat of the grim lawyer, sealed with its oath.
-
-With instant pity for the old man’s agony of apprehension, the Squire
-acted. He stepped into the affairs of the Willard family with the happy
-consciousness that now he had a right to be there.
-
-“Captain Kleber,” he said, “I have been retained by your father as his
-legal adviser. I have been that for some time. You may discuss family
-affairs with him at your leisure and in whatever privacy you wish.
-On account of the state of Judge Willard’s health he has left all his
-business affairs to me. The matter that you have mentioned is one of
-business. You will please come to my office with me, _now_.”
-
-He dwelt on the last word significantly. He took his hat from the table
-and went and stood by the door.
-
-When the lawyer had begun to speak the Captain hooked himself forward in
-his chair, his fingers clutching air, his face working with rage.
-
-“It was the only thing that King Bradish told me that I didn’t believe,”
- he shouted. “One of the Look family hired as a lawyer by my father? I
-swore it wasn’t so! If it is so, damme if I don’t make you all sick here
-in this place. If it is so----”
-
-“It certainly is so, Captain,” broke in the Squire, stepping back into
-the room. “You will kindly refrain from making any more comments on the
-matter. Come to my office with me.”
-
-“Comments!” shouted the seaman. “Comments! I ain’t got language enough
-to make comments! Old Dan’l Webster in his palmiest days couldn’t talk
-fast enough to express it. I’ll bet a thousand to one I know what the
-trouble is with you, father. I’ll bet it’s just as King said it was.
-That skin lawyer has got next to you and robbed you--he and his brother,
-the two of ’em! There’s a good reason for your not havin’ money to
-protect your own son if the Look family has got their claws in here. Do
-you hear me, Sylvene? A thousand to one the dogs have ruined this
-family! Why didn’t you send the old man to the lunatic asylum before you
-let him ram us underground this way?”
-
-In his fury he had been clutching up the papers on the table and
-throwing them about. Now he suddenly bent forward with goggling eyes,
-his hands on the arms of the chair, and stared long at some slips of
-paper that he had uncovered.
-
-He picked them up one after the other, his hands trembling so violently
-that the sheets crackled.
-
-“Four notes runnin’ to Phineas Look and signed by Collamore Willard!” he
-yelled. “Four notes and each for five thousand dollars. Four notes! Look
-at ’em!”
-
-He staggered up and thrust them under the astonished gaze of Sylvena,
-but with one stride the Squire was there and ripped them from his grasp.
-
-“He has robbed us, Sylvene! He’s robbed us,” the Captain went on,
-mouthing like a madman. “He’s got all our money and put us in debt to
-him beside. The thief! The land pirate!”
-
-He was making for the lawyer with his fists upraised, but Squire Phin
-struck them down and forced the furious man back into his chair. He held
-him there, glowering down on him with a menace that would have quelled a
-wild beast.
-
-“Go ahead, Phin Look,” whimpered the Captain; “put on another scar to
-match the one your brother made!”
-
-“I propose you shall listen to reason, Kleber,” Squire Phin fairly
-hissed, “even if I have to hold you by the throat while I give you the
-truth. I tell you again to come to my office, and if I fail to satisfy
-you, then the law is open to you.”
-
-The seaman sank back in his chair limply and the lawyer left him. But as
-he turned to Sylvena with a look of infinite pity on his face, Captain
-Willard leaped up.
-
-“Don’t you see now that he has done father and us out of every dollar,
-Sylvene?” he wailed. “Don’t you believe me when I say----”
-
-But she came forward hastily and put both her hands into the Squire’s,
-looked up at him trustfully and said:
-
-“I believe in my--my--husband, that is to be, and that is the first and
-the surest duty of a good wife!” The Squire put his arm about her, bent
-down and kissed her, a happy sob in his throat choking back the words he
-wanted to say.
-
-The son stared at them a moment, his jaw dropping, whirled on his father
-with a curse, and then clacking his fists together in impotent rage,
-rushed out of the office with a bang of the door that made the little
-building shiver.
-
-With his one free hand the Squire put the crumpled notes to his teeth
-and began quietly to tear at them.
-
-He caught her looking at him with wistful inquiry in which there was
-absolute trust.
-
-“I don’t know my Bible as well as I do the revised statutes, Sylvie,” he
-said, smiling at her, “but I believe there is a passage somewhere
-that states that a good wife is better than much fine gold, yea, more
-precious than rubies and all beautiful gems. Now with the thorough
-understanding that the Bible is right, let us sit down and have a little
-family conference about some things that a wife should know.” He brushed
-from her hair and shoulders the bits of torn paper, drew her on his knee
-and began to talk. The old Judge sat opposite, gazing mistily out of the
-window in the direction his son had taken.
-
-For the first and the last time in his life Squire Phin did not tell the
-whole truth to the woman he loved.
-
-But the sad, though unclouded resignation in the eyes of the woman,
-and the dumb gratitude on the face of the old man opposite when he had
-finished, made his lie a holy one.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIII--HIRAM LOOK’S TWO LIVELY BUSINESS ENGAGEMENTS
-
-WITH CAPTAIN NYMPHUS BODFISH OF THE “EFFORT”
-
-
-               Old Zibe Haines walked out one day,
-
-               And a barbed wire fence it stopped his way.
-
-               Never climbed over, never crawled through,
-
-               But he bit that wire right plumb in two.
-
-                        --Ballads of “Gumption.”
-
-
-Hiram Look was approaching Palermo village and letting his horse
-walk up the long Witch-Run hill. He was in the middle of the seat of a
-brand-new top carriage. His elbows were on his knees and he was gazing
-at the reflection of himself in the bright dasher of the carriage.
-Occasionally he broke out into mellow chucklings.
-
-“I’d have given ten dollars if Phin and all close pers’nal friends had
-been there with me to see it,” he soliloquised. “Me behind the wistery
-on the porch of the widder’s, a-takin’ it all in, and he not knowin’
-I was there! Phew! Lemme git out a few more of them laughs I’ve had to
-swaller!”
-
-He leaned back and haw-hawed boisterously, to the renewed astonishment
-of the horse, who stopped and bent his head around to gaze at his
-master.
-
-“G’long!” shouted the showman. “I’ve told you all about it three times
-already on the way down. I had to tell some one.”
-
-When the horse plodded on he set his elbows on his knees again and went
-on with his delighted monologue. He was rolling it again over his tongue
-with smacks of relish.
-
-“Yess’r, I had him dead to rights! Had the very letters he’s been
-writin’ to that other string to his bow. And then to have him whine to
-the widder that he’d writ’ ’em ’cause he felt sometimes that she
-was gittin’ ready to throw him over and he didn’t want to git left
-altogether! Why, the dum fool! To tumble down like that at the first
-puff she give him! Me? Why, I’d ’a’ lied till there was six inches
-of glare ice in Tophet! I’d ’a’ said I didn’t know how to write! I’d
-’a’ said that I’d been sassin’ Jim the Penman’s grandmother and he was
-gittin’ back at me. But he jest caved. I allus knowed he was a fool.
-
-“And me a-settin’ there with my thumb in my vest armhole, takin’ it all
-in and fattin’ on the ribs! Why, I’ve heard men git down and beg, I’ve
-seen dogs set up on end and whine for a bone, I’ve seen a cat coax for
-milk-strainin’s, but never nothin’ like the way that man got down and
-rolled over and jumped through and played dead for that widder.
-
-“Cap Nymp’ Bodfish, you kicked me once, and ’twas in the face and eyes
-of the public, and you was due to git a lot of trouble. I might have
-kicked you back; I might have gone on and broke a few of your arms and
-legs and et cet’ry. But it wouldn’t have been a scientific job like
-this. No, s’r, it wouldn’t have been real soul-satisfyin’. I never got
-no great consolation out of lickin’ a man.”
-
-Hiram sighed at his recollections in that line. But his face cleared
-immediately.
-
-“Him with his tongue out and his mouth all made up for that twenty
-thousand and the widder! Him as had made his brags about her, and now
-has got to face the grinnin’s and the sneerin’s! It will be lin-g’rin’
-agony, that’s what it will.
-
-“Lordy mighty, will I ever forgit the face he made up when he see me
-behind that wistery! O-h-h-h, I shall wake up in the night and laugh
-till I set the roosters to crowin’. Him a-drivin’ out of the yard with
-the widder givin’ him a few final lambastes with her tongue and me
-a-stickin’ my head out through the wistery. He a-tumin’ ’round to git
-a last look at her and seein’ me and realisin’ then--yass’r, realisin’!
-And his wheel ketched on a post and he fell down into the bottom of the
-waggon and began to push against the post like he was tryin’ to shove
-off a dory--clean forgittin’ he was in a team! Oh, what a state that
-man’s mind must have been in!”
-
-Hiram rolled to and fro on the carriage seat in an ecstasy of mirth.
-
-“Never’ll forgit what she said to him then.
-
-“‘Take your reins and back up,’ says she. ‘I don’t want people
-’round here to think you’re drunk as well as a complete fool, you old
-hump-backed, tarfingered garsoline tank! A pretty farmer you’d make--and
-don’t know a waggon from a dory! Git out of my yard and don’t never let
-me set eyes on you ag’in. I’ve got a man as is a man,’ and she pointed
-to me, and I swow I couldn’t help it! I set my thumb to my nose and give
-him the real, old-fashioned waggle. Ow, haw, haw! Ow, haw, haw!”
-
-“And then she come right to me and give me a pat on the back and
-says: ‘It didn’t need any of them writin’s to make me give him his
-come-uppance, Mr. Look. I never give a snap of my finger for him,
-anyway, since I met you. Ow, hee-hee!”
-
-“You seem to be feelin’ ’bout as gay as they make ‘em,” called a voice
-from the roadside.
-
-Hiram started up and wiped the tears of merriment from his eyes.
-
-Two men were standing by the highway fence, men whose solemn faces were
-streaked by perspiration. One of them carried a small rifle. The other
-was “Sawed-Off” Purday, the Palermo deputy-sheriff. He was armed with a
-club.
-
-“Guess you must have heard the news about your friend,” said Purday,
-with accent on the last word. “Nothin’ else would make you any more
-tickleder. P’raps you’ve seen him along the ro’d. If you have we’ll be
-much obleeged for a clue.”
-
-“Seen who?” demanded Hiram, thinking at first that the men referred to
-Captain Nymphus Bodfish. He eyed their weapons and felt a qualm of fear,
-for he didn’t know what the exasperated skipper might have prepared for
-him.
-
-“Klebe Willard.”
-
-“Klebe Willard!” There was relief as well as astonishment in Hiram’s
-tone.
-
-“Well, there’s been hell to pave and no pitch hot down in the village,”
- said Doughty, nothing loath to impart sensational news. “There’s four
-possys out after Cap Willard and this is one of ’em. He’s took to the
-woods somewheres and there ain’t no knowin’ where. But I reckon I’ll
-catch him if I only get onto one clue,” he added, confidently. “No one
-ever got away from me yet. Howsomever, it’s leg-weary work, this cuttin’
-acrost pastures and plowed land. You say you ain’t seen hide nor hair of
-him?”
-
-“I ain’t said nothin’ about it,” retorted Hiram. “But I ain’t seen him,
-if that’s what you’re after. Why in Tophet don’t you tell a man what the
-critter has done instead of standin’ there and chawin’ ter-backer with
-that infernal eight-day motion?”
-
-“It ain’t altogether clear jest what it was all about,” related Doughty,
-calmly. “All that’s known is that Klebe come whoopin’ into the village
-from Square Harbour to-day and tore into his father’s office and then
-come out and hot-footed home as though Old Nick was after him. In an
-hour or so the old Judge went down to Klebe’s house, and it seems from
-what the neighbours say that Klebe had been tea-in’ up in the meantime
-and jawin Myry, and a little while after the Judge come in he got to
-goin’ it worse about somethin’ or other. There ain’t much head nor tail to
-stories, but as near as I can find out he went to lick the old man,
-bein’ crazy drunk, I reckon, and Myry stepped in between, and he floored
-the two of ’em and kicked over one of the young ones and took to the
-woods howlin’ like a looservee. It’s bad bus’ness.”
-
-Purday spat far and sighed dolefully.
-
-“Your brother and Sylvene has sort of took charge there to Klebe’s
-house,” the deputy went on. “The old Judge ‘come to’ ’fore I left the
-village. But the doc says Myry is in a turrible bad way with the tunk
-she got. It won’t be none surprisin’ if murder comes out of it. It’s a
-glister for the Willard fam’ly, that’s what it is!”
-
-He shifted his club to the other hand and started over the fence.
-
-“Come along, Bragg,” he commanded. “It’s more’n li’ble that he kept to
-the Bunganuck ridge.”
-
-Hiram had no desire to ask further questions. He lashed his hors’e and
-rattled away toward the village at his best speed.
-
-It had been one of those unseasonably hot May days, humid and
-sweltering, with thunder-heads boiling above the horizon and a menace in
-the steaming quietness of nature.
-
-When Hiram turned in at the yard of the Look place the low sun was
-dipping behind an ominously purple curtain in the west, and there was a
-jarring growl of thunder behind the hills.
-
-His brother was not at home.
-
-“He may need old Hime for somethin’ or other,” he muttered as
-“Figger-Four” Avery bobbed into the barn leading the horse. “It ain’t
-especially the place for me to go buttin’ in, under the circumstances,
-but I’m a right-hand man for Phin when he needs help, and he knows it
-now.”
-
-He hurried away down the street, casting an occasional glance over his
-shoulder at the purple-black curtain of cloud. “It looks as though it
-was goin’ to be a ripper,” he commented.
-
-In the yard of the Kleber Willard place little groups of villagers were
-talking in hushed tones.
-
-“How be they now inside there, Uncle Buck?” inquired Hiram,
-solicitously.
-
-“Them that’s still inside is in a mighty bad way,” replied the old
-man, grimly. He added yet more grimly, “And them that’s outside is most
-likely wuss off than that.”
-
-“Them that’s outside!” repeated Hiram, smartly.
-
-“That’s what I said. After the Judge come round into his senses they
-thought it was all right to leave him on the sofy till they got ready
-to take him home, and in the gen’ral confusion here he’s got away. Took
-both of Klebe’s young ones with him, the little boy and the little girl,
-and Lord only knows where he’s got to. I tell ye ’twa’n’t safe to
-leave him alone! An old man with the bang he got ’side of the head
-ain’t gittin’ back into his right senses all in a minit.”
-
-“What are you standin’ around here for, all of ye?” indignantly demanded
-Hiram, raising his voice. “Why ain’t you out tryin’ to find the lost?”
-
-“Why ain’t _you?_” retorted Uncle Lysimachus. “There’s fifty gone after
-’em already and the ro’d is still open. They didn’t take it with
-’em.”
-
-The Squire had heard his brother’s voice in the yard and he came to the
-door, his face haggard and grief-stricken.
-
-“It’s an awful thing, brother,” he murmured when Hiram hastened to him.
-“Myra is still insensible and the doctor fears a fracture of the skull.
-But my worst fear now is for Judge Willard and the children.”
-
-He cast a troubled look at the sky.
-
-“Doesn’t anyone get a word from them?” he asked wistfully.
-
-“You hold the fort here, Phin,” returned Hiram with bluff assurance.
-“I’ll find ’em if I have to rake from here to Smyrna with a
-fine-toothed comb. I’m gittin’ to be the greatest finder you ever see,
-Phin. I found the Mayo girl, I found myself at last, I found a woman
-to-day who’ll have me, and now I’ll find the ones you want or die
-tryin’. Don’t you worry, Phin. It’s old Hime for ’em now.”
-
-He started away on the trot, with no very clear idea of what he would do
-first, but anxious to be moving.
-
-Brickett was standing with shoulder set against the side of his door,
-one eye on the shower that was crawling up the sky, the other on a man
-who sat in a waggon before the store and who endeavoured to engage him
-in conversation. “Hard-Times” Wharff was in his favourite position on
-one corner of the platform, his sharp nose tilted toward the heavens and
-his long hair waving in the first whispers from the approaching tempest.
-A man who was on the other corner of the platform stepped down as the
-showman came up. This person accosted Hiram brusquely.
-
-“I’ve got a little bus’ness with you, mister,” he said.
-
-It was Captain Nymphus Bodfish, saturnine and resolute.
-
-Hiram was about to return an impatient retort about “other matters to
-attend to just then,” when he caught a word of the conversation between
-Brickett and the man in the waggon.
-
-“Donno who it could be, _I’m_ sure,” said Brickett.
-
-“I allus knew there was _some_ fools up this way,” said the man, with
-rough jest, “but I didn’t reckon that any of them was fool enough to
-start in a dory right out past Cod Head in the teeth o’ that thing
-comin’ up there.”
-
-He nodded a languid head at the big cloud.
-
-“I tell ye,” insisted Bodfish, pressing close to Hiram, “your’n and my
-bus’ness will have to be ‘tended to right now.”
-
-“Did you say that you saw a dory makin’ out past Cod Head?” shouted
-Hiram at the man in the waggon, looking past and over Bodfish with an
-utter disregard that made the skipper grit his teeth.
-
-“’Ep! Saw it as I was comin’ up the Cove ro’d,” returned the man.
-
-“I donno who in sanup it can be,” repeated Brickett.
-
-“With fifty men huntin’ for Judge Coll Willard and them two young ones,
-that old man wand’rin’ somewheres out his senses, you ain’t got brains
-enough to guess who it is in that dory?” fairly screamed Hiram. “It’s
-blastnation lucky for you, Ase Brickett, that a man don’t need to do any
-thinkin’ to run his lungs, or you’d die for lack of air.”
-
-“I say I’ve got bus’ness----” recommenced Bodfish.
-
-“Yes, and I’ve got bus’ness with _you!_” barked Hiram, rushing at him so
-furiously that Bodfish staggered back. “This is the bus’ness: You come
-with me as fast as your legs will take you and start that old garsoline
-plunker of your’n. Hiper!”
-
-“Not on your life! Not for you!” roared Bodfish. “I’ll fight you to a
-standstill first!”
-
-Hiram did not waste words with the man. He drove both his broad hands
-against his breast, rushed him backward to the store wall and choked him
-until his tongue lolled.
-
-“Will ye? Will ye go?” he kept saying.
-
-But each time he loosened his grip the skipper only cursed or cried for
-help. He was struggling madly all the time, but Hiram’s strength and
-passion were too much for him.
-
-“I don’t b’lieve in abusin’ no man,” observed Brickett from his door.
-“I reckon you’d better let that man go, Hime Look. You can’t sass and
-browbeat and bang round ev’ry one in this place.”
-
-“You fools,” panted Hiram, “Judge Willard and those children are in that
-dory. There is no one else who would try to go out of this place into
-that storm. It’s Judge Willard, I tell you! You are goin’ to take me
-out, Nymp’ Bodfish, if I have to tear you apart and lug you down to your
-packet in pound packages. I’ll kill the man that interferes. Will you
-go, I say?”
-
-He fell upon the skipper with such desperate fury that when he again
-released his clutch the man staggered away dizzily in his iron grip.
-
-They disappeared around the corner of the storehouse and in a little
-while the sharp “plock-plock” of the _Effort’s_ engine barked in the
-interim of the thunder crashes.
-
-“Them Looks is sartinly the desp’ritest critters when they git started I
-ever see,” remarked the man in the waggon, after he had watched the two
-men out of sight.
-
-“Well, if he weighed bigger’n that el’phunt of his he wouldn’t lug
-me and my own bo’t off on no such wild-goose chase as he’s goin’ on,”
- growled Brickett, getting ready to shut his big doors. He was apparently
-unconvinced regarding the occupants of the dory. “That was about the
-biggest piece of nerve I ever saw showed out, and I’ve seen some good
-ones in my day.”
-
-“And I’ve seen some good old showers in _my_ time,” remarked the man in
-the waggon, picking up his reins. “But”--a crackling explosion
-interrupted him---“this is sartinly the king of old lingers.”
-
-He larruped his horse around the corner into the shed, for the big trees
-were beginning to twist and moan and the big drops to lash the dust.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXIV--THE CREDIT SHEET, AFTER THE LOOK
-
-AND THE WILLARD FAMILIES STRIKE THEIR BALANCES
-
-
-               If we could write upon his gravestun’s face
-
-               A list of what he’d done to help this place,
-
-               We’d have a roll of honour to his fame,
-
-               But we should publish all our village shame.
-
-               There’d be a list of heirs and all their fights;
-
-               The sorrows and the heart-aches over rights;
-
-               There’d be the frowns, the snarls, the sneers and scorn
-
-               Out of the leavin’s of our dead men born.
-
-               There’d be the threats and mutt’rin’s of divorce
-
-               And all the griefs that spring from Trouble’s source.
-
-               ‘Twas better that this calendar was crossed
-
-               With note:--“By order of J. Brown nol pressed.”
-
-
-That’s how it’s been with her ever sence she come to,” said Mrs. Arad
-Tolman, with a jab of her head toward the closed door of an inner
-room. There were moanings and cries on the other side of the door as
-incoherent as the laments of an animal in distress.
-
-Mrs. Tolman was busy over a brew of herbs that simmered in a little
-saucepan on the Kleber Willard cook stove. Ranged around the kitchen
-walls sat men and women. Some of the folks in the yard had hurried home
-when the tempest broke. Others had taken shelter in the house, making
-the storm an excuse for their curiosity.
-
-“Sylvene and the Squire is doin’ what they can with her,” went on Mrs.
-Tolman, stirring at the brew, “but she is in a turrible to-do, now I can
-tell you! She don’t seem to mind the tunk on her head. That ain’t’ her
-lamentation. But the way she’s takin’ on about them childern is enough
-to melt a heart of stone. It was the first thing she began dingin’ away
-about when she come to--just as if she smelt trouble in the air.”
-
-“What’s been told her about the childern?” inquired Marriner Amazeen,
-gazing at the closed door with pity on his seamed face.
-
-“Only that they’ve been took care of at the neighbour’s till mornin’.
-But you can’t stuff that excuse down a mother’s thro’t. Talkin’ and
-tellin’ don’t fool ’em.”
-
-“They’ve gone to Kingdom Come in that old dory, along with the Judge,
-and she senses it,” said Uncle Buck, from his corner. “Them sensin’s is
-mysterious, but they’re so.”
-
-The lightnings were now fluttering in far-flung sheets that lit up the
-kitchen windows palely. The worst of the tempest was over. But the wind
-bellowed without and the rain sprayed fiercely upon the dripping panes.
-
-“First it’s the childern and then it’s whiff over and a-takin’ on about
-Klebe--‘poor, darlin’ Klebe,’ she calls him, ‘out there in the storm and
-the rain.’ Well, I’d poor darlin’ a man o’ mine that fetched me a clip
-like that and then run away.”
-
-“Howsomever, Myry’s allus been quite a nagger--quite a nagger at usyal
-times,” observed Uncle Buck, with mild reproof. “She prob’ly realises
-now, when her eyes is open by her trouble, that a man can’t be hectored
-only about so fur.”
-
-Several men in the kitchen looked at their wives with significance in
-their gaze.
-
-A woman was beginning a dissertation on her views of the marriage
-situation when there came a beating of wet feet on the stoop without,
-and a man trudged in, soggy and dripping. The blast threw a fistful of
-water at his back as he slammed the door behind him.
-
-“They’ve got Klebe,” he announced briefly, standing close to the stove.
-“How’s the woman?”
-
-“’Tain’t the outside of her head now--it’s the inside of her heart
-that’s ailin’,” said Mrs. Tolman. “She wants her childern and her
-husband, spite of what he’s done to her.”
-
-“They caught him up in the Bunganuck woods,” explained the man, replying
-to rapid questions. “Purday took him and done a good job at it. And the
-whole pack and possy of ’em was draggleder’n wet mushrats. They’re
-dryin’ Klebe off down in the s’lectmen’s office now, and I reckon
-they’ll keep him here to-night and take him to jail ter-morrer.”
-
-“Has he been told about the children?”
-
-“Yas, had to tell him. He’s been fightin’ like a cattymaran ever since
-he was took, and Purday got tuckered out and told him so’s to break his
-sperit. And it done it quick, now, I can tell ye!”
-
-“Northin’ from outside?” The question was put with a glance seaward
-and a mournful inflection of the voice, as though with certainty of the
-worst.
-
-“Northin’.” The reply was equally mournful.
-
-The little group lowered their heads and sat in silence as at a funeral.
-
-In the hush the door of the inner room opened, and Squire Phin came into
-the kitchen.
-
-“Have you brought news?” he asked anxiously, putting his hand on the
-shoulder of the new arrival.
-
-The man repeated his story.
-
-While the Squire stood there with head down, pondering, there was a
-commotion in the other room. Again the door opened, and a comely woman
-whose features were twisted by grief and suffering appeared. A cloth
-was wrapped around her forehead, and her lips were swollen from sobbing.
-Though Sylvena Willard strove with all her gentle strength to restrain
-her, the woman tore away and came into the kitchen.
-
-“Bring me my children,” she cried, staring from one to the other with
-eyes glazed and sunken by woe. “Where’s Klebe? Send him after the
-children. Something has happened. What is it? Don’t drive me mad,
-neighbours! What is it?”
-
-Her voice rose in a shriek. She ran first to one man and then to
-another-, clasping her thin hands around their arms. The men were
-unresponsive and embarrassed. Hysteria was upon her.
-
-Squire Phin, with his strong hands and his comforting words, was at last
-able to draw her away toward the inner room.
-
-“Oh, Phineas Look,” she wailed, “tell me where my babies are.”
-
-“They are in God’s hands, child,” he replied, his heart in his tones.
-“Take courage. I am goin’ away now to bring some one. Take courage.”
-
-While she stared at him with frightened, puzzled gaze he put her into
-Sylvena Willard’s arms.
-
-“Do your best with her, Sylvie, until I come back,” he whispered. “I am
-going to get Kleber. The awful load that has come upon this household is
-one that husband and wife should bear together. Do your best with her,
-little woman! For I shall be gone a bit of a while. I am going to tell
-your brother a story that he needs to hear.”
-
-He hurried away.
-
-During the long hour that elapsed the stricken woman sat in the kitchen
-close by the outer door, motionless and speechless, her eyes fixed on
-the latch. All of Sylvena’s coaxings could not draw her back to the
-inner room.
-
-The Squire came first into the room. Behind him was Captain Kleber
-Willard, and jostling at his back were Deputy Sheriff Purday and his
-helper, alert and officious. They wore the air of officers who knew that
-this method of handling a prisoner was not regular, but who had been
-overmastered by the Squire’s authority. With the group was another man,
-the venerable pastor of the village church, whom they had overtaken
-making his way with a lantern along the tempest-strewn street toward the
-house of mourning.
-
-Willard stepped inside the door, his knees bending lifelessly at each
-step, his head wagging low between his shoulders.
-
-His bloodshot eyes rolled shamefacedly from countenance to countenance.
-The solemn regard of his neighbours shifted to the worn floor. They had
-no consolation for him. His face began to pucker with the grimace of the
-strong man who is trying to hold back the tears.
-
-“Where are our little ones, Kleber?” His wife had thrown herself upon
-him. She screamed the question over and over.
-
-“Squire Look--Parson Emmons--some one--oh, for God’s sake--tell her!”
-
-His sobs choked him. With his arm about his wife he stumbled away to a
-corner of the room, dragging her with him, and while the neighbours sat
-silent and sympathetic, the women sobbing softly, the men grinding
-their rough knuckles into their palms, the husband and the wife, their
-foreheads against the wall, washed away in the first tears they had ever
-shed in a common woe all the wrack of the petty quarrels, the little
-heart-burnings, the frettings and the misunderstandings--all so mean and
-small in this shadow of the mightiest tragedy in their lives.
-
-After many, many minutes they were quiet, and clung to each other like
-people in the dark, afraid.
-
-Captain Willard trembled until his teeth rattled together. He
-was nerving himself to face the picture of his guilt and his
-ingratitude--his crime! That was it! His crime.
-
-It was a picture on which the true light had been shed by Squire Phineas
-Look, whispering to him in a corner of the selectmen’s office.
-
-For some minutes the lawyer and the clergyman had been conversing apart
-in an undertone, and now the minister came along to the husband and wife
-and gently drew them away from the corner.
-
-“Kleber and Myra,” he said, “it was not many years ago that I stood
-before you in this house in the presence of almost the same neighbours
-who are here now, and I joined your hands in wedlock. I have watched
-with sorrow and disappointment the wretched troubles that have come into
-your home life--needless troubles, foolish troubles. This is not a time
-for a sermon. But it is a time for a friend to speak a word to you. I
-could have said much to you before, but I refrained, for I realised that
-your hearts were stubborn and froward, never having been touched by the
-softness of true love and forbearance. It is the cruel and chastening
-hand of trouble that does it now. I believe that now your home and your
-hearts are swept clean of the anger and pride and selfishness and the
-little vices that ruin homes. I believe that you are now willing to
-shoulder together the awful burden that has been placed upon you.”
-
-The woman’s face grew white, and she swayed into her husband’s arms.
-Willard stood gasping for his breath.
-
-“I married your bodies once before, Kleber and Myra. To-night I am going
-to marry your hearts and your souls, for, God pity you both, you cannot
-stand alone and bear this horror.”
-
-The people in the kitchen were too raptly engaged to hear the outside
-door open. The Squire stood in the shadow near it, and a soft “Hist!”
- engaged his attention.
-
-Hiram’s head was thrust through the opening. He was bareheaded, his
-clothing was in shreds, and the lamplight shed feeble gleams on a
-hideous black and blue circle around his sound eye.
-
-When the Squire advanced on tiptoe Hiram seized his arm, pulled him
-outside and, softly as he had opened it, he closed the door.
-
-“I’ve got ’em,” he whispered excitedly. “It was a God-awful trip,
-Phin, but I got ’em! It was old Hime for ’em!”
-
-“You saved them!” gasped his brother.
-
-“Sounder’n nuts. But there wa’n’t no time to spare. Old Judge flat on
-his back in the dory and them two little children huddled down side
-of him squealin’ for him to wake up! Heard ’em above the roar of the
-wind, Phin! I guess it was God’s way of leadin’ me to ’em. I’ve got
-’em waitin’ ’round the corner of the house here. When the old Judge
-come to the second time he was right as a trivet. Didn’t have no idee
-how he happened to be out in that dory. Kind o’ dreamed he was runnin’
-away from a devil or somethin’ and savin’ the children--and I don’t
-blame him for thinkin’ it was the devil, for that Klebe----”
-
-“Hush, brother,” said the Squire gently; “there have been strange
-heart-stirrings about here to-day.”
-
-“You’re right, Phin,” replied the showman heartily. “I guess mine’s been
-stirred, too. ’Cause when I undertook to thank Nymp’ Bodfish at the
-wharf after we got back for havin’ been so kind and gentlemanly as to
-take me down the bay and save the Judge and the young ones, he drawed
-off and got in one pelt at my eye, and I didn’t chase him nor want to.
-I tell ye, I’ve got jest as good a disposition as any one when I’ve got
-half a chance to show it.”
-
-He poked the puffiness under his eye and muttered to himself:
-
-“I guess I reelly am gettin’ to be pretty fair-minded, ’cause if he’d
-a-blacked the two of ’em I’m willin’ to acknowledge that he wouldn’t
-have been more’n half square with me for what I’ve done to him.”
-
-The suddenness of this news of rescue had dizzied the Squire for a
-moment, but he now pushed his brother toward the corner of the house
-with a slap on the back that made Hiram cringe.
-
-“Bring them in, Hime! This is your triumph!” He threw open the kitchen
-door with a slam that brought the eyes of all in the kitchen around with
-a startled snap. The minister paused. The father and mother stared in
-affright.
-
-“Bring them along, brother!” shouted the Squire joyously. “Here’s Hero
-Hiram Look,” he announced, “and his salvage from the sea!”
-
-One child was asleep in the Judge’s arms. The other clung to Hiram’s
-hand and blinked at the light streaming from the open door. The mother
-screamed and would have dashed upon them, but the Squire gently held her
-back.
-
-“Wait, this is a wedding!” he cried. “Hands together this way! God bless
-you and yours. Now, Brother Hime, bring the wedding presents.”
-
-“I ain’t a very extry lookin’ sight to come to a weddin’,” said the
-showman, “but I didn’t come to your first one, Klebe, and I didn’t send
-no present. All is, I’ve tried to square myself at this second one,
-and my best wishes for everlastin’ happiness goes along with ’em,” he
-added wistfully.
-
-He put the sleeping child into the mother’s arms and stood back to let
-the Judge advance toward his son with the light of forgiveness in his
-eyes.
-
-“Oh, father!” wept Kleber, stumbling forward and dragging himself on his
-knees toward the old man. “I didn’t know! I didn’t know until the Squire
-told me.”
-
-“Stand up, my boy,” said the Judge, putting out his trembling hand. “All
-of us know better now, and some knowledge is bought at cruel prices.”
-
-It was without a word that Hiram took the hand that Kleber Willard put
-out to him when he turned from his father after a time. But as they
-stood there clinging to each other Hiram leaned forward with a flash of
-humour that relieved the situation, whispering:
-
-“That black eye, Klebe, is the dot, period, full stop, set down after
-the very last fight of my whole life, and I got it for your sake.”
-
-“Come, people!” called the Squire from the doorway. “Come away with me
-now. The wedding is over. The night is getting late and the stars are
-out again.”
-
-He smiled across the room at Sylvena as he said it.
-
-Then he began with jocular pokings to push the folks out of the door,
-and even subjected Deputy-Sheriff Purday to that treatment when the
-zealous officer came along to have a private word with him.
-
-“But look-a-here, Squire,” protested Purday, hanging back, “Klebe is
-really under arrest, you know, and you understand what the law is.”
-
-“Deputy,” the Squire said, holding him by the arm a moment, “under the
-circumstances the highest law I know of is this: ‘What God hath joined
-together let no man put asunder.’”
-
-He pointed to the mother and the father with the children between them.
-
-“The grand jury of human hearts returns no indictment. Go home.”
-
-He pushed Purday out behind the last straggler and slammed the door and
-bolted it on the inside.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER XXV--AQUARIUS WHARFF SEES SOMETHING BESIDES HARD TIMES
-
-IN THE SUNSET
-
-
-               Slowly he passed, for he stopped to pick
-
-               The stones from the road with his old crook stick.
-
-               Rolled them left and rolled them right
-
-               From early morning till late at night.
-
-               And to wondering folk who paused to ask
-
-               The reasons that prompted this self-set task
-
-               He said, with a smile for their doubting gaze,
-
-               “I’m simply helpin’ ye mend your ways!”
-
-
-It was August again. The flies buzzed lazily in the late afternoon
-hush, and the knife-nicked bench in the shade cast by Asa Brickett’s
-store had its accustomed row of old men, who buzzed in conversation as
-lazily as the flies.
-
-“This has been about the tejousest summer I ever put through,”
- complained Uncle Lysimachus Buck, after a yawn. “Ev’rything seems to be
-deader’n the latch on a bulkhead door.”
-
-“Mebbe it’s because Hime Look has settled up country on the Snell farm,”
- observed Marriner Amazeen with a bit of malice.
-
-“Reports is that he’s givin’ ’em a little flavour of circus right
-along in that section,” said Dow Babb.
-
-“Feller from that way was tellin’ me that Hime has been doin’ a job of
-breakin’ up with that el’phunt hitched to the plow. Hime allowed as how
-P. T. Barnum tells in his book that he used an el’phunt to plow with,
-and he wa’n’t goin’ to let no P. T.’s git ahead of _him_. Ev’ry hoss
-that come along past stuck up ears and tail and tried to climb a tree
-and pull the tree up after. Feller said that one of the neighbours went
-to Hime fin’ly and said that he’d been readin’ in some tormented book
-erruther that in old days the Romans, or some of them old sirs, whoever
-they be, used to sacrifice animiles when there was any good luck had
-come to ’em and they wanted to celebrate account of it. Neighbour
-hinted that marryin’ Abby Snell was good enough luck for any man to brag
-of, and wanted to know why Hime didn’t offer Imogene up as a sacrifice.
-Told Hime the neighbours would git up a bee, if he did, and club in with
-him mighty enthusiastic.”
-
-Babb unlocked his legs and chuckled.
-
-“Hime spoke up and told the neighbour as how ’twas Imogene that had
-made the match ’tween him and Abby, and that if it come to a choice of
-gittin’ along without the el’phunt or a cook stove Abby’d let the cook
-stove go ev’ry time. Didn’t get much satisfaction out of Hime, now I
-tell ye!”
-
-“I donno of any one that ever did,” said Marriner Amazeen.
-
-“Cap Nymp’ Bodfish licked him once, time o’ the May gale, there,” stated
-Uncle Buck. “Cap Nymps told me he did.”
-
-“Say, do you s’pose if he’d ever licked Hime Look he’d a-hid off in the
-woods all next day and then sold the _Effort_ for a song and scooted
-to Hackenny, for all we know of him here?” demanded Amazeen. “No, s’r,
-there was no one ever done Hime Look in this world, except his own
-brother in town meetin’, and then t’was Look eat Look.”
-
-“Curi’s how things has all come around the last year,” mused Lysimachus.
-“The Squire married to Sylvene and settled in the Willard house and the
-old Judge actin’ as proud of him as----”
-
-Brickett interrupted here, coming from the inside of the store, where he
-had been perusing his daily paper.
-
-“Why shouldn’t he be proud of him?” he demanded, his thumb on an item,
-his glasses on the end of his nose. “You listen here a minute.”
-
-He began to read in a sing-song manner:
-
-“A well-founded rumour from the State House is to the effect that the
-Governor has tendered the vacant Supreme Court judgeship to the Hon.
-Phineas Look, of Palermo. Mr. Look’s legal qualifications are too well
-known in this State to need comment. It is understood that he is in
-no sense an active candidate, and the honour has been tendered by the
-Governor to the Palermo man by the Executive’s initiative, the Governor
-following his frequently expressed intention of letting certain
-appointments within his gift seek the man. A Supreme Court judgeship
-is certainly not an office to be hawked among politicians, and such an
-appointment will be a credit to the State and the Bar. Mr. Look is----”
-
-Brickett ran his eye down the column.
-
-“There’s pretty nigh a whole colume here about him,” he said. “But there
-ain’t any need of readin’ it. It’s matters we’re all knowin’ to about
-him. Papers was lookin’ for somethin’ to fill up with, I persume.”
-
-He flopped the sheet.
-
-“What I wanted in pertickler to call your attention to,” he went on,
-“was something reel interestin’. It says here that a man has shot
-himself in a New York lodging-house, and from marks on his clothes and
-his papers it is supposed that he is King Bradish, who was at one time
-well known in certain sportin’ quarters. That must be our King Bradish,
-don’t you s’pose so?”
-
-“Prob’ly,” said Uncle Buck without great interest. “And I’m glad he done
-it before he’d skun the last cent out of his poor old mother. I guess
-she ain’t got much left, as it is.”
-
-“Well, signs and wonders never cease,” sighed Marriner Amazeen,
-relighting his pipe; “as I said when I witnessed Sum Badger’s new will
-t’other day,” he continued between puffs.
-
-“Haskell’s girl gits it, does she?” asked Babb.
-
-“Yas! Sence ’Caje Dunham whirled ’round and showed some signs of
-bein’ human, Sum found that he was in a class by himself as the meanest
-man in town, and he got jealous of ’Caje.”
-
-“It won’t hurt this place none if some of the rest of ’em runs races
-of the same sort,” said Buck.
-
-The click of the key in the lock above their heads startled them.
-
-Squire Phin was coming down the stairs, shoving the key of his office
-into his trousers.
-
-“We’ve jest been list’nin’ to some news about you, Squire,” called one
-of the group on the bench.
-
-Squire Phin came around the corner of the stairway, put his hands behind
-his back and smiled at them.
-
-“What now, neighbours?” he inquired.
-
-“Says here in Ase’s paper that you’re goin’ to be a judge,” replied
-Buck.
-
-“Well, that _is_ news,” said the Squire, and yet with a quizzical cock
-to his eyebrows that indicated that he was in no measure surprised.
-
-“Go ’long with you! You knowed it all the time!” snorted Buck.
-
-“I always believe in giving my old neighbours all the news I can when
-they want it,” the lawyer said humorously, “for news has been scarce in
-town lately. I’m going to give you something straight now. You will hear
-this before the newspapers do: I have written to the Governor declining
-that honour with grateful thanks.”
-
-“Won’t be a judge?” queried Amazeen with astonishment,
-
-“I’d rather be Phin Look, lawyer,” said the Squire, with a queer little
-glint in his eyes.
-
-“I’ll bet you ten dollars I know why,” snapped Uncle Buck, with the
-frankness of an old friend. “A man that knows was telling me that all
-you have to do is set up there in your office and rake in money hand
-over fist, sellin’ law to the big corporations. And a Supreme Court
-judge only gits five thousand a year.”
-
-His gimlet eye bored the Squire, and a question that his curiosity had
-prompted for a long time popped out of his mouth.
-
-“A man what ought to know told me that you was clearin’ fifteen thousand
-dollars a year out of law. Now, Squire, I stump you to say that he lied.
-Did he, or didn’t he?”
-
-The lawyer so thoroughly appreciated the character of Uncle Buck that
-this attack was flavoured for him with delicious humour. He came close
-to the old man and put his hands on his hips as he straddled before him.
-
-“I’m goin’ to tell you the honest truth, Uncle Lys,” he said.
-
-The inquisitor pulled himself forward.
-
-“If a man is a Supreme Court judge in this State he must be away from
-home almost three-quarters of his time. Now the straight facts of the
-case are----”
-
-He whirled on his heel and pointed up the street. They all could see
-the gate of the Willard place. A woman was standing there waiting, and
-against her pretty white gown was silhouetted the figure of a shaggy
-dog.
-
-“Now, the straight facts are, Uncle Lys, my wife wants me home every
-night to help water the garden. I’ve coaxed and teased, but she won’t
-let me be a judge.”
-
-A pucker of mirth came around his lips.
-
-“It’s awful to be bossed around that way by a woman, Uncle Lys.”
-
-“Oh, you darnation fool!” snorted the old man, making a swipe at the
-lawyer with his cane.
-
-Squire Phin dodged in mock terror and went away laughing.
-
-Uncle Aquarius Wharff had come up and taken his favourite position on
-the platform to study the evening skies.
-
-“How is it looking to-night?” asked the lawyer, kindly humouring the old
-man’s vagary.
-
-“Clouds is master fine things with the sun-fire behind ’em, ain’t
-they, Squire?” returned Uncle Wharff. “Look at ’em, all splattered
-with colours that the cherubim has been busy all day a-mixin’ so’s to
-have ‘em ready for the sunset time. Blazin’ with glory, that’s what they
-be! Seems as if you could jump off’n Witch-Run Hill straight into the
-hereafter. Sometimes it has seemed to me that p’raps the angels do open
-the gates once in a while at sunset time jest to see if they are well
-’iled ag’inst the Gre’t Day of the Hereafter. It’s a spankin’ fine
-prospect out there now, Squire. You take that mixtur’ of gold and roses
-and all them colours that make your heart feel swelly inside, and it
-means settled weather for a long time to come, Squire, for a long time
-to come!”
-
-The lawyer patted the shoulder of the old man’s sun-faded coat.
-
-“God bless you for a prophet, Uncle Aquarius,” he said gently.
-
-Then he stepped off the platform and started up the street, waving a
-greeting to the white figure at the gate. She came to meet him, with
-shining eyes, and they went in hand in hand.
-
-
-THE END
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
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